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Innovation / Technology

The 3D-print surface on Orange Maker's prototype heliolithography printer.

Tech Watch

Coming in 2015: A Faster, Sharper Way to 3D Print

Orange Maker’s Helios One prints in a spiral, as opposed to layer by layer, making the entire process more efficient

Actor Andy Serkis's motion-capture performance rendered into a photo-perfect computer-generated ape.

How New Motion Capture Tech Transformed Actors Into Creatures for “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”

The special effects team behind Gollum and King Kong took on its most-challenging feat yet: animating 2,000 apes in a real forest

Scientists are looking to restore memory by stimulating neurons deep in the brain.

Tech Watch

Could Implants in the Brain Revive Memory?

The Defense Department is funding research to see if “neuroprosthetics” implanted in the brain can heal damaged memory.

A doctor administers a common glaucoma test.

Tech Watch

A Smart Sensor Could Detect Glaucoma Before Your Doctor Does

A pair of Washington researchers could be first to implant an electronic sensor—designed to give real-time analysis of the disease—directly into the eye

Anyone with a touchscreen can help shape the constantly evolving Universal Typeface.

The Universal Typeface Project Averages the World’s Handwriting to Produce an Incredibly Average Font

With your help, ballpoint pioneer BIC aims to create a font as common as their pens

The clip-on Bluetooth device guides you through less-stressful days by keeping tabs on how you're breathing.

Tech Watch

Stressed? The Latest In Wearables Could Help Keep You Calm

Spire, a clip-on Bluetooth device available this fall, keeps tabs on stress by monitoring how you breathe

The TellMeDave robot is designed to take orders.

Tech Watch

Robots Are Smart—But Can They Understand Us?

Researchers at Cornell are developing a new way for the machines to interpret the imprecise way humans speak

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Tech Watch

With $20 And Some Cardboard, You Too Can Enter Google’s Virtual World

A new project from the tech giant hopes to entice developers by creating a low-cost platform users can assemble on their own.

New fabrication techniques and digital technologies are expanding the possibilities of the analog medium.

Forget Vinyl. Forget the Cloud. In the Future We’ll Listen to Music on UV-Cured 3D-Printed Resin

Musicians, developers, and inventors prove that there’s more to records than vinyl

The current go-to method for testing blood-alcohol is a breathalyzer. But lasers could help police officers detect drunk drivers as soon as next year.

Tech Watch

Lasers Could Detect Drunk Drivers On The Road

Polish researchers say they have developed a method to check blood alcohol levels through car windows

The Scoop works like a mini sound mixer.

Tech Watch

Having Trouble Hearing? There’s An App For That

Called the Scoop, this earpiece is a mini-mixer, allowing the wearer to adjust to his or her environment.

How Scientists Are Using Games to Unlock the Body’s Mysteries

They’re not just for kids anymore

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

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