The beauty of a thermoelectric device is that it has no moving parts, making it extremely durable and easy to produce. The high durability means students were able to install it in flues at the cogeneration plant, where it will capture waste heat and use it to create more energy for the campus air conditioning, heating and electricity. Eventually, the team hopes to install the device in the waste heat nirvana, hot water pipes, which could ramp up that 80% number a few more percentage points.

In addition to increasing the efficiency of the MIT campus, the device could also have an effect on the environment by trapping waste heat before it's ejected into the atmosphere as exhaust. And after that, home heating in general could be revolutionized as consumers install the device in their home furnaces.

Ultimately, said Daniel Kraemer, graduate students in mechanical engineering, this simple device could work anywhere there's excess heat. Gizmodo writers are pretty full of hot air, Kraemer, why don't we start here? [MIT]

By combining laser interference technology with a new "scanning beam" wafer technique, the team at the Space Nanotecnology Lab has demonstrated manufacturing of semiconductor wafers with 25nm detail. And it's easily extendable to 12nm. In the scanning technique, Doppler shifts affect the laser's ability to create accurate patterns, so the clever MIT guys synchronize the wafer under construction by oscillating the laser elements with 100Hz sound waves. Looks like that venerable old law will hold true for a while yet. [EETimes]

The iShoe actually began life as an experiment Lieberman conducted as an intern at NASA. Astronauts routinely return home with a host of balance issues thanks to the weightlessness of space, so Lieberman and the rest of the iShoe team created a new algorithm that was capable of looking at the pressure distribution of proprioceptors on the feet and analyze what that data meant. Proprioceptors, in case you didn't know, are sensory receptors which tell your brain where body parts are in relation to other body parts and the objects around you.

It took a family emergency to show Lieberman that the iShoe had ramifications beyond just a few drunken astronauts. When Lieberman's grandmother had a bad fall, he knew the tech could be used as a "balance diagnostic" to help doctors and their patients prevent falls before they occurred. The device's super-sensitive insole would measure the pressure of the foot and report data to the doctor, and in extreme cases an alarm would alert family or care givers to a fall. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up," would be quickly replaced with "Hey, I can walk just fine! Get off my damn lawn." [MIT]

By repeating the process, and varying the agitation rates and the shape and size of the tissue bricks, structures like branches and cubes can be built up. The team has also built very complex structures that resemble blood vessels running through tissue, and know that yet more complex and "realistic" structures are possible.

While this is a technology in its infancy, it has advantages over current tissue-engineering techniques (which rely on a sort of "top-down" system, tying cells to a polymer mould) in that it has the potential to emulate natural repeating units in organs like the liver, pancreas, heart-muscle and so on. There are plenty of challenges before we can, for example, grow artificial pancreatic tissue, but this is a pretty amazing start. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Technology Review]

The Robosnail moves along various surfaces using moveable segments that ripple along a synthetic slime. Because the slime allows the robot to traverse vertical surfaces and even ceilings, Hosoi hopes to be able to deploy similar robots to adverse environments in the near future. It would be kind of like the slowest bomb sniffing or exploratory robot of all time, that can go anywhere, eventually.

Now, this sounds cool and you can call me shallow all you want, folks, but I don't think Tricia Helfer would be *quite* as hot slithering around the universe on a trail of slime instead of those long legs of hers. Just an opinion. [CNN]

The Cloud is located in Florence, outside the Fortezza da Basso, so if you are around the area soon, don't forget to give it a big hug from us. [Design Boom via Cool Hunting]

Reported to be the "most official solar collector in existence" by those behind the project. But how does this light-focusing panel actually create electricity?

The plan is to hold a water-filled 12-foot black coil right in front of the dish. The heat from the focused sunlight is enough to quickly vaporize the water into steam, which could be harnessed in a variety of ways (including a steam-powered turbine to create electricity).

While you can't buy the dish yet, the students have formed a company named RawSolar. Hopefully they'll be mass producing their designs soon. [RawSolar and MIT] Thanks Eric!

