This Robot Toots Its Own Flute

Atsuo Takanishi, a professor of engineering at Waseda University, Tokyo, has completed building the first member of his robotic orchestra, a flute-playing robot. Takanishi hopes to eventually create a humanoid robot orchestra. The next robot, currently in development, is a saxophone-playing robot, though Takanishi believes the process will go much faster because he started with one of the most difficult instruments. Read More

Set Top Boxes to Revolutionise Internet Architecture

National ICT Australia (NICTA) has earned a spot in a European Commission project that aims to revolutionise the way information is delivered over the Internet. Read More

'Nanonet' circuits closer to making flexible electronics reality

Researchers from Purdue University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have overcome a major obstacle in producing transistors from networks of carbon nanotubes, which could lead to the printing of circuits on plastic sheets for applications such as flexible displays or electronic skins to cover structures such as aircraft to monitor for cracks. The "nanonet" technology, circuits made of numerous carbon nanotubes that randomly overlap in a fishnet-like structure, has been hindered by metallic nanotubes that cause short circuits. Read More