A team of scientists announced they have harvested hydrogen from water in microgravity—a proof-of-principle test that may one day lead to a way to acquire fuel or other resources during a long-distance, crewed space mission.
Many ideas that were once the staple of speculative fiction have come into existence. VR, robot companions, advanced AIs, self-driving cars—these are now realities. But what kind of technology is still a dream, and most importantly, your dream?
Earlier today, I posted a video that hypothesized how Star Trek-like tractor beams and Doctor Who-ish sonic screwdrivers could actually be more realistic than you'd think. Although sound science, I grow weary of far flung promises of sci-fi tech becoming reality long after I'm dead.
At first glance, this rockabilly Batmobile looks like a retro-fetishist's pet project. It's not. In fact, this freak machine, hand-built by a ragtag team in an Illinois town of 1,200, is the deepest look into the future of cars you've ever clapped eyes on. One frigid day in Brooklyn, Gizmodo buckled in for a ride.
Much has been written about Xerox PARC, its legendary R&D legacy, and its inability to make money off their groundbreaking innovations. But what many people don't know is that 10 years ago, it launched a new plan to turn research into dollars. This printed memory/logic circuit is the first fruit of the new plan.
Mind Reading. Power harvesting. No more passwords. The Death of spam. Technology for everyone. These are five thing IBM believes are the future. Not 50 years in the future, but more like five years in the future.
How silly of us all to never realize that the butyl methyl sulfide molecule is not a liquid, but a motor. Thankfully, some clearheaded chemists at Tufts University were able to make us see this compound's true nature.
Recompose, the latest piece of technological innovation to come out of MIT's Media Labs, is in many ways unclassifiable. It's a user interface whose design part gesture-based, part touch-based, and entirely ambiguous in its purpose. Still though, it's intriguing.
Imagine taking off a band-aid or medical tape, not grimacing in pain as the bandage adhesive pulls hair and skin cells with it. That is what 3M is promising with their new silicone tape technology, which bonds with skin in a way that other tape adhesives don't.
A team of scientists at Chungbuk National University in South Korea have created a transistor that's only 2nm in size, which happens to be the smallest in the world. By comparison, the current generation of Intel processors use 32nm transistors.
Google has long dreamed of hardware that knows exactly who's watching TV, which would let them target content and ads towards the viewer. Japanese network NHK is now testing that technology in the real world, hoping to accomplish something similar.
Obviously, you can grow meat in a petri dish, but now there's a way to grow active brain cells in a dish. And what's even cooler is that they might be capable of storing memories, just like a real brain.
In this week's New Yorker, Michael Specter takes a great look at the world of in-vitro meat—grown in a lab, outside an animal body. It's not a matter of if, but when. Will you eat it?
Things such as brightness and responsiveness are adjustable variables on touchscreens. But what about stickiness? Is that even possible on a glass screen? Short answer: yes. And researchers at the University of British Columbia are showing off how this is possible.
Someday, military attack drones will not only wage battle against enemies sans pilot, but will fall into formation with other drones and attack en masse. This quadrotor technology from UPenn's GRASP lab is a very big step in that direction.
A soldier is only human. No matter how cunning a mind or how resolute the courage, he can become tired. He can become injured. He can succumb to the overwhelming pressure of trying to save the world. So how do you give him the edge against the apocalypse? Simple: invent the perfect battle armor. And how do you do…
A soldier is only human. No matter how cunning a mind or how resolute the courage, he can become tired. He can become injured. He can succumb to the overwhelming pressure of trying to save the world. So how do you give him the edge against the apocalypse? Simple: invent the perfect battle armor. And how do you do…
In the eyes of a few researchers, the secrets to breakthroughs in distributed computing lies in the nervous system of the fruit fly. And new, performance-improving algorithms based around these findings could help to better detect earthquakes or cure disease.
I throw out more expired food than I like to admit, but half the time, it's because I can't remember when I bought it, and can't tell if it's spoiled or not. This new, "intelligent" plastic could fix that.
Vancouver-based startup General Fusion has been running around claiming they can build a nuclear fusion reactor in the next 10 years for under a billion dollars. And some anonymous futurists just gave them 9 million dollars for their troubles.
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