News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a new HD video streaming method that doesn't need to be plugged in. Their prototype skips power-hungry components and has something else, like a smartphone, process the video instead.

Perfection is not everything, according to an international team of researchers whose 2-D materials study shows that defects can enhance a material's physical, electrochemical, magnetic, energy and catalytic properties.

The latest developmental research seeks to increase the functionality of wearables while also adding to the overall user experience.

Physicists at the University of Warwick have published new research in the journal Science April 19, 2018, (via the Journal's First Release pages) that could literally squeeze more power out of solar cells by physically deforming each of the crystals in the semiconductors used by photovoltaic cells.

A study into used electrical and electronic equipment sent to Nigeria, mostly from Europe, reveals a continuing 'severe problem' of non-compliance with rules governing such shipments. Of roughly 60,000 metric tons sent from other countries in 2015 and 2016, at least 15,400 tons was non-functioning e-waste, exports/imports of which are illegal. Almost 70 percent -- 41,500 tons -- arrived inside vehicles destined for Nigeria's secondhand auto market, thus avoiding normal inspections.

If Star Wars' R2-D2 is your idea of a robot, think again. Researchers led by a University of Houston engineer have reported a new class of soft robot, composed of ultrathin sensing, actuating electronics and temperature-sensitive artificial muscle that can adapt to the environment and crawl, similar to the movement of an inchworm or caterpillar.

An international research team has proposed a way to increase the efficiency of wireless power transfer over long distances and tested it with numerical simulations and experiments. To achieve this, they beamed power between two antennas, one of which was excited with a back-propagating signal of specific amplitude and phase. The new development will improve wireless power transmission. This study also offers new approaches to wireless communication, where external conditions can change unpredictably.

Engineers discovered that tiny crystal lattices called 'self-assembling molecular nanosheets' expand when exposed to light. The advancement could form the backbone of new light-powered actuators, oscillators and other microscopic electronic components useful in the development of artificial muscles and other soft robotic systems.

Collaborative research team of Prof. Jun Takeda and Associate Prof. Ikufumi Katayama in the laboratory of Yokohama National University (YNU) and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) successfully observed petahertz (PHz: 1015 of a hertz) electron oscillation. The periodic electron oscillations of 667-383 attoseconds (as: 10-18 of a second) is the fastest that has ever been measured in the direct time-dependent spectroscopy in solid-state material.