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Robotics

Beyond mimicry: Fiber-type artificial muscles outperform biological muscles

Biological muscles act as flexible actuators, generating force naturally and with an impressive range of motion. Unsurprisingly, scientists and engineers have been striving to build artificial muscles that mimic these abilities. ...

Business

Exploring how negative electricity prices influence consumer behavior

In some cases, and for limited periods, energy suppliers can generate more energy than is needed, which can lead to so-called negative prices. This is typically observed in wind and solar energy, for instance, during particularly ...

Energy & Green Tech

Molecular fine-tuning boosts tandem solar cell efficiency to 31.4%

Perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells are considered a key technology for photovoltaics. Because of their design, they use sunlight more efficiently than conventional silicon cells. While the upper perovskite layer absorbs ...

Engineering

Organic solar cells achieve 20.02% efficiency with new giant acceptors

A research team has developed novel giant acceptors with an oxygenated linker, enabling the creation of highly efficient nonhalogenated-processed organic solar cells (OSCs), with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up ...

Technology news

Computer Sciences

New system efficiently explains AI judgments in real-time

A research team led by Professor Jaesik Choi of KAIST's Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI, in collaboration with KakaoBank Corp, has developed an accelerated explanation technology that can explain the basis of an artificial ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Can AI be a good creative partner?

What generative AI typically does best—recognize patterns and predict the next step in a sequence—can seem fundamentally at odds with the intangibility of human creativity and imagination. However, Cambridge researchers ...

Engineering

New window insulation blocks heat, but not your view

Physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have designed a new material for insulating windows that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide—and it works a bit like a high-tech version of Bubble ...

Energy & Green Tech

Simple teflon coating boosts hydrogen production efficiency by 40%

A common non-stick coating used in cookware has been shown to enhance hydrogen production efficiency in water electrolyzers by approximately 40%. The key innovation involves applying a specialized coating to critical components ...

Computer Sciences

AI can pick up cultural values by mimicking how kids learn

Artificial intelligence systems absorb values from their training data. The trouble is that values differ across cultures. So an AI system trained on data from the entire internet won't work equally well for people from different ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Fairness in AI: Study shows central role of human decision-making

AI-supported recommender systems should provide users with the best possible suggestions for their inquiries. These systems often have to serve different target groups and take other stakeholders into account who also influence ...

Business

Make your own Mickey Mouse clip—Disney embraces AI

Walt Disney and OpenAI announced a three-year licensing deal Thursday that will allow users to create short videos featuring beloved Disney characters through artificial intelligence.

Electronics & Semiconductors

AI's $400 bn problem: Are chips getting old too fast?

In pursuit of the AI dream, the tech industry this year has plunked down about $400 billion on specialized chips and data centers, but questions are mounting about the wisdom of such unprecedented levels of investment.

Software

Seamless tech: 'OriStitch' threads computation and 3D textiles

Could a flat piece of fabric hold a 3D shape, the way paper does in origami? Aiming to find out, researchers from the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science developed OriStitch, a new software ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Residential solar panels can raise electricity rates

A modeling study shows how, under some conditions, increasing numbers of households with rooftop solar panels can lead to higher rates for those without their own solar system. When utility customers cancel their accounts ...

Business

EU launches antitrust probe into Google's data use for AI

The EU announced Tuesday it had opened a probe to assess whether Google breached antitrust rules by using content put online by media and other publishers to train and provide AI services without appropriate compensation.