Our culture has changed immensely as a result of the smartphone. We can get reassurance for every doubt just by texting our friends. We can feel approval by getting “likes” on our Instagram post or Facebook status. But heavy reliance on devices is responsible for a shift in how we regulate our emotions. A by-product

It’s obnoxious enough when strangers tell you to smile, but now a smart mirror is doing the same thing – specifically designed for cancer patients, it won’t reflect unless it detects that the person is smiling. It’s called the Smile Mirror, and it’s a screen with a camera in the frame. Facial recognition software gauges

The first of Elon Musk’s solar energy-Powerwall projects has successfully restored power to a local hospital in Puerto Rico, according to a tweet from Tesla earlier today.  Hospital del Niño, a children’s hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is among those working with Musk.   The Tesla CEO and founder offered to provide a few

Solar energy is off the charts. Not only is uptake skyrocketing, but solar is now the cheapest form of new energy in dozens of countries, with record-setting solar farms being built all around the world. One even looks like a giant panda. But amidst the surge in all things solar, there’s something we’ve been missing.

Plenty of misconceptions and conspiracy theories surround this topic. Internet searches for ‘iPhone slow’ spike after the release of a new-generation model, but there’s no evidence to suggest that manufacturers deliberately degrade the performance of older devices with software updates. Computer hardware does not typically slow down over its useful life. Instead, there are several other reasons

An AI that vanquished humanity at perhaps the most complex traditional game on Earth was inconceivably smart. But not smart enough to survive its own replacement by an even more awesome, alien intelligence. Google’s DeepMind researchers have just announced the next evolution of their seemingly indomitable artificial intelligence – AlphaGo Zero – which has dispensed

If you ask any residents living in Australia’s capital city, the small town of Queanbeyan on the city’s outskirts isn’t exactly how they pictured the future. But a handful of alpaca farmers, artists, and other rural folk are getting a taste of tomorrow by trialling a drone delivery service that will drop off a few

A $US2 million upgrade could soon see the world’s most intense laser crank it up a notch. The laser they call HERCULES (because of course it is) is already currently capable of emitting a terrifying 300 terawatts of power. Clearly in a case of laser envy, a few new parts could see it spit out

Back in May, Google revealed its AutoML project; artificial intelligence (AI) designed to help them create other AIs. Now, Google has announced that AutoML has beaten the human AI engineers at their own game by building machine-learning software that’s more efficient and powerful than the best human-designed systems.   An AutoML system recently broke a

A huge vulnerability in Wi-Fi that fundamentally breaks the security we use to protect our wireless networks has just been exposed. The exploit, revealed on Monday, breaches a newly found vulnerability in WPA2, the security protocol used to safeguard all modern Wi-Fi networks, and researchers say it could violate virtually any Wi-Fi network previously thought

As the unofficial world’s most futuristic city, Dubai sure loves the attention it gets from employing cutting-edge tech such as 3D-printed buildings, hovertaxis, or this incredible Mars simulation city. Now Dubai’s police force, already equipped with little autonomous robocops, is getting another leg up in the law enforcement race with incredibly cool, and somewhat dangerous-looking

If you’re going to make camouflage, may as well copy from the best, and one of the best the world has to offer is our peculiar eight-armed pal the octopus. Engineers have been inspired by the cephalopod’s ability to change the texture and colour of its skin to create a new, programmable material that can

Scientists have discovered a quantum material that could represent the future of artificial intelligence – not because it retains vast amounts of data, but precisely because it doesn’t. The human brain is often singled out as being the most complex and powerful computer that scientists know of, and one of the mechanisms that enables this

Google has received a license from the FCC to deploy its Project Loon balloons over Puerto Rico and parts of the Virgin Islands. Google will be able to provide coverage there until 4 April, 2018. If all goes according to plan, the helium balloons will provide emergency LTE cellular reception to local governments and residents,

A newly developed nanomaterial can release hydrogen from seawater much more cheaply and efficiently than existing methods, potentially giving us another way of unlocking this most sustainable of energy sources. Finding a way to produce hydrogen from water that isn’t prohibitively costly in price and energy could significantly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.  

