Many plants are heliotropic, gradually tilting towards the sun to optimize solar energy capture. Current sun-tracking solar panels involve the use of motors and electronic control systems, but we believe a biomimetic heliotropic solar panel can be created with the use of alternative materials and designs. Practically, the heliotropic solar panel could be useful in… »

A number of robotic fish are going to be used in an experiment in the port of Gijon in Spain in order to evaluate how effectively and cost-efficiently they can detect water pollution. The carp-shaped robots are part of a three-year research project of Huosheng Hu and his robotics team at the School of Computer… »

iVisit is a Santa Monica based technology company focused on delivering high fidelity unified communication and collaboration solutions for the consumer, enterprise, and healthcare markets. Their product iVisit Rx telemedicine platform won first place in the Fourth Annual CTIA Emerging Technologies (E-Tech) Awards in the Healthcare category. They presented several projects which help in telemedicine… »

AccuVein applies advanced technologies to important healthcare challenges. AccuVein AV300 is the world’s first hand-held, non-contact vein illumination device that helps healthcare professionals locate hard-to-find veins. IV starts and blood draws (venipuncture) can be a source of patient anxiety and discomfort, and accessing veins in difficult patients can take up to 10 minutes and require… »

The students which made RoboSwift based the project on the findings of their supervisor, David Lentink of Wageningen University. In April 2007, with several co-authors he published a about the aerodynamic properties of the swift. During its lifetime, single swift flies a distance comparable to five roundtrips to the Moon and can remain in the… »

A team from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia said that by harnessing nanoparticles and a “polarization” dimension to existing technology, storage can be massively boosted without changing the size of a current disc. For the first time researchers from the university’s Centre for Micro-Photonics have demonstrated how nanotechnology can enable the creation of ‘five… »

Cecilia Laschi, of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, and her colleagues are attempting to build a robot with arms that work in the same way that octopuses’ tentacles do. Having no solid skeleton, it will be the world’s first entirely soft robot. Their goal is to use the knowledge related to the principles that give… »

Fukitorimushi is an autonomous floor-cleaning robot that crawls like an inchworm and uses a super-absorbent nanofiber cloth to wipe up microscopic dust and residue that ordinary vacuums leave behind. Unveiled at the recent Tokyo Fiber Senseware (page in Japanese language) exposition in Milan, Fukitorimushi (scrubbing bug) is designed by Panasonic and incorporates nanofiber technology developed… »