Emerging Technologies News #15

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1. Autonomous vehicles can be tricked into dangerous driving behavior

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have found that autonomous vehicles can be tricked into an abrupt halt or other undesired driving behavior by the placement of an ordinary object on the side of the road.

2. AI helps to track health of coral reefs by learning "song of the reef"

A new research shows that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can track the health of coral reefs by learning the "song of the reef".

3. This drug-delivering gel will be useful for People who hate swallowing Pills or Tablets.

For most children and even some adults, swallowing pills or tablets is difficult. To make it easier to give those medicines, researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have created a drug-delivering gel that is much easier to swallow and could be used to administer a variety of different kinds of drugs.

4. Low-Cost Gel Film Can Pluck Drinking Water From Desert Air

Scientists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a low-cost gel film made of abundant materials that can pull water from the air in even the driest climates.

5. Tiny robotic crab is smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot

Northwestern University engineers have developed the smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot — and it comes in the form of a tiny, adorable peekytoe crab.

6. Walmart is expanding its Drone Delivery to 4 Million U.S. Households in Partnership with DroneUp

Walmart has announced that they are expanding their DroneUp delivery network to 34 sites by the end the year, providing the potential to reach 4 million U.S. households across six states.

7. Haptics device creates realistic virtual textures

Computer scientists have created a user-driven haptics search that can generate dead-ringers for real world textures.

8. Artificial intelligence predicts patients’ race from their medical images

Researchers demonstrated that medical AI systems can easily learn to recognize racial identity in medical images, and that this capability is extremely difficult to isolate or mitigate.

9. Low-cost battery-like device absorbs CO2 emissions while it charges?

Researchers have developed a low-cost device that can selectively capture carbon dioxide gas while it charges. Then, when it discharges, the CO2 can be released in a controlled way and collected to be reused or disposed of responsibly.

The supercapacitor device, which is similar to a rechargeable battery, is the size of a two-pence coin, and is made in part from sustainable materials including coconut shells and seawater.

10. Fighting antibiotic resistance using intestinal viruses

Thousands of intestinal viruses have now been mapped. And they can be used to fight antibiotic resistance.

A new method developed at the University of Copenhagen has been used to identify more than 1,000 different types of bactericidal viruses in the human intestines. The researchers behind the new study believe the discovery may help fight antibiotic resistance.

11. Researchers use artificial intelligence to help autonomous vehicles avoid idling at red lights.

In a new study, MIT researchers demonstrate a machine-learning approach that can learn to control a fleet of autonomous vehicles as they approach and travel through a signalized intersection in a way that keeps traffic flowing smoothly.

12. Solar-powered desalination device wins MIT $100K competition

The winner of this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is commercializing a new water desalination technology.

Nona Desalination says it has developed a device capable of producing enough drinking water for 10 people at half the cost and with 1/10th the power of other water desalination devices.

13. Extraterrestrial stone "Hypatia" brings first supernova clues to Earth

New chemistry ‘forensics’ indicate that the stone named Hypatia from the Egyptian desert could be the first tangible evidence found on Earth of a supernova type Ia explosion. These rare supernovas are some of the most energetic events in the universe.

14. Algae-powered computing: scientists create reliable and renewable biological photovoltaic cell

Researchers have used a widespread species of blue-green algae to power a microprocessor continuously for a year - and counting - using nothing but ambient light and water. Their system has potential as a reliable and renewable way to power small devices.

15. China's TCab Tech tests transition flights with half-scale E20 eVTOL demonstrator

China's TCab Tech has released footage of its transition flight test using its half-scale E20 eVTOL demonstrator.

The E20 50% subscale demonstrator features a 6-m wingspan, two lift propellers and four tilt propellers.

Being the first passenger-carrying eVTOL company in China with a vectored thrust configuration, the 50%-subscale demonstrator is by far one of the largest eVTOL demonstrators currently flown in China.

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