Category: Tech News

• Scientists Make Mice “Remember” Things That Didn’t Happen

  Researchers manipulate mouse neurons to create a false memory; the work could lead to a better understanding of how memories form.

  Scientists have created a false memory in mice by manipulating neurons that bear the memory of a place. The work further demonstrates just how unreliable memory can be. It also lays new ground for understanding the cell behavior and circuitry that controls memory, and could one day help researchers discover new ways to treat mental illnesses influenced by memory.

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• Rise of the More Human Robot

  Atlas is meant to assist in emergencies, but it could also inspire other machines to walk in our footsteps.

• The Paradox of Wearable Technologies

  Can wearable devices augment our activities without distracting us from the real world?

  Ever talk to someone at a party or conference reception only to discover that the person you are talking to is constantly scanning the room, looking this way and that, perhaps finding you boring, perhaps looking for someone more important? Doesn’t the person realize that you notice?

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• Douglas Engelbart’s Unfinished Revolution

  The pioneering Doug Engelbart invented things that transformed computing, but he also intended them to transform humans.

  Doug Engelbart knew that his obituaries would laud him as “Inventor of the Mouse.” I can see him smiling wistfully, ironically, at the thought. The mouse was such a small part of what Engelbart invented.

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• Look Before You Leap Motion

  Leap Motion’s low-cost gesture-control device is not as easy to use as you might think.

  For the past couple days, I’ve been gesticulating even more than normal—at times, subtly, at other times, wildly—while getting to know the latest in gesture-control technology: the Leap Motion controller.

• Electronic “Skin” Emits Light When Pressed

  Researchers unveil one of the most complex electronic systems ever built on plastic.

  A sheet of thin plastic that emits light with an intensity that precisely reflects the amount of pressure applied to its surface hints at a new breed of flexible computer interface. Its creators say future iterations of the interface could be used for robotics, car dashboards, mobile displays, or even “interactive wallpaper.”

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• Sebastian Thrun on the Future of Learning

  Udacity cofounder and CEO Sebastian Thrun says more AI is coming to online education, but we’ll still need humans to grade our English essays.

  Sebastian Thrun has worn many hats in the tech world: Stanford research professor, founder of Google’s X Labs, where he oversaw the development of self-driving cars and Google Glass, and, most recently, passionate advocate for MOOCs—or massive open online courses—through Udacity, the online education startup he cofounded and runs (see “The Most Important Education Technology in 200 Years”).

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• Kickstarter Campaign Wants to Send Tiny Satellites out of Earth Orbit

  Researchers have launched a crowdfunding campaign for a propulsion system that could send loaf-sized satellites on interplanetary voyages.

  A mini-satellite, no bigger than a loaf of bread, could push itself out of Earth’s orbit as soon as next year if a crowdfunding campaign to support development of a diminutive propulsion system succeeds. If such small spacecraft can be made to operate far from Earth, they could one day make inexpensive expeditions to asteroids, Mars, and beyond.

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• Zappos CEO Bets $350 Million on a Las Vegas Startup Scene

  Tony Hsieh believes the formula for innovation is more “collisions” and, occasionally, llamas.

  Tony Hsieh doesn’t really like sports, but he loves llamas and community gatherings. So once a month during baseball season, the CEO of the online shoe retailer Zappos holds a company-sponsored parade led by a llama named Cusco. The marchers get free baseball caps and noisemakers as they make the trek from Las Vegas’s Fremont Street to nearby Cashman Field.

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• Finding Cancer Cells in the Blood

  Technologies that can pull tumor cells from patients’ blood are giving researchers an unprecedented look at cancer.

  In the near future, oncologists may be using a finger-size plastic chip with tiny channels to extract a dozen or so cancer cells from a sample of a patient’s blood. Those cells, called circulating tumor cells, could then be screened for genetic disruptions that an oncologist could target with drugs best suited to attacking the tumor. Continued sampling would give doctors a way to monitor whether a treatment is working and decide whether to add or change a drug as the malady evolves.

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• A Manufacturing Tool Builds 3-D Heart Tissue

  A layer-by-layer fabrication tool lets researchers quickly form complicated biological tissue in three-dimensional space.

  By adapting a programmable device used to manufacture integrated circuits, researchers have devised a semi-automated process to build polymer scaffolds for guiding the development of three-dimensional heart tissue. The method, which entails layer-by-layer fabrication, will enable more precise investigation of the three-dimensional cues that drive cells to organize and form tissue—and could serve as a platform for the development of implantable organ tissue.

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• Meet Atlas, the Robot Designed to Save the Day

  New humanoid robots will compete in a contest designed to test the ability of machines to take on extremely dangerous and high-stakes human jobs.

  The latest innovation from the U.S. Defense Department’s research agency, DARPA, is a humanoid robot called Atlas that looks as if it could’ve walked straight off the set of the latest Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster.

• A Sneak Peek of the National Grid on Renewables

  A government research facility uses a megawatt-scale simulator and supercomputer to test futuristic grid technologies without disrupting today’s grid.

  A new $135 million research facility aims to solve a puzzle: how can countries prepare for an energy system that relies heavily on renewable energy? It can also test ways to improve reliability under stress, for example when demand soars in the summer as the air-conditioning load taxes the grid.

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