Category Technology/Electronics

“Say hello to your personal courier. I’m here to deliver anything you need. Just tell me what, when and where and I’ll do the rest.”

“Say hello to your personal courier. I’m here to deliver anything you need. Just tell me what, when and where and I’ll do the rest.” “Your tireless delivery bot will always be on hand to lighten your load.” Wait, when did life become so comfortable? Wasn’t there luxury convenience in something called UPS? And what about wonderful Amazon? Well, some people are excited about a robot revolution in the wings, in a new era of instant, unscheduled delivery (think small orders and think local).

Starship Technologies was launched in 2014 by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis. Its “engineering expertise, combined with our experience of co-founding Skype...

Smart needle which is able to detect blood vessels deep in the body. Credit: University of Adelaide

A new high-tech medical device to make brain surgery safer has been developed by researchers at the University of Adelaide. The tiny imaging probe, encased within a brain biopsy needle, lets surgeons ‘see’ at-risk blood vessels as they insert the needle, allowing them to avoid causing bleeds that can potentially be fatal. The project is a collaboration with the University of Western Australia and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. “We call it a smart needle...

This is Assistant Professor Shawn Putnam of the University of Central Florida’s College of Engineering & Computer Science. Credit: Courtesy University of Central Florida

Nanoparticles and Faraday rotation allow faster diagnoses. A UCF researcher has combined cutting-edge nanoscience with a magnetic phenomenon discovered more than 170 years ago to create a method for speedy medical tests. The discovery, if commercialized, could lead to faster test results for HIV, Lyme disease, syphilis, rotavirus and other infectious conditions. “I see no reason why a variation of this technique couldn’t be in every hospital throughout the world,” said Shawn Putnam, an assistant professor in the University of Central Florida’s College of Engineering & Computer Science.

At the core of the research are nanop...

Researchers have made the first important step toward integrating atomically precise graphene nanoribbons (APGNRs) onto nonmetallic substrates. Credit: Adrian Radocea, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

Researchers have demonstrated the first important step toward integrating atomically precise graphene nanoribbons (APGNRs) onto nonmetallic substrates. Silicon crystals are the semiconductors most commonly used to make transistors, which are critical electronic components used to carry out logic operations in computing. However, as faster and more powerful processors are created, silicon has reached a performance limit: the faster it conducts electricity, the hotter it gets, leading to overheating.

Graphene, made of a single-atom-thick sheet of carbon, stays much cooler a...