Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Solar Energy Farms Offer Second Life for Electric Vehicle Batteries

As electric vehicles rapidly grow in popularity worldwide, there will soon be a wave of used batteries whose performance is no longer sufficient for vehicles that need reliable acceleration and range. But a new study shows that these batteries could still have a useful and profitable second life as backup storage for grid-scale solar photovoltaic installations, where they could perform for more than a decade in this less demanding role.

Marshaling AI in the Fight Against Covid-19

Artificial intelligence could play a decisive role in stopping the Covid-19 pandemic. To give the technology a push, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab is funding 10 projects at MIT aimed at advancing AI's transformative potential for society.

Tekscan

Tekscan manufactures flexible pressure sensors, based on force sensitive resistors. Medical applications are a particular focus.

With Lidar and AI, Road Status Clears up After a Disaster

Automated tools can help emergency managers make decisions, plan routes, and quantify road damage at city scales.

Promising Material Stable Enough for use in Solar Cells

Soft and flexible materials called halide perovskites could make solar cells more efficient at significantly less cost, but they're too unstable to use.

New Materials Make Supercapacitors Better Than Batteries

The new IDTechEx report, "Supercapacitor Materials and Formats 2020-2040" explains why supercapacitors and their variants still only constitute a modest business.

Gelatin Could Soon Power our Wearables and IoT Devices

Ground-breaking research has found that gelatin could be used to power devices in the future, using only the heat generated from the human body.

Uncountable

Uncountable have an AI-powered platform to manage material development. IDTechEx spoke with one of the co-founders, Will Tashman.

WiTricity

IDTechEx analysts Dr Matthew Dyson and James Hayward interviewed David Schatz, VP of Sales and Business Development at WiTricity. We specifically discussed their historic activity providing wireless charging options for medical devices, including implants.

Sensors Woven into Clothing to Monitor Vital Signs

Researchers have developed a way to incorporate electronic sensors into stretchy fabrics, allowing them to create shirts or other garments that could be used to monitor vital signs such as temperature, respiration, and heart rate.

Subtle Medical

Unlike most AI radiology companies, Subtle Medical focuses on image acquisition rather than analysis. It is developing software solutions to improve the capture of high-quality medical images. More specifically, it transforms low resolution scans taken rapidly (eg: in 6 minutes) into high resolution scans that normally can only be obtained by running scans for 20+ minutes.

New AI Tool to Evaluate all Possibilities in Robot Decisions

Just like humans, when robots have a decision to make there are often many options and hundreds of potential outcomes. Robots have been able to simulate a handful of these outcomes to figure out which course of action will be the most likely to lead to success. But what if one of the other options were equally likely to succeed - and safer?

Sprayable User Interfaces

For decades researchers have envisioned a world where digital user interfaces are seamlessly integrated with the physical environment, until the two are virtually indistinguishable from one another.

3D Printed Implants: Antibacterial and Analgesic

The PoliM3D project's aim is the production of active polymers for 3D printing to be employed in medical applications.

3D Printed Soft, Rubbery Brain Implants

Engineers are working on developing soft, flexible neural implants that can gently conform to the brain's contours and monitor activity over longer periods, without aggravating surrounding tissue. Such flexible electronics could be softer alternatives to existing metal-based electrodes designed to monitor brain activity, and may also be useful in brain implants that stimulate neural regions to ease symptoms of epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, and severe depression.

Neural Networks Facilitate Optimization in Search for New Materials

When searching through theoretical lists of possible new materials for particular applications, such as batteries or other energy-related devices, there are often millions of potential materials that could be considered, and multiple criteria that need to be met and optimized at once. Now, researchers have found a way to dramatically streamline the discovery process, using a machine learning system.

Energy-Harvesting Design Aims to Turn Wi-Fi Signals Into Useable Power

Any device that sends out a Wi-Fi signal also emits terahertz waves —electromagnetic waves with a frequency somewhere between microwaves and infrared light. These high-frequency radiation waves, known as "T-rays," are also produced by almost anything that registers a temperature, including our own bodies and the inanimate objects around us.

Creating Food Perception Illusions using Food 3D Printing

Food 3D printing enables the creation of customized food structures based on a person's individual needs. Researchers have explored the use of food 3D printing to create perceptual illusions for controlling the level of perceived satiety given a defined amount of calories.

WiTricity Corporation

WiTricity develops systems that deliver power wirelessly to devices using batteries through a technology known as magnetic resonance.

New Sensor Could Help Prevent Food Waste

As flowers bloom and fruits ripen, they emit a colorless, sweet-smelling gas called ethylene. Chemists have now created a tiny sensor that can detect this gas in concentrations as low as 15 parts per billion, which they believe could be useful in preventing food spoilage.