Three years after the last official update about its collaboration with NASA to develop a humanoid robot capable of performing maintenance work in orbit, a new patent filing reveals that GM has upgraded the most recent prototype shown to the public almost unrecognizably. The enhanced iteration shares little external resemblance with the astronauts that it may…
Category: Industrial
IBM is developing a nanoscale GPS
It is an irony of modern life that GPS has made finding your location during a trip to a remote mountain range easier than positioning a microscope in an air-conditioned lab, where the level of precision required below a certain scale makes moving the probe to the desired location a major undertaking. That’s the latest…
IBM has invented a cloaking device to conceal military vehicles
With an annual research budget of several billion dollars, IBM has plenty to spare for moonshot experiments such as its recently revealed effort to bring DRAM technology to production, but the latest addition to the roster is in a league all of its own. Engineers at its optics group have developed a cloaking device that promises…
This Italian exoskeleton could revolutionize physiotherapy
The term “exoskeleton” brings to mind images of futuristic battlefields and exotic industrial settings, but where bionics are most likely to achieve widespread use first is the medical field, in therapeutic and rehabilitative applications. Researchers at Rome’s Università Campus Bio-Medico hope to speed along that mechanized revolution with a new cybernetic support frame for the lower…
Microsoft is helping developers build robot brains
As a $340 billion company, Microsoft naturally has its activities spread out over a great many areas, the least advertised of which is probably robotics. Its vast developer division includes a little-known unit focused exclusively on autonomous control software that is quietly toiling away at the most fundamental challenges standing in the way of pervasive…
Google has been granted government funding to pursue its airborne wind turbines
Like other web giants, Google constantly experiments with new technologies to hedge its chances of stumbling across the next big thing. But one ambitious pet project has apparently turned into something much more, attracting the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy’s DARPA-inspired internal research arm. That’s the highlight of the latest of the search giant’s…
This Japanese invention will help prevent freak robot accidents
The fatal robot accident that brought work to a halt at a Volkswagen factory last week isn’t likely to repeat itself with future models of the industrial assembly arms from Japan’s FANUC Corporation if one of its most recent patent filings is anything to go by. Disclosed inside is a new design that could remove…
LG’s next-gen solar cell is incredibly efficient
While it may be best known for making consumer electronics and household appliances, LG also boasts a formidable legacy in industrial manufacturing dating back almost to its creation in the middle of last century. That experience has been distilled into the development of a new breed of solar cell that ups the ante on harvesting…
LG’s future monitors will cool themselves
Centuries after William of Ockham first uttered the wisdom that the simplest answer is usually the right one, it still holds true for even the most modern of problem-solving exercises. The geeks at LG are apparently well-versed in the truth of that saying judging by one of the latest patents to have come out of…