Future

Inspired by the structure of moth eyes, researchers at North Carolina State University have developed nanostructures that limit reflection at the interfaces where two thin films meet, suppressing the “thin-film interference” phenomenon commonly observed in nature.

This can potentially improve the efficiency of thin-film solar cells and other optoelectronic devices. “We were inspired by the surface structure of a moth’s eye, which has evolved so that it doesn’t reflect light,” says Dr. Chih-Hao Chang, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. “By mimicking that concept, we’ve developed a nanostructure that significantly minimizes thin-film interference.”

Researchers and engineers at MIT Senseable City Lab, Cambridge, in collaboration with The Coca-Cola Company and Barcardi rum, have designed a robotic bar, capable of preparing approximately one googol (equal to 10 power 100) crowd-sourced drink combinations. The project, called "Makr Shakr".

Users will download an app on their handheld devices and mix ingredients as virtual barmen. They can gain inspiration by viewing other users’ recipes and comments before sending in their drink of choice. The cocktail is then crafted by three robotic arms, whose movements reproduce every action of a barman - from the shaking of a Martini to the muddling of a Mojito, and even the thin slicing of a lemon garnish. 

Most Americans want the U.S. to place more emphasis on developing solar power, recent polls suggest. A major impediment, however, is the cost to manufacture, install and maintain solar panels. Simply put, most people and businesses cannot afford to place them on their rooftops.

Fortunately, that is changing because researchers such as Qiaoqiang Gan, University at Buffalo assistant professor of electrical engineering, are helping develop a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what's available today.

One of the more promising efforts, which Gan is working on, involves the use of plasmonic-enhanced organic photovoltaic materials. These devices don't match traditional solar cells in terms of energy production but they are less expensive and - because they are made (or processed) in liquid form - can be applied to a greater variety of surfaces.

A new technique developed by researchers in China allows easier printing of electronic components onto paper.

Technological advances may soon allow consumers to print out electronic devices on home printers. Do-it-yourself electronics manufacturing may soon be possible with your desktop printer, say the designers of a new system that directly prints electronic circuits onto ordinary paper.

Jing Liu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said his team's advance—published May 9 in the journal Scientific Reports—could be a leap forward in the booming business of printed electronics.

Because the electronic inks are encased in rubber they can also be stacked in layers without altering their electrical functionality. This would allow users to build electromechanical functions into the body of 3-D printed objects.

New technology out of the University of Georgia allows energy generated by plants through photosynthesis to be captured before the plants can make use of it.

During photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to split water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen, which produces electrons. These newly freed electrons go on to help create sugars that plants use much like food to support growth and reproduction.

"We have developed a way to interrupt photosynthesis so that we can capture the electrons before the plant uses them to make these sugars," said Ramasamy, who is also a member of UGA's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.

A water purification system that uses nanotechnology to remove bacteria, viruses and other contaminants may be able to deliver clean drinking water to rural communities for less than $3 a year per family, according to a new study.

Researchers at India's Institute of Technology Madras have developed a new kind of portable water purification system based on nanoparticle filtration. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team explains how their new device does its job—it employs nanoparticles to remove not just biological hazards, but toxic heavy metals as well. The system they have developed is a two-stage filtration process that provides 10 liters of clean water in just an hour's time. 

Just like other parts of the body, the retina needs oxygen in order to survive. If it doesn’t receive enough – should its blood supply be restricted, for instance – permanent blindness can result. Therefore, the sooner that doctors know if a patient’s retina is receiving insufficient oxygen, the better the chances that they can take action in time. Soon, they may be able to use tiny injectable robots to get them the information they need.

A mere millimeter in length and one third of a millimeter in diameter, the robot can move through the vitreous, guided by magnetic fields that allow the researchers to precisely steer it into position. “We had this robot and wondered how we could use it to measure oxygen”, remembers Nelson. “We could have equipped it with a computer, a sensor and a transmitter, but simple is always better.”

New projection technology could turn office cubicles into ideal presentation spaces. Projections that display clearly on non-ideal surfaces such as room corners, and interact naturally with the presenter could transform not only business meetings, but gaming and simulation.

This is an holistic approach to improve projection quality, both visual and interactive, on common surfaces using off-the-shelf components and software.

Researchers from SLAC and Stanford have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.

"For solar and wind power to be used in a significant way, we need a battery made of economical materials that are easy to scale and still efficient," said Yi Cui, a Stanford associate professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, a SLAC/Stanford joint institute. "We believe our new battery may be the best yet designed to regulate the natural fluctuations of these alternative energies."

Currently the electrical grid cannot tolerate large and sudden power fluctuations caused by wide swings in sunlight and wind. As solar and wind's combined contributions to an electrical grid approach 20 percent, energy storage systems must be available to smooth out the peaks and valleys of this "intermittent" power – storing excess energy and discharging when input drops.

Among the most promising batteries for intermittent grid storage today are "flow" batteries, because it's relatively simple to scale their tanks, pumps and pipes to the sizes needed to handle large capacities of energy. The new flow battery developed by Cui's group has a simplified, less expensive design that presents a potentially viable solution for large-scale production.

Princeton scientists used 3-D printing to create a "bionic ear" made up of a coil antenna and cartilage, demonstrating an efficient method of merging electronics with tissue.

The researchers' primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile method of merging electronics with tissue. The scientists used 3-D printing of cells and nanoparticles  — with an off-the-shelf printer purchased off the Internet — followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear.

"In general, there are mechanical and thermal challenges with interfacing electronic materials with biological materials," said Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor ofmechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton and the project's lead researcher. "Previously, researchers have suggested some strategies to tailor the electronics so that this merger is less awkward. That typically happens between a 2-D sheet of electronics and a surface of the tissue. However, our work suggests a new approach — to build and grow the biology up with the electronics synergistically and in a 3-D interwoven format."

"The design and implementation of bionic organs and devices that enhance human capabilities, known as cybernetics, has been an area of increasing scientific interest," the researchers wrote in an article published online May 1 in the scholarly journal Nano Letters. "This field has the potential to generate customized replacement parts for the human body, or even create organs containing capabilities beyond what human biology ordinarily provides."

ZoomBoard allows for easier typing on smartwatch screens. 

We keep hearing about how smartwatches may replace – or at least augment – the smartphone, but how would you type on that tiny display? In some cases, where the watch is linked to a smartphone in your bag or pocket, you could just use the phone’s screen. For stand-alone smartwatches or quick messages, however, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created the ZoomBoard system.

Developed by PhD students Chris Harrison and Stephen Oney, ZoomBoard displays a full miniature QWERTY keyboard when in its default mode. Tapping on that display, however, causes it to zoom in on the keys in the touched area of the keyboard. This makes it relatively easy to then select the specific key that you want. Holding your finger on a key gets you a capital version of that letter, a swipe to the right produces a space (as does tapping the space bar), and a swipe to the left deletes a typed character. In order to access the number and symbol keys, an upward swipe is required.

Paper is becoming a high-tech material. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Potsdam have created targeted conductive structures on paper using a method that is quite simple: with a conventional inkjet printer, they printed a catalyst on a sheet of paper and then heated it. The printed areas on the paper were thereby converted into conductive graphite. Being an inexpensive, light and flexible raw material, paper is therefore highly suitable for electronic components in everyday objects.

Researchers from Florida International University (FIU)’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine have developed a revolutionary technique that can deliver and fully release the anti-HIV drug AZTTP into the brain.

Madhavan Nair, professor and chair, and Sakhrat Khizroev, professor and vice chair of the HWCOM’s Department of Immunology, used magneto-electric nanoparticles (MENs) to cross the blood-brain barrier and send a significantly increased level of AZTTP — up to 97 percent more — to HIV-infected cells.

Potentially, this method of delivery could help other patients who suffer from neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, meningitis and chronic pain. It could also be applicable to diseases such as cancer.

Beamcaster optical distribution unit sends out invisible beams of light to create wireless networks.

A new product called Beamcaster distributes beams of light to create wireless networks, providing an alternative or supplement to Wi-Fi and eliminating much of the cabling used to connect office workers to the Internet and corporate networks.

RiT Wireless, the makers of Beamcaster, demonstrated the technology this week at the Interop networking conference in Las Vegas. A Beamcaster “optical distribution unit” is mounted on a ceiling, distributing invisible beams of light to eight “smart outlets.”

US researchers have developed a greener and cheaper way to produce metals such as steel. Their process could produce steel of higher purity, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and may even be useful on missions to the Moon and Mars.

Steelmaking, a major emitter of climate-altering gases, could be transformed by a new process developed at MIT.

The new process even carries a couple of nice side benefits: The resulting steel should be of higher purity, and eventually, once the process is scaled up, cheaper.

Sadoway found that a process called molten oxide electrolysis could use iron oxide from the lunar soil to make oxygen in abundance, with no special chemistry. He tested the process using lunar-like soil from Meteor Crater in Arizona — which contains iron oxide from an asteroid impact thousands of years ago — finding that it produced steel as a byproduct.

