The University of Michigan has received a $10 million, five-year grant from the Army to develop a miniature spy bat complete with cameras, radar, recharging capability, a self-guidance system, and a radio to send surveillance data.

Scientists will try to shrink current electronics down to allow the bat to be six inches in length, weigh four ounces, and use only one watt of power. They will attempt to create a navigation system 1,000 times smaller and 1,000 times more energy efficient than today’s systems, and a communications system that’s one-tenth of today’s size. Read more »

The nice folks over at Thorn Micro Technologies have developed an awesome new laptop fan - the RSD5. It is a solid state fan (no moving parts!) that uses an electrical current to generate airflow. More airflow, in fact, than standard mechanical fans.

While typical mechanical fans generate a breeze of 0.7 - 1.7 meters per second, the RSD5 can output a cooler 2.7 meters per second. What’s more impressive is that it stays completely silent while cranking out this kind of airflow.

One of the best things about this fan is that it’s the size of a microchip. The researchers who developed it are hoping to one day build these solid state fans directly into other chips, creating self-cooling processors and other chips that stay cool on their own. The new fan is very cool (no pun intended), but it would be interesting to see what kind of effect this would have on laptop battery life.

Electrolux has unveiled their new Inspiro auto-adjusting oven. What is an auto-adjusting oven, you ask? It’s an oven that automatically detects optimal temperature and time settings depending on what is placed inside.

The company describes the technology as similar to auto-adjustment technology used in many modern cameras to figure out settings for aperture, focus, exposure time, etc. depending on what is in the frame. I know what you are thinking, and the answer is: yes, the Inspiro has a manual mode for those who want control over how their food is prepared.

This is a pretty cool idea, but we’re not entirely sure who the target audience is. Everyone I know who cooks on a regular basis likes to be able to tweak appliance settings. But who knows, perhaps this will be the next big thing and in a couple of years everyone will own one.

No word on price or release date as of now.

Samsung has announced an 8 MP CMOS camera module that it claims to be the thinnest of its kind, measuring a tiny 8.5 mm thin.

Notable features of the new module include anti-shake, a 1 cm macro, face tracking technology, and a smile shutter feature that knows to snap a picture when it detects people smiling.

The company expects the new module to replace the 5 MP cameras found in today’s high-end camera phones by the end of the year.

Cell phone cameras are quickly catching up to today’s digital cameras, which will probably become extinct in a matter of years. It seems that putting all sorts of gadgets in one box is the way to go these days, so if you are thinking of buying a new camera hold off for a few months and buy one of the 8 MP cell phones when they are released.

The folks at Studio Roosegaarde have designed an interesting contraption called Liquid Space 2.1. The sculpture is an interactive artwork that changes its appearance in response to humans.

Studio Roosegaarde’s description: “Liquid Space 2.1 is an interactive space which physically changes its form in relation to human sounds and motion. This interactive fusion of mechanisms, embedded electronics and software creates a real-time dialogue with its visitors. In this play of defining and letting go the space evolves its behavior towards the visitors, creating a sensual co-existence.”

Liquid Space 2.1 uses a variety of LEDs and electroluminescent lighting to create the effect of movement. Sensors, embedded electronics, and special software combine to control a mechanism which responds to the presence of humans. The sculpture measures in at 4 × 4 × 4 meters.

It will be interesting to see what this work of art will look like when humans are interacting with it. Liquid Space 2.1 looks like a great addition to a museum of modern art, or even as a tourist attraction in a famous city.

[via Studio Roosegaarde]

Oleksiy Pikalo seems to be getting bored with plain old coffee every morning, so he built a printer to put ornate designs on top of his daily cup of joe.

He bought a used Philips 8155 x-y flatbed plotter and modded it into a printer that shoots out edible ink. As a result, he can now decorate his coffee with detailed designs and could probably win a barista competition or two.

The only problem is that the coffee will probably get cold by the time printing is finished. Never mind though, because it’s completely worth it for the end result.

Check out a how-to here, and a video of the coffee printer in action after the jump. Read more »

Scientists at the University of Melbourne in Australia have created the world’s smallest diamond ring, measuring a measly 5 microns (millionths of a meter) in diameter and 300 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in thickness.

Granted, this tiny ring probably isn’t what you want to use to propose. However, if you happen to be a scientist developing quantum information processing, then this ring just might be a fit for you.

The ring is used as part of a device that can produce and detect single particles of light, called photons. These photons, set in different states, can carry information. However, unlike today’s computer memory which can hold either a 1 or 0 at each bit, they can hold both states at once.

If scientists can figure out how to take advantage of this property, they could expand the possibilities for computer memory and storage. This is a brand new development, so applications for the ring are obviously very scant. Hopefully we will see some clever uses in time, such as using the ring to increase the amount of data we can store in a certain amount of space.

Verizon, working with Yale University and software developer Pando Networks, recently conducted a test of new P4P software that intelligently routes peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic.

The new software reduces network utilization and speeds up downloads for subscribers by reducing the number of hops that packets have to take. Essentially, the P4P software allows data to travel shorter distances to reach the same destination.

P2P traffic (used for applications like torrents and high-def video streaming) is a major contributor to the data traveling over the internet. In fact, Verizon estimates that about half of the traffic on its network comes from P2P applications.

This new technology, if implemented by all internet providers, would make it cheaper to operate their networks and give subscribers higher speeds - especially for high-bandwidth connections such as Verizon’s FiOS.

We applaud Verizon for taking this approach to fix the growing bandwidth problem. Unlike Comcast, which resorted to blocking most P2P traffic, Verizon is trying to solve the problem on their end and provide better service for the subscribers.