The very idea of “multisensory” communication is provocative enough, but gets all the more interesting in the context of our digital futures. Can you not only view and hear the scene but smell it too? Menu-picking based on how dishes smell? Perfume choices based on a phone app that lets you test them out online? A…
Rocket Engine Patent Reflects Vision in Orbit Attempts
A rocket engine is making some noise with two pieces of good news. Reduced cost. Reduced complexity. The concept that bears the description of “Enhanced Liquid Oxygen-Propylene Rocket Engine” has found its way into a patent awarded to Arizona-based launch company, Vector. The patent discussion stated that “various difficulties arise when using liquid propellants, such…
A Drone Can Shoot Strings For Perching And Stabilizing
Getting a drone up in the air is only one step ahead for those who work on and study drones. The feats to accomplish further rest in how well they fly, self-balance, perch, land and, if used in numbers, how they may move in formation. No surprise, then, that researchers, in engineering drones to last…
Researchers Explore How Phone Replacement Screens Could Trigger Attacks
People with cracked phone touch screens? What else is new? Many people drop their phones, shatter their screens and either put up with their cracked screens or run to shops for replacements. Now there is something to worry about other than just inconvenience. As Ars Technica and other sites reported, there is “the possibility the replacement parts…
Cozmo: Kids Get Programming Boost With Drag-And-Drop Interface
Cozmo is a little robot with a big robotic brain. That’s how Anki, the team behind Cozmo, describes it. Big brain and big personality to match. Up to now, however, to get the most out of Cozmo you had to be a savvy robot scientist. Not any more. The company is sending the word out.…
Photo Of The Day: SureFly Will Be At Paris Air Show
Workhorse, the people behind SureFly, have a dramatic opener on their company site. “After 78 years, the helicopter has been reinvented.” It will be available for viewing at the Paris Air Show this month. Workhorse has come up with a design that features “eight independent motors each driving a single carbon fiber propeller, a backup…
Researchers Show Off Omnicopter With Ball-Catching Skills
A little flying device is drawing attention in the media this month on two counts, the way it moves and what it can do, which is fetching a ball in a pouch. The work comes from two researchers, Dario Brescianini and Raffaello D’Andrea, Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC), ETH Zurich. This is their…
Planar Elliptical Runner Is Biped With Clever Mechanical Design
Designing robots’ capabilities for running and walking intrigues and challenges researchers. A recent video of work done in Florida shows an interesting looking biped that uses, as The Verge put it, mechanics, not computer brains, to move. With this runner, you don’t find sensors or computers on board. Paul Miller in The Verge said the design results in the…