Universal computer memory that’s both super-fast and energy efficient is one step closer to reality after scientists built an “extremely” stable prototype using a completely new material. The new material, dubbed “GST467,” which contains germanium, antimony and terbium, was used as one repeating layer in a stacked-layer structure, known as a superlattice, and could pave … Read more
Very soon, a robot surgeon may begin its practice in orbit — and though it won’t quite be a metallic, humanoid machine wearing a white coat and holding a scalpel, its mission is fascinating nonetheless. On Tuesday (Jan. 30), scientists sent a slew of innovative experiments to the International Space Station (ISS) via Northrop Grumman’s … Read more
A malicious technology can trick self-driving cars into “hallucinating” phantom vehicles and veering dangerously off-course to get out of their way, researchers have discovered. The new hack, dubbed “MadRadar,” can also hide real cars from on-vehicle radar sensors and fool a self-driving car into thinking a real car has jerked off course. The scientists reported … Read more
Chinese scientists have built a nuclear battery that can produce power for up to 50 years without being recharged. The technology, which contains a radioactive isotope, or version of nickel, as its power source, will be the first of its kind available for general purchase, Betavolt representatives said on Jan. 8 in a translated statement. … Read more
Quantum computers could beat classical ones at answering practical questions within two years, a new experiment from IBM computers shows. The demonstration hints that true quantum supremacy, in which quantum computers overtake classical digital ones, could be here surprisingly soon. “These machines are coming,” Sabrina Maniscalco, CEO of Helsinki-based quantum-computing startup Algorithmiq, told Nature News. … Read more
Geologists in northern Guatemala have discovered a massive Maya site that stretches approximately 650 square miles (1,700 square kilometers) and dates to the Middle and Late Preclassic period (roughly 1000 B.C. to 250 B.C.). The findings were the result of an aerial survey that researchers conducted via airplane using lidar (light detection and ranging), in … Read more
As a boy, Shuhei Komatsu loved Star Wars movies, especially the lightning-fast land speeders. So when he grew up, he decided to make one of his own, he said. “I wanted to make something from the movie real,” Komatsu said. “It’s a land speeder for the Dark Side.” On Wednesday, he and his AERWINS Technologies … Read more
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, technology was way cooler than it is in our reality: Commercial spaceships bending space-time to cross galaxies in seconds; autonomous androids capable of translating any language on the fly, or leaving a battlefield in ruin; deadly swords of plasma that fit comfortably under your bathrobe. … Read more
In internet history, credit for the initial concept that developed into the World Wide Web is typically given to Leonard Kleinrock. In 1961, he wrote about ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet, in a paper entitled “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets.” According to the journal Management and Business Review (MBR), Kleinrock, along with other … Read more
The mysterious Antikythera mechanism, thought by some to be the world’s first computer, was first “started up” on Dec. 22, 178 B.C., archaeologists have now found. Discovered by sponge divers in a Roman-era shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, the elaborate ancient computer, which looks like a shoebox-size contraption with gears and … Read more
