Cutting Edge

Boeing will put its Phantom Ray flying wing into the air before the end of the year.

The aerospace giant says that the unmanned aerial vehicle, unveiled at Boeing's St. Louis facility on Monday, is on track to make its first flight in December. The Phantom Ray will be a testbed for unspecified "advanced technologies," and in a press release Monday, Boeing rattled off an array of potential missions for the aircraft, from the now standard UAV tasks of recon and surveillance to aerial refueling, electronic attack, and the menacingly vague "strike." (A separate Boeing feature … Read more

You've got to admire Sami Haddadin. This researcher from Germany's Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics is not only crazy enough to arm an industrial robot with a kitchen knife in the name of science, he offered it his own arm.

In a study for IEEE ICRA 2010, Haddadin, along with Alin Albu-Schaffer and Gerd Hirzinger, equipped a robot arm with various sharp instruments, such as knives, a scalpel, and a screwdriver, to see what would happen if a robot accidentally struck someone.

The researchers had a DLR Lightweight Robot III strike, stab, and slice a leg of ham, … Read more

Hewlett-Packard makes 65 million devices every year that sport a glass display.

That--the glass part, at least--is coming to an end in the next decade, according to Carl Taussig, the head of HP Labs' Information Surfaces Lab.

"In 10 years, glass will be as much a memory of displays as cathode ray tubes (CRTs) are today," Taussig said during a tour of his lab Friday.

So why plastic? Because plastic substrates--and their manufacturing process--are cheaper than the glass substrates currently used to make your laptop display or monitor. The thin films of plastic they're using are 40 … Read more

We've seen robots being deployed to help stop the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and now workers have lowered a huge containment dome over the gusher. But environmental groups and local residents are helping out with a much lower-tech solution--using hair, pet fur, and pantyhose to clean up the mess.

Some 400,000 pounds of hair and fur are heading toward the Gulf Coast, where locals are set to gather for "Boom-B-Qs." Residents in Alabama and Florida are collecting cut hair and stuffing it into pantyhose to make oil-absorbing "hair booms."

Apparently, … Read more

Researchers at the University of Missouri are developing computer graphics visualization software that enables search-and-rescue teams to improve the virtual navigation of spaces unsafe for humans.

Remote-controlled robots have already proved invaluable in search-and-rescue missions, reaching places that humans often can't--or shouldn't. (Think earthquakes, bomb threats, or the recent mine explosion in West Virginia.) But software developed in Columbia, Mo., aims to improve what we do with the data these bots collect.

"We are developing computer graphics visualization software to allow the user to interactively navigate the 3D data captured from the robot's scans," says … Read more

Touch Bionics has upgraded its bionic i-Limb Hand with a model that features controllable grip strength, miniaturized components, and rugged aluminum construction that can bear loads up to about 200 pounds.

To be unveiled next week at Orthopaedie + Reha-Technik 2010 in Leipzig, Germany, the i-Limb Pulse uses high-frequency electronic pulses to drive each digit motor to gradually tighten its grip on objects such as shoelaces or belts. This gives users better control over intricate grasping motions.

Users can control preset digit and grip postures, for instance a pointing index finger, with Bluetooth-enabled software called MyBioSim, which can also be used … Read more

Texas is about to become IBM's test subject for a series of telematics transportation technologies with the blessing the U.S. Department of Transportation.

IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano plans to announce the news in Houston on Wednesday at the 20th annual meeting of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA 2010), along with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Texas Transportation Institute Director Dennis Christiansen. The partnership between IBM and Texas will closely follow the federal intelligent transportation research agenda put forth by Secretary LaHood and the Obama administration.

LaHood announced Tuesday that the Department of Transportation is offering $775 million for transit agencies across the U.S. to upgrade their bus systems, … Read more

We've seen robot conductors before, even robots performing in a Wiimote ensemble, but not too many robots have been incorporated as full-fledged members of an orchestra that includes human musicians. The Karmetic Machine Orchestra does just that, and also blends electronic and world music, resulting in some unusual grooves.

The folks behind Karmetic--described as a think tank of artists and engineers exploring a digital renaissance--build robot musicians and get them to interact with human counterparts playing modified instruments like electronic sitars.

Based at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, Karmetic is led by music supervisor Ajay Kapur, … Read more

Concerned that drivers will suffer performance on the steepest of grades, General Motors engineers have included a "Mountain" mode in the Chevy Volt to boost the available power.

Mountain mode, which will be selected by the driver, is essentially a cue to the car to start storing up extra energy in the battery. Once in place, it means that the car will have all the available power from the gasoline engine and batteries, explained Larry Nitz, GM's executive director of hybrid and electric powertrain engineering, during an update with the media on Tuesday.

There are few circumstances … Read more