Science

Roche has announced a new rapid COVID-19 test kit for at-home use, taking on testing stalwarts like Abbott or the numerous Chinese companies that offer rapid antigen tests you can buy from the pharmacy or retail locations. The new Roche COVID-19 At-Home Test displayed very good accuracy and was granted FDA Emergency Use authorization for mass production of tens of millions of units as soon as this month.

A partnership between the Technion Institute of Technology and the Sheba Medical Center has successfully biofabricated a human auricle with a 3D-printed scaffold and cartilage grown from the patient's own cells. So far, children with microtia have had to undergo painful costal cartilage grafts and wait until age 10 to have their undeveloped ears surgically reconstructed. The 3D-printed prosthetic ear method can be used from age six and is much less invasive.

It has been discovered that you can hack some at-home COVID-19 lateral flow tests via Bluetooth. This flaw would allow you to modify your test result. However, the problem has now been resolved, ensuring that you cannot alter the outcome of your test.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology have developed the world's first color OLED microdisplay with ultra low power consumption. Those can be used for information we need right in front of our eyes at all times, like with smart glasses and other wearables, but have so far all been monochrome. By cutting the pixel size in half and utilizing CMOS technology, the Fraunhofer scientists have managed to deliver an OLED microdisplay that can show a mixture of green and red colors for the first time.

Samsung and IBM have come to the ongoing IEDM 2021 International Electronic Components Conference to unveil the vertical transport field effect transistor (VTFET). It is a new property of potential next-gen chipsets that, as the two OEMs assert, might one day help build a smartphone that can last up to seven days on one charge.

Xiaomi has now announced the debut of its new battery technology. The company promises that the new high-silicon lithium batteries will deliver 10% more capacity at the same volumes as current lith-ion units. Mass production isn't that far off either.

Food science researchers have managed to whip up a concoction of soy protein isolate, emulsifiers, starches, and other plant-based ingredients to achieve "superior 3D printing performance" of plant-based meat dough. Their secret ingredient seems to have been the use of cocoa butter that finally made the patties flow, while the efforts to 3D-print substitute meat with pea protein have been futile. The researchers added shiitake powder to achieve the taste and say the meat replacement has as much protein as chicken.

The Chinese moon rover has been exploring the South Pole–Aitken basin crater on the dark side of the Moon ever since it became the first spacecraft to land there back in 2019. Recently, it snapped a photo of a mysterious "cube" on the edge of the crater that Chinese media were quick to call a "mystery hut." China's lunar rover is heading to investigate the strange object further, but a scientist has managed to confirm that the "moon hut" might be just a rock, judging from images of the area snapped by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Using biomimicry to replicate how birds land on tree branches and balance there, Stanford researchers have managed to create SNAG, the Stereotyped Nature-Inspired Aerial Grasper, which can fly like a quadcopter but land like a peregrine falcon. SNAG is not your average drone but a robotic bird that can grasp branches of various forms and textures with its 3D-printed legs, motors for muscles, and fishing line for tendons. The end goal is to conserve battery while filming or surveying an area by perching instead of hovering all the time.

The Thanksgiving weekend has been transformed into a full-blown crisis over at SpaceX by an Elon Musk "all hands on deck" email. The production snags for the new Starship Raptor engines turned out to be more severe than previously thought, putting the launch of the new Starlink satellites in jeopardy. These are the ones that are supposed to make Starlink profitable, and Elon Musk warns that the Starship has to fly at least twice a month next year to keep SpaceX afloat.

A living 'microbial ink' has been developed by a research team at Harvard University and Harvard Medical school, which can be 3D printed. One of the living materials generated from the ink has been designed to release an anti-cancer drug on demand.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD, one of the leading research centers in visual computing computer science based on images and 3D models, has 3D-printed a prosthetic eye. Using its proprietary Cuttlefish: Eye software and 3D-printing technology, the scientists have managed to create models in a fraction of the time typically needed for fitting one. Fraunhofer's new technology will undergo clinical trials in the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, where 40 patients will get 3D-printed prosthetic eyes.

