How many times does it happen that a #suitcase gets lost at the #airport, ends up in the wrong destination or is delivered to others? Very often. However, lost baggage not only ruins the holidays of the person concerned, but is also a huge cost to the budget of air transport companies. In 2015, lost, damaged or late-delivered bags cost airlines $2,3 billion. “Although there was a reduction of 3,75 percent compared to 2014 it is… Read more
One of the #Google Cars being tested was hit by a second car that had run a red light. Unfortunately, the software does not conceive of "wrong" human choices, such as running a red light. Who's wrong? This is the worst #accident ever recorded for a Google car and the fault, says the company, lies with a human. The autonomous car, a Lexus SUV, was crossing an intersection when it was hit by another car that ran a red light. For … Read more
This year too, the #Maker Faire, the innovation fair, will be held in Rome, which will host hundreds of projects and 100 pavilions in 6 thousand square meters. The next Maker Faire, the international event dedicated to the world of digital craftsmanship and innovation, will be a maxi fair. Save the date: from 14 to 16 October in the spaces of the Nuova Fiera di Roma. “We were no longer in the spaces – said Riccardo Luna, curator of the event – now we have a truly gigantic one and we will take advantage of it to increase the ... Read more
After the pilotless metro train, the pilotless plane and the self-driving car, the intelligent boat that can do without a pilot also arrives in Amsterdam. The boat in question will sail in the canals of Amsterdam from 2017; the project, ROBOAT, will last five years and, if successful, could change the mobility of people and goods in the Netherlands. MIT in Boston is also behind the ROBOAT, together with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan … Read more
Not only "useful" artificial intelligences, but also creative ones, which will be able to paint, have creative flair and, perhaps, replace man in the thing that most distinguishes us, imagination and creativity. Google intends to test whether this is possible with its Magenta project, previewed during the Moogfest underway in Durham, North Carolina. In fact, on this occasion a Google engineer explained that the project will be officially launched in June: the aim is to use ... Read more
Festo is a company specialized in building animal-based robots, and its latest creation is a giant drone that moves like a chameleon. The new drone allows you to pick up and transport small objects, and is equipped with a tongue similar to that of a chameleon. FreeMotionHandling, this is the name of the drone, is a mini air balloon inflated with helium that moves thanks to an 8 propeller system, a GPS system and a double camera to avoid obstacles. The drone, for… Read more
According to Mark Zuckerberg, the future in ten years will be increasingly virtual. Between video chats, holograms, augmented reality viewers and robots to chat with, here is the vision of the future of the man who created an Internet giant (even if at the moment he is not sailing in excellent waters, given the decline in shares and activity of social media users). According to Mark, therefore, we will soon be inundated with videos, we will use chats to access any type of service and all... Read more
The self-driving car is certainly the future of the automotive sector; Intel also understood this, having recently purchased an Italian company to develop this project. Intel has in fact purchased Yogitech, as the Santa Clara (California) company itself announced on the official blog: “For years, Intel has been producing high-performance IoT systems that allow people and companies to make more informed decisions. Right now the industry is moving away from data automation towards a… Read more
Mini drones, or drones that have the shape of an insect, are very particular robotic devices, as they manage to enter places inaccessible to humans, photographing what they see and therefore offering a real-time report of the situation. This is a sector in which science is investing a lot, and which is therefore becoming increasingly sophisticated. But how can insect drones see in low light? To give life to… Read more
Okay, so many people love a relaxing visit to (or from) the nail salon, but it's definitely an interval that not everyone can afford. And don't tell me there are nail art virtuosos out there who can paint the faces of your children or your dog on your nails. Tensator Technology has developed Fingernails2Go, a nail printer integrated into an automatic digital kiosk. He is able to create all sorts of designs and apply them to nails in… Read more
Directly from the Tokyo Motor Show 2015 one of the most attractive elements: a robot-centaur presented by Yamaha. Its name is Motobot: it is a concept being tested by the research and development department of the Japanese company. A device capable of driving an unmodified motorbike, currently at a speed of 120km per hour but expected to reach 200km per hour. The first bike 'ridden' by Motobot is a YZF-R1M. One of the most interesting challenges… Read more
