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Innovation / Technology

Exoskeletons, automaton pets and tiny toy humanoids (pictured) populate the Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence.

A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots

In the world’s most futuristic city, a tech-obsessed novelist confronts the invasion of mesmerizing machines

Schwarzkopf's helmet, a PASGT, represents "how technology and innovation work together in the field of ground-forces protection,” says Frank Blazich, Jr., the Smithsonian's curator of modern military forces.

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How the Military Helmet Evolved From a Hazard to a Bullet Shield

With the development of Kevlar and advanced industrial design, soldiers are now better protected from traumatic brain injury

"This book was representative of an era during which colonialism and the associated conversion to Christianity oppressed the indigenous population in often violent ways,” says curator Gabriela Pérez-Báez.

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A Rare Public Display of a 17th-Century Mayan Manuscript

With the book newly digitized, scholars are reinterpreting a story of native resistance from within its pages

Stop your baby from sucking his or her thumb with this, er, "clever" invention.

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Patents (Only) a Mother Could Love

For Mother’s Day, we’ve pulled some of history’s wackiest patented ideas for mothers and children

The team has developed many different prototypes. Their latest iteration can display six characters at a time and images the text using an internal camera.

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This Device Translates Text To Braille in Real Time

Team Tactile hopes to create an inexpensive and portable device that can raise text right off the page

Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark created these images using a new technique of structural color laser printing.

A New Color Printing Technique Borrows From Bird Feathers

Structural coloration, like that in peacock plumage, holds promise for images that don’t fade away

What if you could unlock your smartphone this way?

Could a Doodle Replace Your Password?

Drawing your own unlock pattern on a touchscreen is faster and easier to remember than a password, and much harder to crack

A NASA Valkyrie robot picks up an item with its hand.

Making Robots That Can Work With Their Hands

For robots to be most useful when working alongside humans, they’ll have to literally lend us a hand when our own two are not enough

One of Empa's temperature sensors in the shape of a Braeburn apple

A New Sensor That Looks and Acts Like Fruit Could Reduce In-Transit Produce Waste

Swiss scientists have developed a temperature sensor that provides important data while packed with fruit in transport and storage

Trauma surgeon Sarah Murthi tests an AR headset prototype, which uses a Microsoft HoloLens and custom software with an ultrasound, on a volunteer "patient."

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Augmented Reality Could Change Health Care—Or Be a Faddish Dud

Doctors and engineers at the University of Maryland team up to build a tool that projects images and vital information right above a patient

This honeycomb structure was printed in fused silica glass.

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You Can Now 3D Print Glass

German researchers have developed a technique for 3D printing strong, transparent glass products, such as jewelry, lenses and computer parts

Researchers can remotely detect buried land mines using a bacterial sensor and a laser-based scanning system.

How Glowing Soil Can Help Find Land Mines

Using genetically engineered bacteria and lasers, Israeli scientists have devised a unique way to detect buried explosives

Jonathan Coleman (center) and team show off a printed electronic label.

New Electronic Labels Could Alert You When Your Milk Spoils

New 2D printed electronics made of the nanomaterial graphene could be used in newspapers, self-updating price tags and more

Fish leave bits of DNA behind that researchers can collect.

Scientists Can Tell What Fish Live Where Based On DNA in the Water

A new study of the Hudson River estuary tracked spring migration of ocean fish by collecting water samples

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The Patents and Trademarks Behind Jelly Beans

Inventors have been improving the techniques and technologies used to make jelly beans for more than 150 years

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