Japan Is Building A Giant Robotic Lettuce Factory

Indoor lettuce-growing is in vogue. And it’s being taken over by robots.In 2016, Japanese vegetable production company Spread plans (pdf) to begin building a lettuce ...

How Automating Evolution Could Give Machines Imaginations.

Imagine if, decades from now, a computer spat out a brilliant design for a vehicle so novel that we humans have no choice but to call it an act of imagination. One day, Uni...

This Animator-Turned-Roboticist Is Making A Universal Language For Robots

“Robot Animator creates a new interface inside Autodesk Maya that’s specific to robotics,” Flessas told me. The software simplifies robotic programming fo...

Physicists Set a New Speed Record For Light-Emitting Quantum Dots

Researchers at Duke University have developed a light-emitting device that can be switched on and off up to 90 billion times per second. This 90 GHz is roughly twice the sp...

Robots Are Going To Learn To Play Jazz.

As the band gets into their groove, the guitarist gets ready to rip a solo he’s practiced for endless hours. The crowd knows he’ll pull it off perfectly. That&r...

Paging Dr. Watson: IBM Supercomputer Gains Access To 30 Billion Medical Images

IBM’s Watson supercomputer (and “Jeopardy!” winner) will be processing a lot of broken limbs and tumors in its ultimate quest for sentience. The company a...

How Bioengineered Bacteria Could Give Robots A Living Brain

Imagine a future where robots with organic brains could be controlled through their microbiome. That might become reality, if researchers at Virginia Tech can transfer thei...

Techno-Visionaries And The Philosopher’s Stone

“I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.”

– Kurt Vonnegut Read More

These Tiny Starfish Robots Take Colon Biopsies

Starfish are awesome sea creatures with regenerative arms and eye spots at the end of each arm that can sense light and dark. In the robot world, their quirky design has in...