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Researchers say new development could give artificial skin a wider range of senses
We've seen a number of efforts to build a better artificial skin, or "e-skin," over the years, and a team of researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology now say they've made a breakthrough that could lead to some of the most sensitive e-skin yet. The key development is a new type of flexible sensor that would not only allow the artificial skin to detect touch, but humidity and temperature as well. Those sensors are comprised of gold-based nanoparticles that are just five to eight nanometers in diameter and laid on top of a substrate -- in their research, the scientists used PET, the type of plastic you'd normally find in soda bottles. That substrate conducts electricity differently depending on the way it is bent, which means researchers can adjust its sensitivity just by increasing its thickness. As you might expect, this is all still in the early stages, but the researchers see plenty of possibilities for the future, from bringing a sense of touch to artificial limbs to using the same technology to monitor stress on bridges.
Negative radiation pressure in light could make some tractor beams real, we're already sucked in
Developing a real, working tractor beam has regularly been an exercise in frustration: it often relies on brute force attempts to induce a magnetic link or an air pressure gap, either of which falls a bit short of science fiction-level elegance. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's Mordechai Segev has a theory that would use the subtler (though not entirely movie-like) concept of negative radiation pressure in light to move objects. By using materials that have a negative refraction index, where the light photons and their overall wave shape move in opposite directions, Segev wants to create a sweet spot where negative radiation pressure exists and an object caught in the middle can be pushed around. His early approach would use extremely thin crystals stacked in layers to manipulate the refraction. As it's theorized, the technology won't be pulling in the Millennium Falcon anytime soon -- the millimeters-wide layer intervals dictate the size of what can be pulled. Nonetheless, even the surgery-level tractor beams that Segev hopes will ultimately stem from upcoming tests would bring us much closer to the future that we've always wanted.
Intel funnels $40 million into global network of research laboratories
Like any tech company worth its weight in silicon, Intel puts plenty of cash into research, often partnering with outside labs and schools that are less concerned with turning every project into a multi-billion dollar product. After throwing $30 million at Carnegie Mellon last year to open two new labs, Chipzilla is investing $40 million more in a global network of university research centers. Over the next five years that money will be rolled out to what the company is calling, Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI). The ICRI are based on the same premise as Intel's Science and Technology Centers, like those opened at Mellon, except with a global reach. Two existing labs, the Intel Visual Computing Institute at Saarland University and the Intel-NTU Connected Context Computing Center at National Taiwan University are being rolled into the program. In addition, three new centers are being opened up, including ICRIs for Sustainable Connected Cities in the United Kingdom, Secure Computing at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and Computational Intelligence at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. For more info on what sort or work they'll be doing at the various labs check out the PR after the break.
