Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘materials’ category: Page 288

Aug 26, 2015

This startup can grow metal like a tree, and it’s about to hit the big time

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, materials

A little know startup in Seattle could do for metal what 3D printing is doing for other materials like plastic.

Read more

Aug 24, 2015

MIT’s New 3D Printer Can Print 10 Materials Simultaneously

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, materials

Fab news, everyone!

Read more

Aug 23, 2015

Scientists Grow Nearly Defect Free High Quality Graphene from Tea Tree Extract

Posted by in category: materials

Better yet, the fabrication of the graphene took only a few seconds to a few minutes.

Read more

Aug 18, 2015

Graphene Just The Tip Of The 2D Materials Iceberg For Clean Technology

Posted by in category: materials

Graphene is not the only game in town.


Two new developments show that the race is on to replace silicon as the go-to semiconductor of choice with other 2D materials if not graphene.

Read more

Aug 18, 2015

At Last, a Wearable You Will Want to Wear — By Chander Chawla | Forbes

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, business, innovation, materials, media & arts, robotics/AI, wearables

IMG_0424

“I am excited to introduce the first wave of TechLuxe in a form of a resin handbag with an LCD video screen. The idea is to radically bring technology to fashion, but with creative beauty within a functional beautifully designed bag.”

Read more

Aug 15, 2015

Temperature-controlled hydrogel can walk

Posted by in category: materials

Scientists have developed a new hydrogel that stretches and contracts just like an artificial muscle. The team created an L-shaped object made out of the hydrogel and immersed it in a water bath. When the water’s temperature was varied, it slowly “walked” forward.

The researchers at the Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan got the hydrogel to move by tweaking its properties. Polymers like hydrogels carry large amounts of water within their structure which gives them the capacity to respond to variations in environmental factors such as acidity, voltage and temperature. Typically, this response time is quite slow, as the hydrogel must excrete or absorb water to correspondingly shrink or expand.

The Japanese scientists altered the new hydrogel to enable it to contract only in one dimension while expanding in another. Since the hydrogel doesn’t contract equally in every direction, it’s able to alter its shape without absorbing or excreting any water. To test the hydrogel’s properties, the team created an L-shaped polymer and changed the temperature repeatedly to observe its response.

Read more

Jul 14, 2015

The World’s First 3D Printed Building To Be Built In Dubai — Ana Alves WTVOX

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, architecture, engineering, materials

DUBAI TO BUILD WORLD’S FIRST 3D PRINTED OFFICE

Fast-growing Dubai, where something new is always being added to the skyline, may have found a way to make construction move even faster.

In a bid to become a global hub of innovation, Dubai announced plans to build an office that will be “the most advanced 3-D printed structure ever built at this scale” and the first to be put into actual use.

Read More

Jun 15, 2015

Smart urban planning in Amsterdam — Feargus O’Sullivan | CityLab

Posted by in categories: architecture, economics, energy, engineering, environmental, government, materials, policy, science, sustainability

lead_large

“Instead of treating Amsterdam as complete and starting again elsewhere, the IJburg plan has managed to find more space in a city that thought it had no more left.”

Read more

Jun 8, 2015

How textiles repeatedly revolutionised human technology — Virginia Postrel | AEON

Posted by in category: materials

http://cdn-imgs-mag.aeon.co/images/2015/06/Unseen-image-2-edit-2-1200x848-1024x641.jpg

“The story of technology is in fact the story of textiles. From the most ancient times to the present, so too is the story of economic development and global trade. The origins of chemistry lie in the colouring and finishing of cloth. The textile business funded the Italian Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; it left us double-entry bookkeeping and letters of credit, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. As much as spices or gold, the quest for fabrics and dyestuffs drew sailors across strange seas. In ways both subtle and obvious, textiles made our world.” Read more

Jun 4, 2015

Google Wants You to Control Your Gadgets with Finger Gestures, Conductive Clothing — Tom Simonite MIT Technology Review

Posted by in categories: computing, hardware, innovation, materials

http://cdn.androidcommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Google-Levis-Project-Jacquard-smart-fabric-8.jpg

Small gadgets such as smart watches can be frustrating to use because their tiny buttons and touch screens are tricky to operate. Google has two possible solutions for the fat finger problem: control your gadgets by subtly rubbing your finger and thumb together, or by swiping a grid of conductive yarn woven into your clothing.

The first of those two ideas works thanks to a tiny radar sensor that could be integrated into, say, a smart watch and can detect fine motions of your hands from a distance and even through clothing. Levi Strauss announced today that it is working with Google to integrate fabric touch panels into its clothing designs. The new projects were announced at Google’s annual developer conference in San Francisco Friday by Ivan Poupyrev, a technical program lead in Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects research group.

Read more