The Canadian Department of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development will follow the example of its US counterparts and will restrict 5G connectivity where planes take off and land. The move will affect 26 Canadian airports where mid-band 5G antennas will be banned outdoors but allowed inside the airport buildings. The restrictions come as the potential for 5G signal interference with a plane altimeter can not be ruled out with absolute certainty, claims ISED.

Austrian fire truck manufacturer Rosenbaum has developed a new high-pressure nozzle to solve the problem of expensive EV battery fire accidents. The process now involves dousing the electric car with water for hours, creating toxic runoff. The new nozzle pierces the battery pack housing, putting out the burning cells directly.

The Eagle processor is essentially doubling the number of qubits from last year's Hummingbird model that integrates 65 qubits. Featuring several layers of circuitry that improve the quantum coherence, the Eagle is now able to execute concurrent real-time classical compute workloads. IBM plans to release a 443-qubit model in 2022 and then break the 1000-qubit barrier by 2023.

Nissan and Verizon have developed a project to improve driver safety. Sensors detect potential emerging hazards from visual obstructions. The sensory data is processed by Verizon's 5G Edge and rapid alerts can be communicated to the driver.

Researchers at Lancaster University were able to transmit useful digital data by manipulating the neutron field around radioactive Californium-252. The research could have an impact on future wireless technologies that aren't dampened by walls and other hard surfaces.

Rivian, an electric car maker touted as a competitor to Tesla and supported by the likes of Facebook and Amazon, recently hit a US$100 billion valuation on the stock market, despite the fact that the company has only ever manufactured and delivered 150 vehicles to customers so far.

A research project by scientists at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute indicates that lithium-ion batteries made from recycled and recovered components could last up to 50 percent longer than those made from "new" materials, potentially encouraging manufacturers to focus more on greener battery options.

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke briefly about his personal interest in cryptocurrency at a New York Times press event, stating that he personally owns crypto as part of his investment portfolio. However, he confirmed that Apple would not be accepting crypto as a payment method anytime soon.

The US$150,000 research project could answer significant questions about just how durable current generation 3D-printed parts can be in extreme situations.

AMD has now formally introduced the new Instinct line of accelerators, touting them as the first kind of GPU rated for exascale performance. This may render them equal to the demands of next-gen research-class computing. The new MI200 series may do so through an inaugural multi-die design, CDNA2 architecture and compatibility with EPYC processors for potential

A team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines has created a mathematical framework to make robots cognizant of how their actions impact others.

Combining high-repetition femtosecond laser inscription with silica glass materials, researchers came up with a palm-size 5D medium that can store up to 500 TB. In addition to the three spatial dimensions, researchers also use solitons and the strength of retardance of the nanolamellar structures etched with the lasers as fourth and fifth dimensions, respectively.

A team of students from Swiss universities has developed a feline robot. The Dyana project has combined animatronics and 3D printing to create a cat-like character that moves in a feline way.

The remote-controlled quadrupedal robots could serve as watchdogs, since their four-legged design offers some specific advantages in comparison to robots that are equipped with wheels. Fans of the video game series Battlefield and its newest entry Battlefield 2042 may already be familiar with this concept.

NFC is a popular form of casual data transfer between compatible devices, and can also be used as a form of wireless charging as well. This is typically done using the NFC WLC standard, which allows for low-wattage power delivery over a specific frequency. Now, NuCurrent claims its latest development improves on those specs, for improved charging and data-transfer speeds.

MIT and BASF have teamed up to create an open-source AI algorithm that significantly speeds up the development of new materials for 3D printing with niche characteristics.

The nascent Li-Metal battery technology that allows for 500 miles (800km) of range on a charge has won the heart (and a $100 million investment) of Hyundai for the next Ioniq models built on the E-GMP platform.

Google’s AI department was recently hit by a class-action lawsuit in the UK, because of possible irregularities in the way that it received and handled the data of over 1.6 million NHS patients from the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

A research team at The California Institute of Technology has built a robot with hybrid walking and flying movement. The robot can carry out manoeuvres such as flying to avoid stairs and skateboarding.

The upcoming project would allow the Raspberry Pi to become a mobile laboratory device that can analyze and determine certain measurements of liquids like the quality and adulteration of olive oil.