The DWP consists of 3,000 digitally controlled solenoid valves, several dozen pumps, 12 hydraulic stainless steel pistons, and a digital control system that uses open source software. The roof, 400-mm thick, is the only solid part of the building, and it moves up and down on pistons, depending on the weather conditions.
This is the opening ceremony. Very son et lumière, doncha think? Despite the cameraman's best efforts, you can see the time and effort put into the pavilion. I only wish I was still in Spain, then I could check it out for you all. [Building Design and YouTube]

You play as fictional DJ called “Vinyl Scorcher,” who, with this name, continues in a long and proud tradition of blind rappers and MCs who honestly should have called themselves something else (See F.A.T. , and B-Lite, the guy pictured above). The game was originally designed for keyboard use with the PC (Windows users can try it out here) but Tuesday’s debut of the Wii version should bring joy to fans - eyeball-equipped or not - of simple, immersive games.
[CNET]

Even more amazing is the fact that this mish-mash of nanowires has the look and feel of paper, but sucks up only oil, leaving every ounce of water behind. Based on that, you know what comes next, right? Water filtration, said Jing Kong, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.And unlike most nanotechnology, the mesh is inexpensive to produce, since the nanowires can be fabricated in larger quantities than other nanomaterials. Great. Let's get huge sheets of this stuff manufactured and distributed to every oil rig, developing nation and tanker like, yesterday. [MIT News]

[MIT via Communist Robot via Gearfuse]

I've got pics from the DARPA cars at the Pentagon. The six finalist teams were there for the Urban challenge and they had a briefing at 1145 in the auditorium as well as showed off the vehicles from 0945-1300 in the center courtyard.

What are they doing there?

Besides launching a robotic coup against the U.S. military? They are really just showing off what they've done. Because the actual DARPA Urban Challenge comp has already happened, they are really here to just show off what DARPA has been up to to the military brass.

I don't know how familiar you are with this, but the DARPA challenge had two parts: the off-road, and the Urban. The Urban was obviously a much greater challenge and in talking with the guys there were something like 90 teams who had to have their vehicles navigate a military air base (think small suburb) with their vehicles and hit a series of GPS check points.

According to them they were allowed to drive around the area 24 hours before so they could get a feel of it, but then on the day of they were given a USB stick that had 10-15 gps check points the cars had to hit. So they loaded that into the computer, but were not allowed to load any sort of "route" in. Then they just had to it start on the autonomous vehicles and hope for the best. What's really cool—like all of this isn't already—is that they had something like 50 stunt drivers drive around the area while the robocars were moving to challenge the vehicles and make sure they didn't collide. As you can tell, 6 of 90 teams (it could have been a few more) were the only ones able to succeed, so it was quite the task.

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Bonus Option: none of the above, just this:

[Gizmodo]

Nexi is apparently about the size of a three year-old child, with dextrous hands, arms that can lift up to ten pounds of weight and two-wheel balancing movement, a little like a Segway. Each eye has a color camera, there's an IR camera in the forehead for 3D object perception and four microphones so sounds can be localized.

For now, Nexi is just a prototype, designed to explore human-machine interactions and social learning. It's not too hard to imagine a real product based on the design, though, is it? The team forsee robots like this having a role in healthcare, eldercare and education. [GizmoWatch]

The TESS will be designed solely to find smaller planets orbiting close to stars, much like earth. Until now, we've found mostly large planets due to the methods used: checking out the pull their gravity exerts on the stars they orbit. TESS, on the other hand, will measure the amount of starlight planets obscure, making it much easier to find smaller planets.

So the whole thing is due to go up into orbit and start searching in 2012, meaning we could be checking out Earth-like, inhabited planets in like 5 years. Enjoy thinking we're alone in the universe, friends; that notion will soon seem quaint. [MIT News via io9]

The invention was refined in conjunction with engineers at the University of Ottawa, and its debut at MIT certainly raised a few eyebrows, even causing electromagnetics expert Markus Zahn to praise it cautiously:

It's an unusual phenomena I wouldn't have predicted in advance. But I saw it. It's real. Now I'm just trying to figure it out...To my mind this is unexpected and new, and it's worth exploring all the possible advantages once you're convinced it's a real effect.

Heins named his invention after a Greek word meaning an action that "has the opposite effect to that intended," and that certainly applies to his life—his wife walked out on him—as well as his device. He's certainly reluctant to use the phrase "perpetual motion" himself, because of the controversy attached, and the allegation that they violate the hallowed law of conservation of energy. Mystery success or just another myth: let us know what you think in the comments. [Toronto Star]

As you approach the sink, a camera and custom-built software calculates, using your line of sight, how tall you are. The sink then adjusts its height accordingly, and a second camera clocks the object to be washed, determining the temperature of the water. [TechEBlog]
*This is obviously a joke. J is 6'0" (or 1.80 meters, as they say in Euroland.)

