A new breed of algorithms has mastered Atari video games 10 times faster than state-of-the-art AI, with a breakthrough approach to problem solving. Designing AI that can negotiate planning problems, especially those where rewards are not immediately obvious, is one of the most important research challenges in advancing the field. A famous 2015 study showed […]
Solution for Next Generation Nanochips Comes out of Thin Air
Researchers at RMIT University have engineered a new type of transistor, the building block for all electronics. Instead of sending electrical currents through silicon, these transistors send electrons through narrow air gaps, where they can travel unimpeded as if in space. The device unveiled in material sciences journal Nano Letters, eliminates the use of any semiconductor […]
Snooze Mobiles: How Vibrations In Cars Make Drivers Sleepy
New research has found the natural vibrations of cars make people sleepier, affecting concentration and alertness levels just 15 minutes after drivers get behind the wheel. With about 20 per cent of fatal road crashes involving driver fatigue, researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, hope their findings can be used by manufacturers to improve […]
Golden Touch: Next-Gen Optical Disk To Solve Data Storage Challenge
Scientists from Australia and China have drawn on the durable power of gold to demonstrate a new type of high-capacity optical disk that can hold data securely for more than 600 years. The technology could offer a more cost-efficient and sustainable solution to the global data storage problem while enabling the critical pivot from Big […]
All Power To The Proton: RMIT Researchers Make Battery Breakthrough
Researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia have demonstrated for the first time a working rechargeable “proton battery” that could re-wire how we power our homes, vehicles and devices. The rechargeable battery is environmentally friendly, and has the potential, with further development, to store more energy than currently-available lithium ion batteries. Potential applications for the […]
Clever Coating Opens Door To Smart Windows
Researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia have developed a new ultra-thin coating that responds to heat and cold, opening the door to “smart windows”. The self-modifying coating, which is a thousand times thinner than a human hair, works by automatically letting in more heat when it’s cold and blocking the sun’s rays when it’s […]
World’s Thinnest Hologram Paves Path To New 3-D World
An Australian-Chinese research team has created the world’s thinnest hologram, paving the way towards the integration of 3D holography into everyday electronics like smart phones, computers and TVs. Interactive 3D holograms are a staple of science fiction – from Star Wars to Avatar – but the challenge for scientists trying to turn them into reality […]
Bio-Inspired Energy Storage: A New Light For Solar Power
Inspired by an American fern, researchers have developed a groundbreaking prototype that could be the answer to the storage challenge still holding solar back as a total energy solution. The new type of electrode created by researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, could boost the capacity of existing integrable storage technologies by 3000 per […]
Towards the T-1000: Liquid Metals Propel Future Electronics
Science fiction is inching closer to reality with the development of revolutionary self-propelling liquid metals — a critical step towards future elastic electronics. While building a shape-shifting liquid metal T-1000 Terminator may still be far on the horizon, the pioneering work by researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, is setting the foundation for moving […]
Stormy Space Weather Puts Equatorial Regions’ Power At Risk
Dr Brett Carter of the RMIT SPACE Research Centre and his team from RMIT, Boston College and Dartmouth College, found that these equatorial electrical disruptions threaten power grids in Southeast Asia, India, Africa and South America, where protecting electricity infrastructure from space shocks has not been a priority. “Massive space weather events have crashed power […]