Ahead of China’s own autonomous train reveal, mining corporation Rio Tinto have given the world its first fully-autonomous train, and it’s currently in operation in Western Australia. Mining corporation Rio Tinto, which also developed the train, announced earlier this week the train had successfully completed its first uncrewed mission, travelling nearly 100 kilometres (62 miles)

Scientists have discovered a way to harvest electricity from the secretions produced by our eyes and several other parts of the body. It’s all thanks to a protein called lysozyme, which generates electricity when it’s put under pressure, and if we can harvest it effectively it could become a new fuel source for all kinds

In a continued streak of goodwill during this year’s devastating hurricane season, Tesla has been shipping hundreds of its Powerwall batteries to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Since the hurricane hit on 20 September, much of the US territory has been left without power – about 97 percent, as of 27 September – hampering residents’

Silicon-based solar cells might soon have had their day in the sun, as researchers find a way to make an emerging alternative stronger for less cost without compromising on efficiency. Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown promise in recent years as the future of solar power technology, only there’s been a catch – to make

We use lithium-ion batteries every day – those rechargeable wonders in our smartphones, laptops, and even a pacemaker if you have one. Having a facility that creates lithium-ion batteries is however incredibly complicated, but now Australia has joined the ranks of countries with a facility capable of producing them.   Researchers from the Queensland University

The human brain is used as a comparison for how computer’s function. But, honestly, computers are nothing like human brains. Not yet, at least. That could change as researchers have developed computing technology that uses light to mimic the functionality of a nerve’s synapse, opening the way for hardware that combines the speed of modern

President Franklin Roosevelt’s aviation chief had a New Deal plan to get everyday Americans up in the air. But he needed help. So Eugene Vidal sparked a competition among the nation’s tinkerers, engineers and aircraft makers. His challenge: build a “rugged, safe and simple” aircraft that would be as easy to drive as a car

Today’s working quantum computers are already more powerful than their traditional computing counterparts, but a pair of researchers from the University of Tokyo think they’ve found a way to make these remarkable machines even more powerful. In a research paper published in Physical Review Letters, Akira Furusawa and Shuntaro Takeda detail their novel approach to

There’s more than one way to build a supercomputer, and researchers have come up with a new method for crunching data on a massive scale: using a type of ‘magic dust’ made from quantum particles called polaritons. These polaritons are half light and half matter, and scientists have been able to demonstrate how they can

Aluminium is already highly prized. It’s conductive, has a low melting point, is very strong when alloyed, is impervious to rust and, above all, it’s extremely light. But what if you could get it lighter – so light, in fact, that it could float on water even when not made into the shape of a

The subsidiary responsible for the ride-hailing app Uber has been told it isn’t considered “fit and proper” so won’t have its license renewed on 30 September. While Uber London Limited can appeal the decision, if the ban goes ahead it will be one of the biggest blows to date for the global technology company, which

Research on political trends over the past two decades has revealed that, while our social media echo chambers might not be helpful, we shouldn’t blame them for the polarisation of society’s politics.  The idea that digital technology both passively and actively shapes our ideologies has made the web an easy scape-goat for widening social divisions,

For the first time ever, scientists have stored light-based information as sound waves on a computer chip – something the researchers compare to capturing lightning as thunder. While that might sound a little strange, this conversion is critical if we ever want to shift from our current, inefficient electronic computers, to light-based computers that move

There are many video game companies around these days, from established names to indie developers. Just when it seems that everyone with the ability to create video games has tried it out, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have introduced a totally new, first of its kind developer. In a research paper published online, the Georgia Tech team

Engineers have modelled the interactions between subatomic components of a complex molecule using a quantum computer, making a significant leap forward in our modelling of chemical reactions. The simulations were carried out by IBM on superconducting hardware, and this milestone just pushed into new territory for what can be achieved using quantum computing.   The

Reddit had a problem. Perhaps more accurately, the Internet has long had a problem, but in 2015 Reddit attempted to do something about their corner of it. Now two years after the popular online community board made a controversial decision to close down some of some of its more hateful spaces, a study has shown

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has said he thinks of augmented reality as a ‘big idea like the smartphone,’ which should give you a sense of how important the iPhone maker thinks AR really is. So it’s no surprise that analysts are expecting to hear big things about Apple’s plans for AR as it looks