U.S. and South Korean RISC-V researchers managed to make Nvidia's CUDA code compatible with non-Nvidia hardware. It is quite the achievement considering AMD and Intel have not yet pursued such a solution. The RISC-V-based Vortex GPGPU essentially translates CUDA code into OpenCL instructions through the RISC-V library.

Motorola has introduced its latest development in completely wireless method of keeping mobile-device powered as "Space Charging". The OEM has now condensed this next-gen technology into a desktop transmitter rated to send up to 5 watts (W) of power over an increased amount of open space to a compatible smartphone.

A confidential slide shown during a recent Samsung presentation has revealed that the company is targeting a 2025 timeframe for producing a 576 MP camera sensor. Samsung has already announced its plans to eventually release a sensor that can beat out the human eye resolution perception of 500 MP.

The future could belong to quantum computers, but the current qubit architectures seem to have issues in the scalability and reliability departments. AMD is offering a solution to these shortcomings and proposes a new model based on quantum teleportation that integrates SIMD regions. This approach reduces the number of needed qubits for certain computations, while improving overall stability.

New information tips Chinese smartphone makers, Xiaomi, to adopt a 1/1.5-inch 50 MP camera that will displace the 64 MP Sony IMX686 as its CMOS sensor of choice. This move ensures that better camera performance will trickle down to the company's cheaper smartphones.

A single CS-2 chip with 850,000 cores can now process 120 trillion parameter AI models that are more complex than the human brain with its 100 trillion synapses. This is made possible through the introduction of the MemoryX cabinets that come with up to 2.4 PB of flash+DRAM memory, and Cerebras also offers a scaling solution that allows up to 192 CS-2-based systems to interconnect through the SwarmX fabric for a total of 163.2 million core processing power.

Tesla has held a 2021 AI Day virtual conference, during which the company has apparently confirmed many predictions of a future in which jobs involving manual labor will no longer be a thing. This, according to Elon Musk, is because his company's Bot will take over from humans in doing them. This new machine may be one of the most convincing anthropomorphic automatons yet.

Samsung has launched its latest high-end wearables, the Galaxy Watch4 series, today (August 11, 2021). These new smartwatches incorporate the cutting-edge sensors for health metrics that include blood pressure and advanced sleep tracking as might be expected from the OEM. However, they have something new as well: body-composition sensing that apparently rivals industry-standard equipment.

Xiaomi introduced a new Mi Mix, Mi Pad and Mi TVs during its August 2021 product event. However, the OEM also had something much less expected to unveil at the end of this show: an apparently fully-functional, well-spec'd robot dog. The company might even put this groundbreaking product on sale soon.

AMOLED and UIs with dark modes have skyrocketed in popularity in the smartphone market over the years, mainly based on the idea that both are easier on battery life, particularly when combined. A new study published by Purdue University engineers question this rationale, albeit under certain conditions only.

The innovative biofuel cells are capable of converting sweat and the pressure from your fingertips into electric energy, which could soon be enough to power smartwatches and other wearables and sensors. In the long term, this invention could also make integrated batteries obsolete.

Engineers from Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have reported a new world record for data-transmission speed over fiber-optic cables. They claim a rate of 319 terabits per second (Tb/s), as opposed to the former highest rate of 178 Tb/s. Most crucially, this achievement has been made over an appreciable length of cable and a potentially feasible tweak of conventional technology.

An engineer associated with the OEM Huawei has documented the design and creation of an electric bicycle. However, unlike the vast majority of these devices, this one is rated to propel and balance itself, thanks to a complex system of sensors and processing power, apparently modelled after similar breakthroughs in self-driving cars and satellite tech.

As the coronavirus pandemic is hopefully nearing its end, many people around the globe are fighting the long-term effects after overcoming a COVID-19 infection. According to a new study, wearables like the Apple Watch can help with diagnosing and treating these persistent symptoms.

Unlike Google's 53-qubit Sycamore quantum supercomputer that is based on electrons and superconductors, the latest Chinese achievement in the field dubbed Zuchongzhi can process 66 qubits and is based on optical circuits and photons.

Programmer 8-bit Show And Tell managed to mod his 1 MHz Commodore 64 to mine Bitcoin. This is a remarkable feat for hardware that's close to 40 years old. However, at 0.3 H/s, the system will take nearly a billion years, just to turn a profit of US$10.