Innovation Information

There’s a robot for just about every thankless household chore — one scoops poop, another folds towels, there’s even one that pours beer. Now, thankfully, there’s a robot that tidies up a messy room.

Scientists have created swarms of tiny, non-mechanical robots out of bubbles that they control with nothing more than an infrared laser.

Four robotic ships have sailed from Hawaii on a trans-Pacific journey that aims to set a new world record for the longest voyage by an unmanned ocean-going vehicle.

The robot apocalypse appears to be getting ever closer, especially now that a team of European scientists has designed a machine that can make its own tools.

Laptops and smartphones of the future may read our palms before they allow us to access our personal data, according to ongoing security technology under development in Japan.

A team of European scientists have teleported photons a distance of 143 kilometers between two Atlantic Ocean islands, setting a new distance record for a technology inevitably entangled with Star Trek lore.

For a blind or visually-impaired person, getting around a large building like a hospital or lab may involve a lot of guesswork and asking for directions. A new system called Navatar uses the sensors in a smartphone to detect progress along a map of a building.

Letting people climb walls like a bug is one thing, but letting robots climb humans like one? The researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science must have felt that robots these days just weren't creepy enough.

Landlocked surf bums jonesing to catch a wave may need to look no further than the nearest body of water, be it a lake, river or pond, thanks a new wave-making machine.

Robotics engineers have turned to the almighty elephant trunk for their latest inspiration in the field of jamming, an actuation technique that employs rubber tubing, vacuum suction and coffee grounds to get a grip on stuff.

To recover the riches embedded in asteroids, as the recently launched Planetary Ventures aims to do, miners will first need to latch their drills onto the surface of the space rocks. NASA scientists are at work on a robotic gripper that appears up to the task.

A robotic plane with the moves and speed of birds, and relies on its own senses to deftly dart between a city's skyscrapers, street lights and power lines, has taken a big step closer to reality.

Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals on Earth, able to communicate with each other and navigate the seas with a mouthful of sounds, whistles, and clicks. A new high-tech speaker could help decipher the meaning of all the various dolphin vocalizations.

Overhead electric wires commonly used to power commuter trains, street cars and city buses may soon give a jolt to trucks that ferry freight from cargo ships to storefronts.

A one-armed robot has learned to juggle two balls at once, an impressive feat that promises to shed light on dynamic human motions, according to the Japanese researchers behind the machine.

When U.S. soldiers wanted a way to handle heavy machine guns and ammunition alone in the heat of battle, they found inspiration in the mini-gun backpacks of the 1987 film "Predator" and built do-it-yourself ammo carriers.