Yesterday, the White House announced the creation of a new committee that will coordinate federal efforts related to artificial intelligence. The move makes sense given the rapid rise of AI, but the new group better be prepared to tackle all that AI has to offer—both the good and the bad.
61 years ago, the executives of Wham-O Inc. acquired the rights to a flying disk they called the Frisbee®. Now, the same company claims it’s reinvented the damn thing with a wobbly-looking toy called the Frisbee Sonic. It being 2018 and all, the new invention is being funded on Kickstarter. Oh, and I hate it.
There are several ways to prevent those inevitable wine bottle drips from staining your tablecloth. You can wrap the bottle in a napkin while you pour, just skip the wine glass altogether and drink straight from the bottle, or use your physics degrees to re-engineer the bottle’s spout so it never drips again.
We know very little about our planet’s seafloor, but that’s poised to change as autonomous underwater scouting technology gets better and better. To that end, nearly two dozen teams are racing to develop robots that can investigate, map, and conduct science at extreme depths, and under serious time constraints.…
It’s impossible not to look at a new feature from Volkswagen with a skeptical eye after Dieselgate, but we’re hoping the company’s new climate windshield, that can melt snow and ice without the need for distracting wires, delivers as promised—because the winter sucks if you own a car.
Silicon Valley is the capital of disruption. It’s the epicenter of the innovation earthquake. It’s the leader of the new way forward. And Apple, as the industry’s Think Different darling, is at the forefront of the revolution. So much so, in fact, that it decided a patent a sweet bag.
Ever wanted to wear a foot brace, but didn’t have an injury to justify it? Well you’re in luck. On Thursday, Teva and Ugg released a collaboration of fur-lined sandals that bear an eery resemblance to a foot brace. It’s the perfect shoe for those who love cold toes in the winter or sweaty feet in the summer.
Your job has the potential to be a lot cooler once everyone has a pair of VR goggles strapped to their face—unless Microsoft has something to say about it. The company is working towards bringing hand motions and gestures into virtual worlds, with the goal of having you press buttons and pull levers just like your…
When you’re designing a shirt, it makes sense to cut the fabrics so that the wearer is most comfortable with their arms down at their sides in a resting position. But for a swimmer, whose arms are constantly in motion, Roka Sports believes it’s advantageous to instead design a wetsuit with an athlete’s arms raised and…
Apple made a big deal about the advanced technology it developed to facilitate the 3D Touch feature on the iPhone 6s. But engineers at the University of Michigan have not only recreated the feature such that it can work on any smartphone, they’ve also improved it by enabling phones to detect when they’re being…
We know surprisingly little about our oceans. To help with this glaring blind spot, the XPrize has announced a new $7 million contest to foster innovations in ocean exploration technology.
Infectious diseases like polio and malaria might be gone in 15 years because the founder of Microsoft devoted a foundation to eradicating them. Now Bill Gates has turned his attention towards our global energy crisis, which he thinks can also be fixed with better R&D. And, yes, he’s going to fund it.
Scientists, politicians and the Pope are not the only ones calling for action on climate change these days. Farmers are observing changes in rainfall, temperature and other patterns in weather that have spurred them into shifting their farming methods. In fact, while climate change is not a source of scientific…
Remember when we thought that hologram stickers were an effective way to stop the proliferation of counterfeit products? Xerox now believes it has a far superior solution with a new type of printable electronic label that has encrypted memory built right in.
It’s been just over a century and change since the first airplane flight. And an amazing amount of innovation has happened to aviation since then. Along with quite a bit of weird experiments, that didn’t entirely pan out. Here are fascinating videos of some of the strangest flying machines ever invented!
The worst thing about working with handheld power tools is the constant and intense vibrations from oscillating parts that leave your hands and arms shaking, and make it harder to do detailed precision work. So researchers developed a handheld oscillator with 70 percent less vibration and half the noise.
A couple years ago, when a 25-year-old law student in Texas said he was going to 3D-print a gun, nobody took him seriously. Then, he actually did it. And then, a lot of people started doing it. Now, it's so easy that some protestors are going make a gun inside the Texas State Capitol with a special gun machine. This…
A handful of Brooklyn Law students working out of a tech-oriented legal clinic forced a patent troll to drop a meritless lawsuit. If more law schools set up pro bono patent litigation clinics, they could be potent anti-troll weapons — especially since many start-ups would rather settle lawsuits than pay huge legal…
When you think of Atlantic cod, you probably think of a strip of fish, battered and fried. But new research suggests that the fish might be able to use tools, and that might cause us to rethink how we evaluate tool use in other animals.
Gillette just pulled back the curtain on its latest innovation, and guess what: It's not more blades. It's actually a new type of handle that swivels, inspired by men making funny faces when they shave. Gillette says this so-called FlexBall Technology is "shaving rebuilt." I'm not convinced.
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