HGTV Green Home 2011 recently received both Platinum LEED certification and Energy Star certification which acknowledges its energy efficiency. With approximately 2400 square feet of finished space, the home meets rigorous standards for sustainable site development, water conservation, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality, proximity to transit and existing infrastructure and innovative design. HGTV… »

A while ago we wrote about folks from Fraunhofer who came up with active packaging that increases shelf life of spoilable products, and their colleagues came up with a way to indicate whether the food on the shelf is already spoiled due to errors which could occur before the food is packaged, or due to… »

Researchers at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) have in collaboration with the Finnish company Multitouch Ltd created a hand and finger gesture controlled microscope. WebMicroscope is a combination of web-based virtual microscopy and a giant-size multitouch display, and it was developed a few years ago by researchers at the universities of Helsinki and… »

Projectors in conference rooms have to be very bright for viewers to easily see the large images even in daylight. So far, light-emitting diode (LED) light sources have been used primarily in pocket projectors, cell phones, or home cinema systems, but the folks from Osram Opto Semiconductors came up with an extremely bright, green LED… »

Two Ryerson University undergraduate biomedical engineering students are developing a prosthetic arm that is controlled by brain signals. The Artificial Muscle-Operated (AMO) Arm is controlled by the user’s brain signals and is powered by ‘artificial muscles’ ( simple pneumatic pumps and valves) to create movements, unlike traditional prosthetic limbs which  rely on complex and expensive… »

Inspired by the herring gull flight, the engineers of Festo’s Bionic Learning Network came up with SmartBird – an ultralight but powerful flight model with excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility. It is capable to take off autonomously and lift-up in the air by means of its flapping wings alone, without the aid of other… »

In our previous articles, we wrote about many modular robots and spoke about their importance in exploration missions. iMobot is an intelligent, reconfigurable modular robot invented by a UC Davis alumnus and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and it is headed for commercial development with the help of a grant from the National… »

One out of eight people in our world don’t have access to drinking water, causing nearly eighty percent of sickness and disease in developing regions. By harnessing the power of the sun, a Monash University graduate has designed Solarball – a simple, sustainable and affordable water-purification device, which has the potential to help eliminate disease… »