smart

Biomedical engineers are unveiling a new type of fabric that, much like human skin, can turn excess sweat into droplets that simply fall away on their own accord.

"We intentionally did not use any fancy microfabrication techniques so it is compatible with the textile manufacturing process and very easy to scale up," said Siyuan Xing in a school news release. Xing is the lead biomedical engineering student on the project at the University of California, Davis.

An article in the journal Lab on a Chip describes the fabric's microfluidic platform. Multiple woven threads suck droplets of water … Read more

After researching a device that draws energy from knee movement, some mechanical engineering students at Rice University decided to see if they could get the same result from another, less intrusive wearable item: a shoe.

With help from the Movement Analysis Laboratory at Shriners Hospital for Children in Houston, the resulting PediPower shoes harness energy from the force of the heel hitting the ground. The prototype -- while admittedly big, unattractive, and impractical to wear 100 percent of the time (think sleeping, showering, etc.) -- demonstrates that the simple act of walking may one day power a wide range of … Read more

Allure Energy sued Nest Labs yesterday, claiming that the company's much-celebrated Nest Learning Thermostat infringed on its patent.

Filing the suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the Austin, Texas-based Allure alleged that its patent for the invention of an "Auto-adaptable energy management apparatus" trumped Nest's right to develop, market, and sell a smart thermostat.

Allure said it first began designing its product, which is known as EverSense, in 2009, and filed it patent application in 2010. The company said in a release that it also got a patent for &… Read more

Every time one of the tech giants holds its developers conference, the blogs tend to cycle through all the rumors we've heard associated with a company, like say Google, in the immediate lead up to an event, like say Google I/O.

In the past few weeks we've been hearing about new Nexus tablets, super smartphones and of course, some major software updates. But now that it's down to the wire, it's time to get crazy. Time to dust off that Google smartwatch rumor we first heard in March and throw it against the side of the Moscone Center to see if it's still sticking around by the end of the week.… Read more

Android dominated the global smart mobile device market in the first quarter, according to a new report from Canalys.

That market -- which combines smartphones, tablets, and notebooks -- hit 308.7 million units in the first quarter, representing year-on-year growth of 37.4 percent, according to Canalys, which released the report on Thursday.

By operating system market share, Android was on top with 59.5 percent of all smart mobile devices shipped. Apple was second with a 19.3 percent share, while had Microsoft had an 18.1 percent share.

Global tablet shipments grew 106.1 percent year-on-year to … Read more

Samsung has acquired the team behind MOVL, a company that makes entertainment applications for smart TVs, GigaOm reported Monday.

The 2-year-old Atlanta-based company provides apps for TVs by connecting mobile devices with the TVs, often referred to as the "second screen" experience. These include gaming apps Poker Fun and WeDraw, fitness app SmartFitTV, and social video app WeTeli. Its investors include Mark Cuban, Bert Ellis, and Kris Pinto.

Samsung made the deal official last month, but no terms were disclosed, according to GigaOm. The nine-member team is moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.

This purchase lets Samsung … Read more

Robotic prostheses may have a way to go before they work exactly like human limbs, but researchers are making great strides. A team out of Georgia Tech is working on new technology that could give these robotic limbs something akin to a sense of touch.

Thanks to tactile-sensing material that covers the entire prosthesis and software that integrates the gathered data, this robotic arm can maneuver through clutter and distinguish between hard and soft objects as it grips, pushes, and pulls more intuitively.

"Up until now, the dominant strategies for robot manipulation have discouraged contact between the robot's … Read more

Linksys announced today that two more Smart Wi-Fi routers have been added to its EA series. This is the company's first product announcement since it was sold to Belkin by Cisco last month.

The two new routers are the Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1200 Advanced Multimedia (model EA6300) and the Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1600 Video Enthusiast (model EA6400).

Both of these routers are true dual-band and support the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard on the 5GHz band. Late last year, Linksys began shipping the Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1750 HD Video Pro (model EA6500), and it's still the … Read more

Using what they are calling "mechanical agitation," researchers out of the Georgia Institute of Technology say they've developed arrays that can sense touch with the same level of sensitivity as the human fingertip, which could result in better bots and prosthetics.

The transparent and flexible arrays use about 8,000 taxels, which are touch-sensitive transistors that can generate piezoelectric signals independently -- meaning they emit electricity when mechanically agitated. As the researchers report this week in the journal Science, each of those thousands of transistors comprises a bundle of some 1,500 zinc oxide nanowires, which connect … Read more