Category: Other Tech

Got a smelly weirdo sitting next to you at work? Need a place to stick an intern? Well it looks like cubicle life as we know it is about to change. If some cutting-edge companies have their way, we may all soon be working from mobile workstations. What those spaces will look like all depends on the designer. Here’s a look at the most notable designs: • Michiel van der Kley’s Globus folds up into a globe and unfolds into a desk and a chair. • The ScooterDesk by Utilia may look uncomfortable, but its barstool design with…

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To our graduate student readers: As if constant emails from your boss weren’t enough,  soon you’ll have no excuse to avoid the “got any data?” question—even when you’re out in the field. A new mobile app now lets researchers collect and analyze data from anywhere in the world, using their cell phones. It’s not all bad: The software could help you unload some of your work by allowing citizen scientists to snap pictures from their own backyards, and contribute them to research projects. The software, called EpiCollect, is especially useful for…

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Call it the “X-ray vision” app: In several years, smartphones could come equipped with a microchip that lets users peer through boxes, walls and other objects. Rather than dangerous X-rays, however, the chip beams out waves in the harmless terahertz frequency, a little-used portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and far-infrared. Terahertz generators historically have been bulky, expensive affairs. But now Caltech researchers have succeeded in crafting terahertz-emitting silicon chips that are smaller than a dime using a standard, inexpensive electronics manufacturing technique. The researchers harnessed an array of…

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Scientists are tirelessly working on sources of alternative energy so that we can have a better substitute for fossil fuels in near future. We know that sunlight, wind and geothermal sources of energy are better for everyone. But they also need efficient fuel cells for better utilization of power. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) seem promising enough for both stationary and mobile applications. Stationary use can cover residential applications to power plants. Mobile applications contain energy for ships at sea and in space, as well as for automobiles. Another advantage of the…

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In fall, DARPA announced a major success in its Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program. Researchers implanted targeted electrical arrays in the brains of a few dozen volunteers — specifically in brain areas involved in memory. The researchers found a way to read out neural “key codes” associated with specific memories, and then fed those codes back into the volunteers’ brains as they tried to recall lists of items or directions to places. While the results are still preliminary, DARPA claims that the RAM technique has already achieved “promising results” in improving memory…

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Drones are being utilized in everything from parcel delivery to search and rescue, but their limited flight times are restricting their ability to travel great distances or stay for extended periods of time in the field. Simply adding more batteries, however, affects flight characteristics and reduces the load the drone can carry. To help solve this problem, researchers at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech) have created a miniature fuel cell they claim not only provides enough energy to keep a drone in the sky for over an hour, but may…

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Delivery drones may still seem a ways off because of new U.S. commercial drone regulations requiring drones to stay within sight of their human operators on the ground. But such rules pose no problem for a U.S. startup that developed a drone capable of launching from delivery trucks and dropping off packages within the driver’s line of sight. The HorseFly drone developed by Workhorse Group, an electric vehicle company in Cincinnati, Ohio, is an octocopter designed to ride aboard a delivery truck. Once it gets a delivery mission, the drone can take off through the truck’s roof with a…

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Google today announced Google Play store improvements focused on the size of updates. A new delta algorithm, bsdiff, has been rolled out to further reduce patches for apps and games. Mobile users are sensitive to the amount of data they use, especially when Wi-Fi is not available. Google is thus trying to reduce the data required for Google Play app installs and updates, as well as make data cost clearer to users. Google says that for approximately 98 percent of app updates from the Play Store, only deltas to APK files (the…

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