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Notion is a home intelligence system that uses a small, smart, multi-function sensor to detect unbelievable things. The Notion of Home Intelligence is Now a Reality. Home intelligence is a concept that hasn’t been possible until now. For years, security systems have only detected things like doors opening, windows breaking or alarms going off. These alerts only skim the surface of what Notion is capable of. With Notion, you can know things like how full a propane tank is, when your…

Speed and agility are hallmarks of the cheetah: The big predator is the fastest land animal on Earth, able to accelerate to 60 mph in just a few seconds. As itramps up to top speed, a cheetah pumps its legs in tandem, bounding until it reaches a full gallop. Now MIT researchers have developed an algorithm for bounding that they’ve successfully implemented in a robotic cheetah — a sleek, four-legged assemblage of gears, batteries, and electric motors that weighs about as much as its…

EVERLIGHT ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. , a leading player in the global LED and optoelectronics industry, supplements its LED Lighting product portfolio, currently featuring a market-standard CRI of > 80 Ra, with higher color quality versions. The new Natural Light LED variants will provide a CRI >95 Ra, averaging 98 Ra. EVERLIGHT is pursuing this goal a step at a time. The first LED series to implement the Natural Light Technology is EVERLIGHT’s 3 - 50W Ceramic COBs (JU Series) and Metal PCB…

Microsoft is preparing to detail its next major version of Windows. We had been expecting the company to hold a press event later this month, and now it’s official. Microsoft will hold a "Windows event" in San Francisco on September 30th. The software maker started emailing out invites to the event today, and Joe Belfiore and Terry Myerson will be leading a discussion around the future of Windows. The event will focus on enterprise and power users of Windows. Microsoft is expected to deliver a…

History will be made when the world’s first 3D-printed car drives out of McCormick Place in Chicago, Ill. During the six-day IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show 2014, the vehicle will be printed over 44 hours then rapidly assembled by a team led by Local Motors with the historic first drive set to take place the morning of Saturday, September 13, 2014. Called the Strati, the vehicle will be 3D printed in one piece using direct digital manufacturing, (DDM), which is the first…

Google has purchased the biotech startup Lift Labs, the makers of an electronic spoon that helps people with Parkinson's to eat by making small movements to compensate for tremors. The startup will be joining Google X, and it'll continue to sell its current product, known as Liftware. A fork, soup spoon, and keyholder were all in the works prior to the acquisition, and it sounds as though work on them will continue. "We're especially excited to work with the Google team to scale our operations…

Robots have proven to be not that great at driving cars. Robot cars are just fine at driving themselves, but that's much different than putting a robot (humanoid orotherwise) behind the wheel of a vehicle designed for humans. The very fancy and expensive robots at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials had a tough time trying to make it work, but for Aldebaran's humanoid Nao, it's a cinch, with his brand new little kid (or little robot) sized electric BMW Z4 from RobotsLab, a seller of…

With the goal of pursuing the limit of the machine system beyond the human being by improving both hardware and control method, Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory developed an entirely new bipedal running robot system "ACHIRES" (Actively Coordinated High-speed Image-processing Running Experiment System) using the high-speed visual feedback, and we have realized a high speed running as the first step of this research. ACHIRES is composed of high-speed vision and high-speed actuators to achieve…

BBC News reported on last weekend’s successful Electromagnetic Field EMF 2014 event held near Bletchley, Milton Keynes. The three day event attracted nearly three times as many people as the previous event held in 2012. Of those attending 75 were children under 16. “Getting kids involved has been crucial,” said Jonty Wareing, one of the event’s volunteer organisers. Dr Elpida Makrygianni, from UCL’s Engineering Sciences faculty is charged with engaging young people with science, she…

Four hybrid buses in East London will next year trial technology which will enable them to wirelessly charge while waiting at bus stands, Transport for London (TfL) announced on August 27. TfL said the technology being trialled would enable the vehicles to operate in pure electric mode for a “significant period of the time they are in passenger service”, contributing to lower running costs and tailpipe emissions. The buses have a diesel engine that will be used when the battery power on…

Bookless libraries aren't quite so far-fetched as they used to be. Florida Polytechnic University, opening for the first time this fall, features a $60 million,Santiago Calatrava-designed main building with a library that doesn't hold a single paper book within its walls. Instead, the library has space for reading, desks for doing work, and a number of desktops, laptops, and tablets readily available. It joins a small handful of universities that have opened such libraries in recent years.…

Birds are nice enough, unless you work at places like airports, farms, and landfills, in which case they’re the sworn enemy. Today, there are a variety of toolsand technologies for spooking unwanted birds—we’ve graduated from scarecrows to flash-bang grenades and other sophisticated armaments—but Nico Nijenhuis is undoubtedly working on the coolest. He’s building robot hawks that trick lingering critters into thinking they’re about to get snacked on. Nijenhuis, a 27-year-old based in the…

Watch the video of a robot riding across the English countryside on a 1/3-scale model of a hoverbike. The folks at Malloy Aeronautics are hard at work on a similar full-sized vehicle for humans, but as part of its Kickstarter effort to raise funds for the project, a smaller version is offered to backers. What was originally a proof of concept piece is now a fully-operational aerial drone, and can be yours if you're willing to part with around $1,000 (£595) in support of the endeavor. For now,…

No matter what profession you’re working in, efficiency matters. Being able to get more done in less time is the key to getting ahead - whether you’re looking for abig promotion within your traditional corporate job or hoping to take your growing startup to the next level. Fortunately, with the number of tools on the market today, there’s never been a better time to take advantage of the online resources that will help you to increase the amount you’re able to accomplish. ... read more …

University of Washington engineers have designed a new communication system that uses radio frequency signals as a power source and reuses existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity to these devices. Called Wi-Fi backscatter, this technology is the first that can connect battery-free devices to Wi-Fi infrastructure. This work builds upon previous research that showed how low-powered devices such as temperature sensors or wearable technology could run without batteries or…