Technology

The "Bat Bot" was designed to mimic how acrobatic bats are in real life. Credit: Ramezani, Chung, Hutchinson, Sci. Robot. 2, eaal2505 (2017) Whether they're swooping around to catch dinner or delicately hanging upside down to sleep, bats are known for their acrobatic prowess. Now, scientists have created a robot inspired by these flying creatures. Dubbed the "Bat Bot," it can fly, turn and swoop like its real-life counterpart in the animal kingdom. Since at least the time of Leonardo da Vinci , scientists have sought to mimic the acrobatic way in which bats maneuver the sky. Someday, robotic bats could help deliver packages or inspect areas ranging from disaster zones to construction sites, the researchers said. "Bat flight is the Holy Grail of aerial robotics," said study co-author Soon-Jo Chung, a robotics engineer at the California Institute of Technology and a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion ...

The robot, called FORPHEUS, was named the "first robot table tennis tutor" for its ability to play and teach the sport. Credit: Guinness World Records If you're interested in learning how to play table tennis, a robot in Japan is up for the coaching job, and the bot has even earned a Guinness World Record for its tutoring skills. The robot, called FORPHEUS, was named the "first robot table tennis tutor" for its ability to play and teach the sport. Guinness World Record officials said the robot's "unique technological intelligence and educational capabilities" earned it the title. The record-breaking robot uses vision and motion sensors to track a match, with cameras following the ball 80 times per second. Beyond game play, the cameras also help FORPHEUS in its role as a teacher, according to its developers. The robot can project an image of where the ball will land to help a competitor or s...

Google was granted a patent for a hat-and-camera system on Feb. 28, 2017. Credit: Google Inc./US Patent Office Google recently filed a patent for a technology-enhanced baseball cap that can take still photos and capture video from a camera mounted on the brim, according to news reports. The high-tech cap may be the tech giant's follow-up to its failed Google Glass and could offer competition to similar wearable devices, including Snap's Spectacles. The patent , granted on Tuesday (Feb. 28), describes a hat-and-camera system that offers users an interactive experience for social media purposes, and it can also be used for personal safety, reported Silicon Beat . Users could share photos or video directly from what's been dubbed the Google Hat to a social media account, but the hat's technology could also be useful in an emergency. The patent indicates that the wearable camera hat could protect the user...

Are you nervous about entrusting your life to a self-driving car? What if you could telepathically communicate with the vehicle to instantaneously let it know if it makes a mistake? That is the ultimate promise of technology being developed by a team fromBoston University and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The tech uses brain signals to automatically correct a robot's errors. Using a so-called brain-computer interface (BCI) to communicate with a robot is not new, but most methods require people to train with the BCI and even learn to modulate their thoughts to help the machine understand, the researchers said. By relying on brain signals called "error-related potentials" (ErrPs) that occur automatically when humans make a mistake or spot someone else making one, the researchers' approach allows even complete novices to control a robot with their minds, the research...

Scientists at Disney Research converted an entire room into a wireless charger. Credit: Disney Research When you need to charge your electronic devices on the go, it can be a hassle trying to find somewhere to plug in. And though some devices can already be charged without wires, researchers at The Walt Disney Company have recently supersized the technology by building a wireless "charging room." Scientists at a branch of The Walt Disney Company called Disney Research have converted an entire room into a wireless charger that can boost the batteries of 10 objects at one time, according to the study. The researchers said they were inspired by inventor Nikola Tesla , who created the first system to wirelessly transmit electricity — the Tesla coil . Tesla believed there could be a global network of wireless electricity that would use an electromagnetic wave that reverberated between the ionosphere (a layer of the Ea...

The jean jacket is getting a 21st-century upgrade: Levi's and Google are planning to launch a new "smart" jacket later this year, according to news reports. The companies' so-called Project Jacquard was first announced in June 2015 as a line of "connected" clothing that would interact with wearers' smartphones, reported Tech Times . The so-called Commuter Jacket was unveiled in May 2016, and Levi's and Google revealed more details about the smart jacket project this weekend at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, Tech Times said. The companies said the jacket will cost $350 and will be available this fall. The garment can interact with a person's smartphone via Bluetooth technology.  Conductive fabric on the connected jacket's wrist acts as a control panel for the wearer's smartphone. In a video about Project Jacquard , Ivan Poupyrev, technical program lead at Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP...