Stories by Kevin Lee

Researchers build a robot you can’t knock down; Robot apocalypse begins

After all of our advancements in walking robots, we still have yet to see one that can pick itself back up. Current automatons either need to be helped back up or specifically designed to do so.

NASA looks Into satellites to beam solar power directly to Earth

There have been some incredible advances in solar power technology over the years, ranging from simple solar panels to solar-thermal power and more efficient panels. But NASA scientists believe the next step in maximizing sun-based energy will come from satellites that would beam harvested solar power down to Earth.

Microsoft develops a faster touchscreen with only one millisecond of lag

Touchscreens are supposed to offer us the most direct finger-to-screen interaction with our devices, but have you ever noticed that it takes a split second for something to actually happen?

Artificial skin can feel touch; robots prepare to out-human humans

Researchers have found plenty of uses for carbon nanotubes, but a team at Stanford's of the Bao Research Group found a new use for them: artificial skin. The researchers created a stretchable, transparent skin-like sensor that not only is elastic like skin, but can also sense touch and pressure like the real thing.

Scientists read minds (sort of), create brain scan video

If you ever wanted to see what your brain sees when you're watching Nyan Cat or a YouTube video, this is it. University of California, Berkeley researchers have recreated videos by scanning a person's brain.

RankMyHack Adds Leaderboards, Achievement Points to Hacking

Hacking has gone the way of FourSquare and gaming in general by adding scores and leaderboards for who can make the most daring hacks. We're not making this up.

IBM builds 120-petabyte storage system

IBM is shattering world tech records again, this time the company's researchers have built the largest ever storage system setup. Coming in at 120-petbytes (120 million gigabytes), the ludicrous data storage rig is made up of 200,000 conventional hard drive disks set up at IBM's Almaden, California, research lab.

Super Wi-Fi has 100km range, is coming to save the day

Super Wi-Fi is inching closer to reality, and now the IEEE, the standards organization responsible for all things Wi-Fi, has published the IEEE 802.22 standard.

It takes 1m ARM processors to make 1b brain neurons

A group of British researchers led by the daddy of the ARM processor, normally found in smartphones, went to find out how many how many neurons can an ARM chip simulate.

So long and goodbye, Spirit rover

NASA is ending attempts to contact the long-lived Mars Exploration Rover Spirit after communications stopped on March 22, 2010.

Graphene modulators could break network speed limits

Fiber optic networks are at the forefront of record-setting Internet speeds. Now the scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a graphene modulator that could push the curve forward by a ten-fold leap.

Robots learn to share and help each other

Robots have officially learned how to help each other -- like animals and humans do -- in a laboratory evolution experiment.