Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 30, 2005

NY Police Computer Predicts Robbery

In the movie Minority Lt. James In the gloomy half-darkness the three idiots sat babbling. Every incoherent utterance, every random syllable, was analyzed, compared and reassembled in the form of visual symbols, transcribed on conventional punchcards, and ejected into various coded slots.(Read more about the precrime analytical wing) ...

May 31, 2005

Singing Benches and Trash Cans

Robotic benches and bins with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation GPP (Genuine People Personalities) straight out of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have been created by Greyworld, a group of London artists. Andrew Shoben of Greyworld describes the six solar-powered robotic bins and benches in the following way: At first...

May 31, 2005

New Skin Lets Robots Get Sensitive

Scientists are working on a type of skin that will allow robots to be more touchy feely.? The high-tech skin has fingernail sized sensors embedded all over its surface. The sensors allow a robot to feel changes in its surroundings and move accordingly. Robots move well on their own, especially...

May 31, 2005

New Invisible Watermark to Prevent Fake Photos

With advances in computer software making it easier and easier to alter photographs, researchers have devised a way to encode digital images to detect frauds. The new technique embeds a computer generated hologram (CGH) into an image. Usually a simple word or picture, the hologram hides in the noise –...

Apr 30, 2005

Bill Gates Envisions Cars that Can't Crash

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) _ Microsoft Corp. mogul Bill Gates and the leader of Ford Motor Co. outlined a future Friday in which software enables cars to fix themselves and avoid accidents. Gates and Bill Ford Jr., Ford's chairman and chief executive, said high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars...

Apr 30, 2005

New Bridges Made of Bendable Concrete

By mixing fiber in concrete scientists have created a bendable material that is lightweight, resists cracking, and lasts longer. The newfangled concrete, already in use in Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Australia, will find its first application in the United States this summer, researchers said this week. Fiber-reinforced concrete is not...

Apr 30, 2005

New Robots Clone Themselves

Mimicking reproduction in living organisms, researchers have built a simple self-replicating robot out of automated blocks. Machines that can copy themselves have been built before, but the earlier experiments were limited to two dimensions or confined to a track. Hod Lipson and his collaborators at Cornell University have designed modular...

Apr 30, 2005

New Technique Could Make 300-Carat Diamonds

Researchers have developed a new technique for making very large diamonds of high quality that could soon boost optics technology and gaudily adorn fingers of the wealthy with sparkling rocks up to an inch wide. Using a process called chemical vapor deposition (CVD), several groups have figured out how to...

Apr 30, 2005

Older and Wiser: Expanse of Knowledge Delays Big Ideas

A new study of Nobel Prize winners and great inventors suggests top innovators are older today than they were a century ago. I find that the age at which noted innovations are produced has increased by approximately 6 years over the 20th Century, says Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University. Innovators...

Mar 31, 2005

The World's Smallest Motor

Scientists recently unveiled the tiniest electric motor ever built. You could stuff hundreds of them into the period at the end of this sentence. One day a similar engine might power a tiny mechanical doctor that would travel through your body in the ultimate house call. The motor works by...

Mar 31, 2005

Palmtop Nuclear Fusion Device Invented

The nuclear reaction that powers the Sun has been reproduced in a pocket-sized device, scientists announced today. Researchers have for years tried to harness nuclear fusion to power the world. But its cousin, nuclear fission -- the breaking apart of atoms -- is the only method so far commercially viable....

Feb 28, 2005

Roach Robot Feels Its Way Around

As if the world needs more roaches, engineers are now building a robotic version. Most robotic vehicles sent into dangerous situations rely on cameras or sonar to navigate. Neither method works every time. The new mechanical creature uses a wiggly cockroach-like antenna to feel its way around, mimicking the behavior...

Feb 28, 2005

Personal Travel on 'Microjets' Expected to Grow

SCOTTSDALE, AZ - The promise of inexpensive personal jet flight for commuting and hassle-free short hops to the weekend retreat is closer to reality than you might think. The prospect has the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hustling to create new regulations, experts said Wednesday, and they say the shift will...

Jan 31, 2005

Drivers on Cell Phones Kill Thousands, Snarl Traffic

Finally, empirical proof you can blame chatty 20-somethings for stop-and-go traffic on the way to work. A new study confirms that the reaction time of cell phone users slows dramatically, increasing the risk of accidents and tying up traffic in general, and when young adults use cell phones while driving,...

Jan 31, 2005

Chip Implants Proposed To Halt Blackmarket Cadaver Trade

An investigation into illegal sale and distribution of cadavers and body parts at the University of California, Los Angeles, has lead to recommendations that include implanting cadavers and individual body parts with RFID tags. Last year, UCLA suspended its willed-body program. The program director was arrested after an investigation of...