Researchers at the University of South Carolina (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering have designed a robot able to outperform humans in identifying a wide range of natural materials simply by sensing their textures. Named BioTac, the sensing technology could enable robots to ‘feel’ the objects they are interacting with, and it could eventually enable advancements… »

An advanced “thin-film” flexible paper computer has been developed in collaboration between the researchers of Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, and Arizona State University, USA. Two variations of the flexible paper computer are going to be unveiled on May 10 at the Association of Computing Machinery’s CHI 2011 (Computer- Human Interaction) conference in Vancouver, Canada…. »

Nearly invisible millimeter-scale systems could enable computing to be used nearly in everything around us, and the researchers from the University of Michigan (U-M) claim that’s the future of the industry. They point to Bell’s Law, which says there’s a new class of smaller, cheaper computers about every decade. They plan to use their miniature… »