A Versatile Touch Sensor
We live in an increasingly touchy-feely tech world, with various ways for smart phones and tablet computers to sense our finger taps and gestures. Now a new type of touch technology, developed by...
View ArticleTabletop Computer Knows You by Your Shoes
New research from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, aims to quell the frustration and strife that can come when multiple people use a single touch screen. The project, called...
View ArticleA Computer Interface that Takes a Load Off Your Mind
Conversations between people include a lot more than just words. All sorts of visual and aural cues indicate each party’s state of mind and make for a productive interaction. Mental load: A user tries...
View ArticleIntel’s Tiny Wi-Fi Chip Could Have a Big Impact
This month, Intel unveiled a Wi-Fi radio almost completely made of the same sort of transistors that go into one of its microprocessors. Small difference: Intel’s wireless-enabled processor is shown...
View ArticleMeet the Nimble-Fingered Interface of the Future
Microsoft’s Kinect, a 3-D camera and software for gaming, has made a big impact since its launch in 2010. Eight million devices were sold in the product’s first two months on the market as people...
View ArticleCloud-Powered GPS Chip Slashes Smartphone Power Consumption
If you’ve used location services on a phone for any length of time, you know they can quickly drain the battery. A Microsoft Research project suggests that there’s a way for location chips inside...
View ArticleStartup Engineers See-Through Solar Cells
Imagine a world where any surface could be coated with solar cells, converting sunlight and even the glow of light bulbs into small amounts of usable energy. This is the goal of a new startup called...
View ArticleHow GPS Can Keep Track of Earthquakes and Flooding
We usually think of GPS as a way to find out where we are and how to get where we’re going. But over the past couple of years, researchers have discovered that GPS, when combined with sensors such as...
View ArticleNest Competitor Monitors Your House’s Leaks on the Cheap
Earlier this month, as Google was snatching up the smart-thermostat maker Nest for $3.2 billion, a lesser known home sensor company made its own announcement. SNUPI Technologies, a Seattle startup,...
View ArticleInside Starshot, the audacious plan to shoot tiny ships to Alpha Centauri
Starship conferences attract a hopeful crowd: researchers, inventors, and hobbyists enthused by the idea of building spacecraft that can fly between star systems. The excitement at these gatherings...
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