Technology

Netflix engineers recently developed a mind-control gadget that could use your brain to help you browse the streaming service. As part of Netflix’s hackathon in January, which challenged employees to come up with an innovative project in 24 hours that was aimed at improving the Netflix experience in some way, a group of the company's engineers made a device that allows viewers to choose what they want to watch by using their brain waves. The so-called "Mindflix" uses a Muse headband — a wearable device that measures brain signals — that was designed to help users with meditation. However, engineers hacked the device so that it could be used for the more forgetful (or lazy) viewer. In a "commercial" that was produced for the hackathon, the developers said that their invention could help Netflix users when they lose their remote — or, if the remote is simply too far away. The people in the YouTube video then demonstrate how the " brain wea...

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 ...

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...

Assisted walking just got smarter. A new algorithm for an exoskeleton uses direct feedback from the wearer to customize the assistance provided, according to a new study. The exoskeleton is worn on the shin and foot and applies forces to the ankle and toes. In experiments with 11 able-bodied people, the so-called human-in-the-loop algorithm took about an hour to optimize the exoskeleton , and afterward, reduced the amount of energy participants needed to walk by 24 percent, on average, said research team member Rachel Jackson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) "The size of the reduction was pretty astounding," Jackson said. Jackson and her colleagues, led by Steven Collins, an associate professor of mechanical engineeringat CMU, and Juanjuan Zhang, formerly of CMU and now a professor at Nankai University in China, published the results of their research online today (June 22) in the jo...

As a headless robot crawls over a pile of pebbles, its jointless, rubbery legs carefully but confidently sample the terrain in steady, yet unrushed movements that resemble a turtle's. The robot's ability to reliably walk across different types of surfaces is unique, and so is the fact that its elaborately shaped legs were created with a 3D printer, according to the engineers who developed the bio-inspired creature. "With soft robots, you can do a lot of things that are difficult for a hard robot," said Mike Tolley, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of California, San Diego, who led the research. "[F]iguring out exactly how to place parts of your body or get around in a very unpredictable environment becomes a lot easier when your body is soft." The combination of soft and stiff materials enables living creatures to adjust to the irregularities in terrain that frequently stop current rigid robots in their tracks. [The 6 S...

Credit: Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock A new wireless power system could help people avoid the inevitable jumbled mess of tangled cords and offer a more efficient way to charge electric vehicles on the go, according to a new study. Researchers at Stanford University adapted a concept from quantum physics to produce a wireless charger that does something other wireless chargers cannot: automatically tune the frequency of the radio wave — the medium that transfers the power — to account for changes in the distance between the charging pad and the device. In an experiment, the team showed that its system transferred power with 100 percent efficiency up to about 27 inches (70 centimeters). "The range is perfect for electric cars," Sid Assawaworrarit, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering at Stanford University, told Live Science. "The floor of a car is about 20 centimeters [8 inches] away from the road's surface. You could embed the chargin...

A robotic hand with intrinsically stretchable rubbery sensors. Credit: Cunjiang Yu Rubber electronics and sensors that operate normally even when stretched to up to 50 percent of their length could work as artificial skin on robots, according to a new study. They could also give flexible sensing capabilities to a range of electronic devices, the researchers said. Like human skin, the material is able to sense strain, pressure and temperature, according to the researchers. "It's a piece of rubber, but it has the function of a circuit and sensors," said Cunjiang Yu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Houston. Yu and his team describedtheir innovation in a study published online Sept. 8 in the journal Science Advances . [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures] Yusaid the rubber electronics and sensors have a wide range of applications, from biomedical implants to wearabl...

A material with random irregularities scatters an incident light wave into all directions. Credit: TU Wien Once thought of as the province of only "Star Trek" or "Harry Potter," cloaking technologies could become a reality with a specially designed material that can mask itself from other forms of light when it is hit with a "beam of invisibility," according to a new study. Theoretically, most "invisibility cloaks" would work by smoothly guiding light waves around objects so the waves ripple along their original trajectories as if nothing were there to obstruct them. Previous work found that cloaking devices that redirect other kinds of waves, such as sound waves, are possible as well. But the new study's  researchers, from at the Technical University of Vienna, have developed a different strategy to render an object invisible — using a beam of invisibility. [Now You See It: 6 Tales of ...

From navigating turbulence, to sleeping midflight, to soaring without a sound, animals' flight adaptations are helping scientists design better flying robots. Airborne drones and the animals they mimic are featured in 18 new studies published online Dec. 15 in the journal Interface Focus. This special issue is intended "to inspire development of new aerial robots and to show the current status of animal flight studies," said the issue's editor, David Lentink, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University in California. Though humans have been building flying machines since the 18th century, these new studies revealed that there is still much to be learned from looking closely at how birds, insects and bats take flight, keep themselves aloft and maneuver to safe landings. [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature] Flying drones are rapidly becoming a common sight worldwide. They are used to photograph glorious vistas...

A quadcopter drone with wheels attached so it can fly and drive. Credit: Brandon Araki/MIT CSAIL Whether they're swooping in to deliver packages or spotting victims in disaster zones, swarms of flying robots could have a range of important applications in the future, a new study found. The robots can transition from driving to flying without colliding with each other and could offer benefits beyond the traditional flying-car concepts of sci-fi lore, the study said. The ability to both fly and walk is common in nature. For instance, many birds, insects and other animals can do both. Robots with similar versatility could fly over impediments on the ground or drive under overhead obstacles. But currently, robots that are good at one mode of transportation are usually bad at others, study lead author Brandon Araki, a roboticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and his colleagues said in their new ...

What happens when you walk into a wall in virtual reality? Nothing yet, but soon, your muscles could get shocked when you smack into a barrier, thanks to a new research project that aims to simulate walls and other objects in virtual reality. This expansion on the virtual reality (VR) experience uses electrical muscle stimulation to give users the sensation of hitting a wall or lifting a heavy object. The effect is created via haptic feedback, a type of tactile communication that uses forces or vibrations to re-create the sense of touch. A team of researchers from the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam in Germany created a wearable system that can shock different muscle groups throughout a person's body. In addition to a VR headset and tracking gloves, the researchers outfitted users with backpacks containing electrical muscle stimulators and a series of electrode patches that attach to the wearers' skin and produce the shocks. [Beyon...