The industry has met little success in its search for carbon-free methods of manufacturing steel. The idea for the new method, Sadoway says, arose when he received a grant from NASA to look for ways of producing oxygen on the moon — a key step toward future lunar bases.

Unlike an ordinary umbrella, which channels water in all directions from its center, the Rainshader instead channels water forwards and backwards via parallel panels of material. So long as the person directly behind the Rainshadee can see, they should know not to stand so close as to be dripped on.

A prototype was developed with the help of the University of Warwick's WMG manufacturing center using 3D printing. Rainshader has undergone wind tunnel tests up to speeds of gale force 7 and not been found wanting. It's also claimed that the umbrella is safer in electrical storms because it is made with fiber glass rather than steel ribs.

Video Screen Changes Ads Based On Eye Movement.

No more sneaking peeks at toys in the mall: SideWays, a new eye-tracking device, will catch you at it. As soon as you walk up to it, it automatically starts tracking what you peer at – which could allow shop owners to show you adverts on a video screen for products that you seem interested in.

Imagine walking down an aisle at Target and casting a glance at a big orange bag of Cheetos on the shelf. Next thing you know, an ad featuring Chester Cheetah pops up on a video monitor in the aisle. Despite the threat of cheese dust everywhere, you are unable to overcome your Cheeto lust and toss a bag in your cart, all the while wondering why the commercial appeared onscreen just as you passed the snack. A new eye-tracking device called SideWays is responsible.

Researchers at Lancaster University have developed a video advertising system called Sideways that can change the ads it displays based on the eye movements of shoppers passing by. Senior researcher Andreas Bulling says the system uses a single camera to "[detect] the faces of people walking by and [calculate] where the eyes are relative to the eye corners." Unlike similar systems designed to respond to biometric data, which have to be calibrated to an individual, Sideways can track the gazes of up to 14 people simultaneously.

Andreas Bulling of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany, and Yanxia Zhang and Hans Gellersen at Lancaster University in the UK created the prototype device

There may soon be another technical specification to consider when buying a mobile device. Researchers from the University of Bristol and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI Saarbrücken) have coined the term "shape resolution" to indicate the self-actuated shape-shifting abilities they believe will be featured in the next generation of mobile devices. To demonstrate this new metric, the researchers have developed a number of prototype shape-shifting devices they have dubbed "Morphees," which have the potential to change their shape on demand, depending on the desired use.

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and Veredus Laboratories, a leading supplier of innovative molecular diagnostic tools, announced the launch of VereTrop, the first biochip in the molecular diagnostics market that can identify 13 different major tropical diseases from a single blood sample.

Professor François H Nosten, the clinical collaborator at the Oxford Clinical Unit in Mae Sot and Director of the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit said, “This technology opens new possibilities for the accurate and rapid diagnostic of important infectious diseases that remain the main causes of illness in the tropics. Its versatility and ease of use will change the approach to diagnostics at the periphery of health care system.”

Saeid Haghbin, doctor of electric power engineering, undertook his doctoral studies in order to develop the optimal electric vehicle charger.

Charging time and cost are two of the biggest obstacles facing electric vehicle battery technology today. Fortunately, researchers at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden just developed an integrated motor drive and battery charger that can shorten charging time from eight hours to two while reducing overall cost by $2,000.

Most electric vehicles do not use their electric motors and inverters during the charging process. To reduce cost, weight, and size, the team decided to loop these elements into the circuit. The battery is charged through a transformer and a split-phase electric motor that was specially designed for the project. While it’s still in need of refinement, the charger has garnered a Swedish and international patent. 

Researchers at the University of Illinois designed a new digital camera system that draws from the eyes of insects. The system, which relies on a large range of miniscule focusing lenses and detectors arranged in a hemisphere, resembles the huge, bulbous ocular system of insects like the dragonfly or the praying mantis. The benefits of this new system include an exceptionally wide field-of-view with low aberrations and a depth-of-field described as "nearly infinite." The design, known as an "arthropodsuse compound design," uses an a swath of smaller eyes to work together and provide a better overall image.

The researchers, led by Prof. John A. Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, made the camera using a hemispherical interconnected array of 180 tiny focusing lenses. Each lens is paired with its own individual photodiode, allowing it to act as a little self-contained camera – just like each of the individual tiny “mini-eyes” within an insect’s compound eyes has its own lens, cone, and light-sensitive organ.

The various images captured by the device's individual mini lenses/cameras are fed to a processor, that combines them together into one cohesive 180-degree image. The picture reportedly has no visual aberrations, and an almost infinite depth of field.