Twisting a screwdriver, removing a bottle cap, and peeling a banana are just a few simple tasks that are tricky to pull off single-handedly. Now a new wrist-mounted robot can provide a helping hand — or rather, fingers. Researchers at MIT have developed a robot that enhances the grasping motion of the human hand. The […]
Excitons Observed in Action for the First Time
A quasiparticle called an exciton — responsible for the transfer of energy within devices such as solar cells, LEDs, and semiconductor circuits — has been understood theoretically for decades. But exciton movement within materials has never been directly observed. Now scientists at MIT and the City College of New York have achieved that feat, imaging […]
New Solar-Cell Design Based on Dots and Wires
Using exotic particles called quantum dots as the basis for a photovoltaic cell is not a new idea, but attempts to make such devices have not yet achieved sufficiently high efficiency in converting sunlight to power. A new wrinkle added by a team of researchers at MIT — embedding the quantum dots within a forest […]
How to Predict the Progress of Technology
Researchers at MIT and the Santa Fe Institute have found that some widely used formulas for predicting how rapidly technology will advance — notably, Moore’s Law and Wright’s Law — offer superior approximations of the pace of technological progress. The new research is the first to directly compare the different approaches in a quantitative way, […]
Sterilizing with the Sun
Using sunlight, researchers and students at MIT are trying to change how medical equipment is sterilized in remote clinics — and a pilot project in Nicaragua has begun to show promising results. In that nation, a mostly rural population of six million is served by some 11 hospitals, dozens of health centers, and some 1,300 […]
MIT Researchers Build Quad HD TV Chip
It took only a few years for high-definition televisions to make the transition from high-priced novelty to ubiquitous commodity — and they now seem to be heading for obsolescence just as quickly. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, several manufacturers debuted new ultrahigh-definition, or UHD, models (also known as 4K or Quad HD) […]
Picture-Perfect
Quick, efficient chip cleans up common flaws in amateur photographs. Your smartphone snapshots could be instantly converted into professional-looking photographs with just the touch of a button, thanks to a processor chip developed at MIT. The chip, built by a team at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory, can perform tasks such as creating more realistic or […]
‘Invisible’ Particles Could Enhance Thermoelectric Devices
Thermoelectric devices — which can either generate an electric current from a difference in temperature or use electricity to produce heating or cooling without moving parts — have been explored in the laboratory since the 19th century. In recent years, their efficiency has improved enough to enable limited commercial use, such as in cooling systems […]
The Right’s Resistance to Regulation
James Watt, who served as Secretary of the Interior from 1981 to 1983, is remembered primarily for a short, business-friendly tenure that ended with his resignation soon after an ill-judged remark about women, minorities and the disabled. And yet, as MIT professor Judith Layzer observes in her new book about environmental politics, “Open for Business,” […]