Australian researchers have designed a new type of qubit – the building block of quantum computers – that they say will finally make it possible to manufacture a true, large-scale quantum computer. Broadly speaking, there are currently a number of ways to make a quantum computer. Some take up less space, but tend to be

Medical techniques for looking inside our bodies have come a long way, but in the future it looks like doctors may be able to see absolutely everything going on under our skin. Researchers have invented a new kind of camera that can actually see through structures inside the human body, detecting light sources behind as

Perhaps among all clean energy alternatives, nothing can be as clean as hydrogen. Burning hydrogen in fuel cells produces only water as a byproduct. In that sense, it’s also truly renewable. Yet, manufacturing hydrogen fuel cells on a larger scale hasn’t been that easy, primarily because fuel cells require rather complex and, until recently, expensive materials.  

Humans before animals and property. No discrimination as to who should survive. Safeguards against malicious hacking. These are just some of the world-first ethical rules being implemented in Germany regarding how autonomous vehicles are to be programmed.   The federal transport minister Alexander Dobrindt presented a report on automated driving to Germany’s cabinet last month.

North Korea is believed to have conducted a hydrogen bomb test. Seismic shockwaves from the underground test were felt in China, and quickly detected by both South Korea and Japan – both independently confirmed it was a nuclear test. So what can seismic science tell us about such tests?   What is the history of

Gravitational lensing is a curious phenomenon. Not only does it demonstrate properties associated with the invisible dark matter, gravitational lensing is a distortion or bending of spacetime that was one of the predictions in Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Due to their uniqueness and what they can tell us about the universe, astronomers continue to study

They’re calling it laser streaming. No, it’s not a new sport or some Netflix-like pastime. Instead it’s a new observable phenomenon involving fluids and laser beams. Thanks to engineers from the University of Houston (UH) in Texas, we’ve now realised that it’s possible for highly focused, beams of light – aka lasers – to transfer its momentum to create

For years, computer users have been told they should have complicated passwords, including numbers, punctuation marks and other symbols, and upper- and lowercase letters. Despite those being hard to remember, people were told not to write their passwords down, and forced to make up new ones quite frequently. Users dutifully complied – by capitalising the

Spider webs are already strong enough to restrain small insects unlucky enough to fly into them, and soon, they may be capable of carrying the weight of a person. In a new study published in 2D Materials, Nicola Pugno at the University of Trento in Italy and his team detail how they cranked arachnids’ already

If we’re going to have robots acting as tour guides and delivering pizzas then they need to be able to navigate through busy pedestrian environments, and that’s exactly what a new robot built by MIT has been programmed to do. The polite droid even knows the social norms of pedestrian movement, and will overtake on

The 4th International Conference on Quantum Technologies held in Moscow last month was supposed to put the spotlight on Google, who were preparing to give a lecture on a 49-qubit quantum computer they have in the works. A morning talk presented by Harvard University’s Mikhail Lukin, however, upstaged that evening’s event with a small announcement

If you’re hanging out feverishly to find out what happens after this weeks’ drama-filled season seven finale of Game of Thrones, you’re not alone – with the TV show now firmly ahead of the books, fans might have to wait until 2019 to see how George R.R. Martin’s epic saga wraps up. So to give us

Tesla’s Powerwall was intended to provide a convenient way for homeowners to store electricity for future use, such as when the power goes out. But with a US$5,500 price tag, they haven’t been affordable for many consumers. Some who had been interested in the tech, however, decided to try to make their own. It turns

A twisted fibre made of gel-coated carbon nanotubes could be the very thing we need to steal energy from our surroundings that would otherwise go to waste. Threads of a material dubbed “twistron” have already shown incredible promise in the laboratory, but could one day be built into power harvesters that collect the energy equivalent

A Dutch energy company has just embarked on a series of experiments testing the use of molten thorium salts in producing power from nuclear fission, the first of their kind since the early 1970s. It’s still early days, but the use to thorium as an alternative to uranium could provide a cleaner, safer fuel source

The world’s largest manufacturer of rubber bands is making its main product immortal. Alliance Rubber Co., a 94-year-old company based out of Alliance, Ohio, has announced a new partnership with British researchers to infuse graphene into its rubber bands.   The rubber bands could transform how food travels through supply chains, simplify the shipment of