The little robotic waiter wheels up to the table, raises its glass lid to reveal a steaming plate of local Shanghai-style crayfish and announces in low, mechanical tones, “Enjoy your meal.” The futuristic restaurant concept is the latest initiative in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s push to modernise service and retail in a country where robotics…
(phys.org) A team of researchers at the University of California has developed a novel kind of neural network—one that uses light instead of electricity to arrive at results. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their ideas, their working device, its performance, and the types of applications they believe could be…
(From phys.org) Harvard University researchers are using physics to solve one of the biggest challenges in designing light-weight, long-lasting batteries: how to squeeze more energy into less space. Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Physics have developed a tunable, electrochemical system that can…
(From phys.org) Molecules that are involved in photosynthesis exhibit the same quantum effects as non-living matter, concludes an international team of scientists including University of Groningen theoretical physicist Thomas la Cour Jansen. This is the first time that quantum mechanical behavior was proven to exist in biological systems that are involved in photosynthesis. The interpretation…
(From phys.org) Yale physicists have uncovered hints of a time crystal—a form of matter that “ticks” when exposed to an electromagnetic pulse—in the last place they expected: a crystal you might find in a child’s toy. The discovery means there are now new puzzles to solve, in terms of how time crystals form in the…
(From phys.org) Nuclear power plants typically run either at full capacity or not at all. Yet the plants have the technical ability to adjust to the changing demand for power and thus better accommodate sources of renewable energy such as wind or solar power. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory…
Peter Grünberg, a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist who discovered how to store vast amounts of data by manipulating the magnetic and electrical fields of thin layers of atoms, making possible devices like the iPad and the smartphone, has died at 78. His death was announced by the Juelich Research Center in Juelich, Germany, where he was a…
(From phys.org) In theory, what a concept. Augmented reality and virtual reality experiences right here right now. Commented TechSpot‘s Shawn Knight: “It’s an exciting time, especially for those that have grown tired of existing experiences. From a design and interactive standpoint, everything will be new again with VR / AR… assuming of course that these…
(From phys.org) When the Universe arose some 13.7 billion years ago, the Big Bang generated matter and antimatter particles in mirroring pairs. So the reigning physics theory goes. Yet everything we can see in the Cosmos today, from the smallest insect on Earth to the largest star, is made of matter particles whose antimatter twins…
(from theguardian.com) Want to freak yourself out? I’m going to show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it. Google knows where you’ve been Google stores your location (if you have location tracking turned on) every time you turn on your phone. You…