Ancient robots were objects of fantasy and fun

Ancient robots were objects of fantasy and fun

Post Views: 228 E. R. Truitt teaches in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press), which explores the rich history of artificial people and animals between 800 and 1450. This story is excerpted…

A brief history of shuffling your songs, from Apple to Adele

A brief history of shuffling your songs, from Apple to Adele

Post Views: 263 “Most people don’t change from default settings unless they have almost an ideological reason to do so,” says Devon Powers, associate professor at Temple University, whose research focuses on popular music. “So this is a big change for a lot of people who were essentially groomed on Spotify.” The shuffle feature as…

The everyday item behind the design of the F-150 Lightning’s frunk

The everyday item behind the design of the F-150 Lightning’s frunk

Post Views: 255 Towards the beginning of Ford’s journey of designing a battery-powered pickup, the automaker set out on a reconnaissance mission in 2018 to determine how it could use electrification to improve the experience of truck ownership. The company knew that it would be using the newly-found frunk space as part of this task,…

‘Lithium Valley’ could save one of the most polluted areas in California

Post Views: 242 The world and world leaders are working on turning away from gas powered mode of transportation and especially investing in electric vehicles (EV) as a solution to lower emissions. To keep up with the growing demand for electric vehicles, more lithium mining will be needed. Lithium is a metal used to make…

This bird-legged quadcopter can easily perch in the treetops

This bird-legged quadcopter can easily perch in the treetops

Post Views: 260 The research, published in Science Robotics on Wednesday, details the development of the bot, which requires minimal computational power from its control board. This allows it to be incorporated in the future in other projects without demanding a lot of computational space, leaving room for other objectives like observation, recording, other movements,…