Science

The first human-robot conversation in space will take place later this year aboard the International Space Station. The chat will be between Kirobo, one of two humanoid communication robots developed under Japan's Kibo Robot Project, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata after he arrives at the stati...

To get rid of the clutter of meal ideas, recipes and grocery lists stuck on his family's refrigerator, Henrik Nielson decided to create an app that could serve the same purpose -- and do it much better. Food Planner lets users import recipes from the Web or create them manually, then generates shopp...

In a remarkable display of creativity, the University of Maryland has portrayed a prototype nanobattery created by researchers as being made of wood, sending the blogosphere into a tizzy. "A sliver of wood coated with tin could make a tiny, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly batter...

To read some reports in the tech press lately, one might think there's an electronics-hungry menace from South America on a march of conquest through the Southeastern United States and Texas, leaving a trail of destroyed smartphones and other precious devices in its wake. It's known as the "crazy an...

We all know by now that using a cellphone while driving can be a dangerous practice, but talking on a hands-free phone may not be much better. That's because people talk on the phone so regularly that they have developed learned habits that take over their awareness, according to Robert Rosenberger,...

In space no one can hear you call out for pizza, but technology being developed in a NASA-funded project might let astronauts print one instead -- or any number of potentially delectable meals. Systems and Materials Research Corporation received a $125,000 grant from NASA to build a prototype device...

Interest in nanochemistry research and energy storage led 18-year-old Eesha Khare, a senior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, Calif., to develop a supercapacitor that could potentially be used in flexible displays and fabrics. Her effort won her first prize at the Intel Science Fair and the Proje...

Time, Inc., together with Google, the U.S. Geological Survey and Carnegie Mellon University's Create Lab, on Thursday launched a website featuring timelapse animations depicting changes in Earth's surface from 1984 to 2012. The animations are based on satellite images collected as part of the Landsa...

Fitbit users who frequently forget or misplace their fitness trackers now have a new option: Fitbit Flex, a version of the popular Fitbit device that's designed to be worn on the wrist, became available on Monday. Fitbit Flex, which retails for $99.95, is a bit larger than the typical silicone aware...

IBM has released the world's smallest movie. Company researchers moved thousands of atoms to create a miniature stop-motion movie titled A Boy and His Atom.. The movie, which has 242 frames, was made with a scanning tunneling microscope which IBM has been using to conduct research into storage. The ...

TECH TREK

India to Get a Smartphone for the Blind

A company in India has developed a smartphone for the blind. The device, three years in the making, will be equipped to read text messages and emails, and it will then convert the text to Braille. It will utilize shape memory alloy technology, which exploits a metal's ability to "remember" its origi...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a super-dense battery that measures only a few millimeters, but can both store and release a lot of power, resolving a problem that has long plagued consumers and electronics manufacturers. Capacitors can release power very...

Scientists from the University of Washington and private company MSNW are working on a fusion-powered rocket that could slash the estimated four-year round trip from Earth to Mars to a maximum of 90 days. The technology might also make flights to Mars affordable. The launch cost alone of such a mann...

Ocean data services provider Liquid Robotics on Monday announced the latest addition to its Wave Glider SV line, which it claims is the world's first unmanned oceangoing family of robot vessels that are both wave and solar-powered. The Wave Glider SV3 is a slightly larger update to its predecessor, ...

Nothing is official yet, but it looks like the new particle detected in July in experiments conducted at the CERN Large Hadron Collider may indeed be the Higgs boson or so-called "God particle," scientists announced Thursday at a physics conference in Geneva. The scientists have analyzed two-and-a-h...

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