Emerging Tech

According to sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That's how I feel about American pizza delivery. It's all about an obsession with convenience bordering on the quantum, and it's what makes America the best country in the world.

With chocolate and other delicacies in the genomic crosshairs, it's tempting to imagine science-fictional scenarios for the future of flavor.

A team of scientist at Purdue University takes a biomimetic approach to engineering solar cells, appropriating the components of living systems to novel ends.

The teeth of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus remain sharp through a lifetime of rock-scraping. But do they come with a matching fork for easy carving?

With a fabbed flute, we see emergence at its natal stage; the imperfect copy of the old instrument is a promising harbinger of the novel sounds to come.

The Norwegian firm Elliptic Labs’ booth at CES next week will feature several implementations of a touchless, gesture-based interface for tablets and mobile devices, according to the company. Unlike the Kinect, Elliptic’s interface, called Ultrasonic Touchless Input, graphs hand movements using echolocation. Bathing the user in a silent ultrasonic torrent, it measures the return time of rebounding sonic impulses to ...

2010 is the year fabrication technology and 3D printing came to the masses�or at least to Brooklyn. But is this a good thing?

The eyes of Xenos peckii, a miniscule parasitic fly, inspire optical engineers with their ability to stitch small images into a composite picture.

An Australian company's vivid new motion-capture technique not only enlivens cut scenes, but opens up a whole new range of challenges in the gameplay itself.

Animaloscope, cinnomonograph, katoptiikum, lobsterscope, mutoscope, phenakistoscope, vivrescope, xograph�just a few of the turn-of-the-last-century's names for a strange new medium.