Earlier this year multiple startup companies announced they were aiming to bring edible chicken created from stem cells to market by 2022. For an eyebrow-raising price. Now, researchers in Japan say they’ve 3D printed a version of Wagyu beef: i.e. meat from the eponymous Japanese cattle, which is famous for its marbling and how much it costs. Which we can only assume will be far less if/when it starts coming from 3D bioprinters.
Technology
Microsoft Wants To Use The Metaverse To Build ‘Full 3D Worlds’ Of Xbox Games
Alright, stick with us here. If you’ve never heard of the ‘metaverse’, it’s what Meta (formerly Facebook) is calling “the next evolution of social connection.” According to Mark Zuckerberg and his team, “3D spaces in the metaverse will let you socialize, learn, collaborate and play in ways that go beyond what we can imagine.” It’s unknown how its ultimately going to turn out, but comparisons are being made to the likes of Second Life and Ready Player One.
Next-gen battery electrolyte made from wood offers record conductivity
Today’s lithium batteries commonly use a liquid electrolyte to carry ions between the two electrodes, but scientists eyeing solid alternatives see some exciting opportunities ahead. Among them are the authors of a new study who have used cellulose derived from wood as the basis for one of these solid electrolytes, which is paper-thin and can bend and flex to absorb stress as the battery cycles.
New agricultural robots kill individual weeds with electricity
Small Robot Company (SRC), a British agritech startup for sustainable farming, has developed AI-enabled robots – named Tom, Dick and Harry – that identify and kill individual weeds with electricity. These agricultural robots could reduce the use of harmful chemicals and heavy machinery, paving the way for a new approach to sustainable crop farming.
The startup has been working on automated weed killers since 2017, and this April officially launched Tom, the first commercial robot currently operating on three UK farms. Dick is still in the prototype phase, and Harry is still in development.
TinyML: Face Mask Detector with M5Stack Core2 and UnitV2
In this tutorial, we will cover how to build an audio-visual face mask detection system using M5Stack UnitV2 and Core2 developments boards.
Super Capacitor Bike
Making a Super Capacitor Electric Bike
Wearable SweatSenser Picks up Stress, Infection Levels by Sampling Tiny Amounts of Your Sweat
Capable of working even if you don’t think you’re sweating, the SweatSenser is suitable for long-term monitoring of stress levels and more.
A novel wearable sweat sensor, developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas and in the process of being commercialized by EnLiSense, could provide insight into the health and stress levels of wearers — even if it can only sample a tiny amount of sweat.
Bendable Color Epaper Display has Touch Input too
The Interactive Media Lab at Dresden Technical University has been busy working on ideas for user interfaces with wearable electronics, and presents a nice project, that any of us could reproduce, to create your very own wearable colour epaper display device. They even figured out a tidy way to add touch input as well. By sticking three linear resistive touch strips, which are effectively touch potentiometers, to a backing sheet and placing the latter directly behind the Plastic Logic Legio 2.1″ flexible electrophoretic display (EPD), a rudimentary touch interface was created. It does look like it needs a fair bit of force to be applied to the display, to be detectable at the touch strips, but it should be able to take it.
Looking at Things From a Different Angle
This robot inspects objects from different angles to classify them with a high degree of accuracy in real world scenarios.
Object recognition is a critical piece of many machine learning applications. Whether the goal is to create an autonomous car, a warehouse robot, or a package delivery drone, in each case, the devices must be capable of recognizing the objects that are around them. There are many proven models that classify a wide range of objects with a high degree of accuracy; however, these models do not always perform as expected under real world scenarios.
Print Infinitely-Long Parts on the New Infinity3D Belt 3D Printer
Belt 3D printers are just now starting to hit the market and Infinity3D is a new option with an extra trick up its sleeve.
Most 3D printers’ build volume is a function of their size. To get a bigger bed, you need longer X and Y axes rails. To print taller parts, you need longer Z axis rails. There are exceptions, such as SCARA robots equipped with extruders, but even those have limits. Belt printers are unique in that they can print parts of infinite lengths — at least in one axis. Such printers are just now starting to hit the market and Infinity3D is a new option with an extra trick up its sleeve.