A paraplegic patient was able to walk using only his brain thanks to a "Neural Bypass" procedure: the man, paralyzed 5 years ago following a motorbike accident, is the first in the world to walk without any aid. Dr. An Do's team at the University of California achieved a historic milestone by allowing the brain of a 26-year-old American to transmit brain impulses directly to electrodes placed around his legs, which produced the movements… Read more
The list of technologies under study is very long and is constantly updated: one of the latest lists of future developments that could change the world forever comes from the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies, a research center founded in 2004 by a philosopher, Nick Bostrom, and a bioethicist, James Huges. The list, drawn up with the consultancy of futurologist Gray Scott, presents really interesting elements: here are the "magnificent" 6 technologies that could arrive in the near future. Age reversal… Read more
G3DP is a manufacturing platform designed to 3D print transparent glass developed by researchers at MIT. Not only that: it can make them graduated by varying their thickness and also modify through other steps the degree of opacity of a glass and its color, the index of transmission, reflection and refraction of light, and all the other parameters specific to any type of glass. The platform is based on a thermal printer with two heating chambers: the upper one acts as an oven… Read more
Difficult times also for guide dogs. A robotic concept of walking assistant for people with visual impairment uses GPS to cross cities with greater precision than our four-legged friend. This is the NSK robot, capable of assisting disabled people on their journey but not consoling them when they are melancholy: I put romanticism aside for a moment and continue to hope that all friends in difficulty can cuddle their dog once... Read more
Solar energy is a crucial factor in powering the robots of the future, and it is absolutely possible to find it in an incredible number of applications. The latest, suggestive and disturbing like few others, concerns a class of totally automated micro aircraft that fly using the movement of birds. Prof. S.Gupta of the University of Maryland presents 'his' Robo Raven as follows: Currently the solar cells cover less than half of the wingspan of Robo Raven: they produce 3.6W of power on a sunny day, with an efficiency of the … Read more
“What is life?” asks Craig Venter, the man who first mapped the human genome and created the first cell with a synthetic genome. “Just 3 letters are enough to compose a universe of questions still unanswered. What separates the animate from the inanimate? What are the basic ingredients of life? Who lit the first spark? How did the first organism evolve? How extensive is life in the universe? If other types of creatures exist on other planets, they are intelligent… Read more
At first glance (and perhaps not too closely) it might seem like a real hummingbird, but it is the new spybot created by DARPA: this flying robot is equipped with a video camera capable of transmitting images remotely. The dimensions are still excessive (but I am very demanding): 16 cm of wingspan and 19 grams of weight. Yes, it's not a Boeing, and No, that's not all. We'll see them fly, guys: and one fine day, we won't even see them... Read more
Molluscs of the world, rejoice! The strength of an unyielding beast is now at your disposal thanks to a new exoskeleton model created by a group of university students. The Titan Arm is a multi-award winning project at the "James Dyson Awards", prizes for the most innovative technological achievements which takes the name of its creator and financier (if you don't know him here is something about him). The prototype, developed with the help of the now ubiquitous 3D printers, cost the equivalent of… Read more
Zac Vawter lost a leg in an accident 3 years ago and since then he has been through an ordeal looking for a prosthesis (he calls it a 'fake leg') which for him had satisfactory answers close to those of a real leg. So the thirty-one-year-old software engineer from Washington signed up in 2010 as a volunteer tester in a research program with the aim of creating a thought-guided bionic leg. The Rehabilitation Institute of the Medical Center… Read more
It's not the first and it won't be the last. Scientists from the University of Groningen (Holland) and the Empa research center (Switzerland) have created a nanometric transport system equipped with four motor units (translation: a “namomachine”). It's electric, four nanometers long and every half turn of the wheels has to fill up... It works thanks to a scanning tunneling microscope positioned above it, which transmits a tiny electric charge that causes reversible structural changes in the wheels (translation: … Read more
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