Sony’s Manipulator is an innovative robot hand equipped with a group of sensors for stable grasping of unknown objects that contain uncertainties such as shape, weight and friction coefficient. To accurately measure the position and shape of an object, it’s equipped with an overhead camera mounted near its head, sending information to both the arm and hand for movements. Read more for a video and additional information.
Most already know that NFC is a type of wireless data transfer that enables smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other devices to share data when in close proximity. Austria-based Prelonic wanted to break away from the standard uses of this technology and implement it into paper, literally. The Prelonic Interactive Paper (PIP) is a cross between printed circuitry and NFC, allowing for such creations as a printed piano. Read more for a video and additional information.
France-based Ascendance Flight Technologies has just unveiled ATEA, a 5-seat vertical take-off and landing aircraft. It’s designed to operate in peri-urban areas, thanks to its 249 mi (400 km) range and “fan-in-wing” technology, all the while reducing carbon emissions by 80% as well as noise pollution. Power comes from a modular hybrid-electric propulsion system with a “Lift + Cruise” configuration with 2 separate propulsion systems for vertical and horizontal flight. Read more for a video and additional information.
When it comes to emergencies, first responders don’t have much time to think, whether it be a fire or search-and-rescue mission, and that’s why Switzerland-based Fotokite has developed a fully autonomous tethered drone. Called Sigma, it was built using the NVIDIA Jetson platform and specializes in covering the vast majority of situations where first responders need an aerial perspective during an emergency. Read more for a video and additional information.
Stanford University engineers Mark Cutkosky and David Lentink have created a bird-like robot that can mimic how the animals fly and perch when attached to a quadcopter drone. It’s called SNAG (Stereotyped Nature-inspired Aerial Grasper), and this robot can fly around, catch or carry objects as well as perch on various surfaces. Regardless of the surface texture, it was able to let the feet handle the variability and complexity. Read more for a video and additional information.
Set to make its public debut at CES 2022 next month in Las Vegas, Engineered Arts’ Ameca humanoid robot AI platform is claimed to be the world’s most advanced human shaped robot representing the forefront of human-robotics technology. Remember David and Walter from the movie “Prometheus”? Ameca is set to be a platform for development into future robotics technologies, and could pave the way for a similar robot if given the ability to learn on its own. Read more for a video and additional information.
Scientists from Stanford University, Google Quantum AI, the Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems and Oxford University are using Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware to create time crystals. For those unfamiliar with time crystals, they are both stable and ever-changing, with special moments that come at periodic intervals in time. They are placed in a new category of phases of matter. Read more for a video on time crystals for additional information.
Princeton University and the University of Washington researchers have developed an ultracompact camera that is just slightly larger than a coarse grain of salt, thanks to a technology called a metasurface. The latter is essentially studded with 1.6 million cylindrical posts and can be manufactured just like a computer chip. Despite its size, this camera is still capable of producing full-color images that match conventional compound camera lenses 500,000 times larger in volume. Read more for another picture and a bonus.
Steve Verze from London received the world’s first 3D-printed prosthetic eye at Moorfields Eye Hospital last week and should reduce the manufacturing process to 2-3 weeks, with the initial appointment taking just 30-minutes. In a normal prosthetic appointment, the patient is required to undergo a 2-hour session to mold their eye socket, before the prosthesis is fitted and then painted. Read more for a video and additional information.
Researchers have for the first time ever detected of neutrino candidates, which are called nature’s ghost particles, produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN facility near Geneva, Switzerland. During particle collisions at the LHC, some of the neutrinos produced smash into nuclei in the dense metals, thus creating particles that travel through the emulsion layers and create marks that can be seen following processing. Read more for a video on ghost particles and additional information.