Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Innovation / Technology

When Copy and Paste Reigned in the Age of Scrapbooking

Today’s obsession with posting material to Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter has a very American history

The default cartoon alter-ego mimics your facial expressions in real time messages to your friends.

Tech Watch

An App That Captures Emotions In Real Time

Pocket Avatars, an app developed through Intel Labs, uses sophisticated facial-tracking to map your emotions and send them to your friends.

New football technology--seen here in a prototype--could outfit balls with a transmitter that helps track their location.

Tech Watch

Ball-Tracking Tech for (American) Football

The World Cup has its own system. But new technology could help spot the pigskin through a 10-lineman pileup on the gridiron.

The new Hampshire based company SustainX has developed a machine that stores energy by compressing air. It and other efforts represent the cutting edge of the energy storage field.

A Big Bet on How to Store Energy, Cheaply

Tech innovators are hoping they can store energy more cost-effectively with mechanical systems that use the most basic materials: air, water, and steel

A carbon nanotube detector, which uses terahertz waves, could (finally) change airport security lines forever.

Tech Watch

Airport Scanners of the Future Could Be Much Smaller (And More Importantly, Faster)

With carbon nanotubes, researchers are manipulating imaging technology to make everything from MRIs to food inspection more efficient and compact.

An app captures a physical Lego build and converts it into a digital play-thing.

Tech Watch

Your Lego Castles Can Be Captured In 3D (There’s An App For That)

A physical-to-digital game sets allows kids (and adults) to bring real-life creations to apps

Nao robots race—slowly—to the open ball.

World Cup 2014

RoboCup: Building a Team of Robots That Will Beat The World Cup Champions

By 2050, robotic experts at the annual world robotic’s championship hope to create a team of robots that can best the winning World Cup team

The Trouble with Crowdfunding the Next Big Tech Gadget

Crowdfunding is hot right now, but a lack of regulation might leave backers at risk of falling prey to a swindle

A one-inch sensor, mounted on a robotic arm, can analyzes compounds emitted by plants to detect disease before it's too late.

Tech Watch

Robots That Can Sniff Out Crop Disease

Georgia Tech engineers have developed a sensor that could save billions in lost crops

An image projection from a QPI chip.

Tech Watch

Your Smartphone And Sunglasses Could Soon Project Holograms

A chip the size of a TicTac can project images, in 2D or 3D, from everyday objects.

A slate sculpture of Alan Turing by artist Stephen Kettle sits at the Bletchley Park National Codes Centre in Great Britain.

The Turing Test Measures Something, But It’s Not “Intelligence”

A computer program mimicked human conversation so well that it was mistaken for a real live human, but “machine intelligence” still has a long way to go

Tech Watch

These Batteries Recharge With Waste Heat

A new system developed by a team from Stanford and MIT takes excess heat and turns it into electricity.

The Solar Impulse 2 in flight

Tech Watch

Can a Plane Fly Around the World on Solar Power Alone?

With a wingspan greater than a 747, but weighing less than most cars, the Solar Impulse 2 will attempt to circumnavigate the planet.

Automatic truck platoons could come to highways near you by the middle of next year.

Tech Watch

Robotic Truck Convoys Could Change All Kinds Of Transportation

A Silicon Valley startup’s software automates how vehicles react to conditions on the road, offering new possibilities for fuel savings and efficiency

A skull of an ancient dinosaur was digitally restored and reconstructed using new imaging tools.

Tech Watch

How New Tech for Ancient Fossils Could Change The Way We Understand Animals

X-ray topography, virtual models and 3D printing are advancing our knowledge of the ancient animals—and modern ones, too

The California-based Raydiance has released a machine called R-Cut, which uses a femtosecond laser to cut sleek glass surfaces that aren't possible with existing manufacturing.

Tech Watch

Lasers Faster Than The Blink Of An Eye Could Change Glass On Our Phones

A new screen-chiseling method will give high-end finishes to low-end phones—and could revolutionize screens in everything from cars to smart watches, too.

A new way to wirelessly charge devices inside the body could allow for medical implants as small as a grain of rice.

Tech Watch

No Batteries Here: New Implants Can Charge Through Your Body’s Own Tissue

A device being tested by Stanford University researchers is the latest in an area of medical development known as “electroceuticals.”

"Roombots" could change the way we build furniture.

Tech Watch

Robots As Furniture?

A team of Swiss researchers has created robots that self-assemble into tables and chairs—but they could also be used to help the elderly and disabled.

Military robots are being built with plenty of firepower. But should they be trusted to kill?

Tech Watch

Can Killer Robots Learn to Follow the Rules of War?

Researchers have set out to learn whether military machines can be programmed to behave morally, and if so, should have the authority to kill on their own

Researchers at the University of Illinois are developing plastic that can heal damage on its own.

Tech Watch

Plastic That Can Repair Itself

Researchers at the University of Illinois are developing material that will “bleed” to heal damage on hard-to-repair objects.

Page 55 of 73