MIT's example below shows a whiteboard application in windows that takes what this y draws (in Paint, no less) and renders it in motion. Quite neat, but not quite as cool as Sony's. [TechEBlog]

The bikes were hooked up to generators that supplied direct current energy to a converter which, in turn, fed couple of small SiCortex supercomputers with alternating current. At the time, the computers were running a program that simulates a fusion reaction. According to the findings, a traditional supercomputer would have required 10x as much electricity to perform the same calculations. In the end, the team did its part to promote alternative sources of energy —let's just hope, for the cycling team's sake, that the focus at MIT stays on nuclear fusion as this alternative energy source, and not the legs of its top athletes. [XConomy and Gizmag]

As depicted in the conceptual rendering above, there's a plan to rent the electric bikes in numerous locations throughout a city, where a rider could take a bike one-way, dropping it off near a destination in a different part of town.

The scooter's not bad looking, either. If you like this, wait 'til next year, when the group will be rolling out a foldable electric car. [InfoSync and Technology Info]

The unit itself is made out of plastic, and incorporates a touchscreen, an accelerometer, as well as 72 touch sensors, and internal Bluetooth. Currently 95 percent accurate, the Bar of Soap's creators tested it in five ways: as a camera, gamepad, PDA, phone and remote control . [MIT via Oh!Gizmo]

Scientists say this could have may beneficial applications in the fields of biomedical and materials research. In the picture shown, they used said tweezers to arrange the letters "MIT" on the surface of the chip. Now if they could do that with Harvard's marching band at a football game, I'd really be impressed. [AP via Science Daily]

On paper, the exoskeleton idea rocks. You put your feet in the boots, which are attached by a series of tubes running up your legs to a backpack, and transfer the weight of the backpack to the ground. Springs at the ankle and hip, and a damping device at the knee, mimic human movement, with a one-watt power input.

Although the exoskellington [sic] does lighten the load, the MIT guinea pigs found they were using 10 percent more oxygen than normal, as the kit impeded their normal way of walking. It's back to the drawing board for the Biomechatronics Group, but they are confident that, in its second incarnation, the DARPA-funded device will mimic a human leg more closely than before.

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I can imagine that having to delete hundreds of these every morning from your answerphone could be almost as annoying as living on the flight path of a major international airport. [TripWire]

Click To Play

The students' four aims were to make their transporter for less than $1,000 and 50 pounds, to give it lean steering and to be able to ride it through doorways. It's even got two cupholders! [The DIY Segway]

The iWalk uses the energy from the wearer's forward motion, stores it in the power-assisted spring and then releases it as the foot pushes off, the battery-powered motor providing additional help. According to Prof Herr, the iWalk has "three times the power of a conventional prosthesis to propel you forward, and... provides amputees with a truly humanlike gait." [iWalk via MedGadget]

Initially funded by NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts, the Biosuit has been seven years in the making. Rather than using gas pressurization to protect the astronaut's body from the vacuum of space, a method used by the current 300-pound suits (astronauts expend around 70 or 80 per cent of their energy just trying to move themselves in the suit) the Biosuit uses mechanical counter-pressure, swaddling the body in tight layers of material. Apparently it's down to the pattern of the lines on the suit, which provide a stiff "skeleton" of support as well as maximum mobility.

The suit will be able to help space travellers stay in shape, as currently they can lose up to 40 per cent of their muscle strength during a trip. The new outfits will give different levels of resistance, allowing their wearer to exercise during a long flight. Small punctures of the suit will be dealt with by merely bandaging the area - with current suits, astronauts have to return immediately to base in order to avoid decompression.

The team behind the Biosuit reckons that the version that makes it to Mars will be a hybrid of old and new, with a gas-pressured torso section and helmet, with an oxygen tank attached to the back. And if the biosuit doesn't make it to other planets, Professor Newman has other plans for it: as a training aid for athletes, and helping people back on their feet and learning to walk again. [MIT News Office]

The pavilion, which will house a cafe, public area, and exhibition space, will be covered by a roof that lowers in the case of too much wind, and the front of the building will be used as a display screen, with text, pictures and patterns all being made by the water.

Liquid pixels is the phrase being bandied about here. "To understand the concept of digital water, imagine something like an inkjet printer on a large scale, which controls droplets of falling water," explains Carlo Ratti, who is the head of MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory.

Magical stuff. The technology behind all of this is so sophisticated that sensors will detect the approach of people and part the water, rather like Moses was meant to have done in the Red Sea, so that they can enter the building at any part of the wall.

The project, which is to be undertaken with about a gazillion partners (check the credits page on the water pavilion's website, it's not dissimilar to the credits in Lord Of The Rings) is to illustrate the potential of digital water as a medium. William J. Mitchell, the head of MIT's Design Laboratory, calls the pavilion "provocative," claiming that it subverts fundamental architecture rules. I'll just sit there open-mouthed and dribble.

[Digital Water Pavillion and MIT via Boing Boing]

AUR Robotic Desk Lamp [via New Scientist]