Pooja Kashyap | TechieTonics

Juxtaposing Living and the Nonliving Worlds Together: Materials Synthesis

March 24, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

So far, we have seen robots inspired from the best of biomimicry. Researchers have often looked upon nature to solve problems. At the same time, there are certain natural tendencies, which engineers are still trying to figure out the way towards artificially re-invention and one of them is ‘bone’. Bone is one of those natural materials that require no supervision, yet it fabricates material in response to environmental signals. In order to understand this phenomenon, researchers at the MIT, have tried to juxtapose living bacterial cells with non-living substance like…

Protean Electric’s Gearless, Direct-Drive System: An In-Wheel Motor Concept

March 21, 2014May 16, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

Protean Electric, an automotive start-up is paving way towards revolutionizing electric cars with its in-wheel motor design. Beijing roads will first experience this radical technology. Like the EcoMotors, Protean Electric’s preferred the East Asia since the government is very supportive towards technology that evangelizes fuel efficiency and air quality. In-Wheel Motor Concept Generally, central motor in an electric vehicle is under bonnet that transmits power down to the rotating shaft, which further sends torque to the axels. But in the Protean system, small motors, which is responsible for creating power, is…

Microplasma Transistors for Smartphones and Nuclear Environment

March 20, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

Researchers at the University of Utah have created one of the most minuscule plasma transistors that can resist soaring temperatures and ionizing radiation that could be seen in a nuclear reactor. The engineers envision that such transistors would: 1) Facilitate taking and collecting X-rays in war zones by high-end cellular phones 2) Integrated within equipments to gauge air quality in the actual time 3) Plasma based bot could be sent into the nuclear reactor for certain assignments Like beavers, the transistors perform the most important work in the field of…

Gamification is More Than Just Points & Badges: Lord of the Rings

March 19, 2014June 1, 2020 Pooja Kashyap

Recently, I watched Lord of the Rings, second time of course but consciously with a different angle. This time, I translated Frodo Baggins journey in terms Gamification strategy. By introducing the gaming element in the movie, I discovered that the trilogy became all the more interesting and innovative so I thought of penning down my insights and if I’m wrong anywhere please free to rebut my point(s), I’d be of great help, thanks. Introduction to the world of Gamification: Task assigned Frodo Baggins is having a good time at his…

Graphene Photodetectors Will Now Offer Thermal Vision

March 18, 2014August 7, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

By harvesting the optical capabilities of graphene, researchers at the University of Michigan were able to create infrared contact lens morphed out of the carbon material. Graphene is merely 1-atom thick that makes its absorb nearly 2.3% of light that strikes it, which of course is extremely less especially for generating an electric potential and hence makes it far away from operating as an infrared sensor. Therefore, the researchers devised an innovative technique to resolve this issue. In place of gauging lost electrons by incoming light, they augmented the current…

Humans Might Welcome The New Robot Overlords: An Obedience Study

March 18, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

How would it feel working under a ‘robo boss’, constantly pecking on top of the head, reminding the amount of work that is still left. Many would feel frustrated and might leave but there would be some, who might like to finish the task without questioning. In an interesting experiment, performed by the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, revealed the responses that were received by working under a robotic supervisor. Task that was assigned to humans was extremely monotonous which of course became boring…

Planet X and Nemesis Myth Debunked: WISE Survey

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

In an attempt to find the reasons, which led to the wobbly effect of Uranus’s orbit, researchers discovered other planets like Neptune and Pluto but there was no Planet X anywhere. Similarly, the hunt for Sun like star, Nemesis, which they claim might have wiped out the age of dinosaurs completely, is still a far-fetched dream. It’s been an effort of more than two centuries and now the researchers want to draw line to reach a conclusion. Kevin Luhman an astronomer at the University of Pennsylvania asserted that there are no such…

10 Reasons Why I love Working at a Startup

March 16, 2014May 28, 2015 Pooja Kashyap

I had been a part of a startup for almost seven years and in these seven years I never thought of joining any other venture neither did the work culture of any MNC attracted me. After taking a gap of 1 year, which also happens to be a sabbatical, I still have the same fresh feeling for startups as it was before, taking the leave that is. I guess being in the startup crew is something like being into a serious relationship and this is one of the main factor,…

HyQ: The Most Versatile Quadruped Robot

March 14, 2014June 12, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

With its first launch, HyQ, the brainchild of Italian Institute of Technology had already conquered how to manipulate the terrains. Now the quadruped robot has resurrected but with more tricks than before. Claudio Semini, the lead researcher claimed that the ‘second coming’ of HyQ is sodden with wide variety of motion skills that would help the bot in facing the dynamically changing terrain. Initially, the bot was designed in terms of reactive behavior, the mode that helped it from recovering from huddles but this time, the focus is kept on making…

IVRE: Human Machine Virtual Collaborative Systems

March 12, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

Getting work done through robots is no more a challenging task, with the continuous progression in technology, more and more machines are being designed keeping in mind the safety factor which still reigns supreme when interacting with a machine. Yet we are too far from two equally important aspects, which if conquered, might thoroughly revolutionize robotics, and they are – consciousness and self-awareness. In an attempt to reach fluency in human-robot interactions, researchers at the Johns Hopkins’ Computational and Interactive Robotics Laboratory have come up with a simulated setting, which…

Gravitational Torques of Milky Way and Andromeda Responsible for Spatial Configuration

March 11, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

Space scientists have been working long to discover other universes. Many researchers and studies have been conducted so far and are still going on to understand the reasons, which led to the formation of Milky Way and nearby constellation. Till date it has been accepted that Milky Way and its orbiting companion Andromeda are the leading components in a flock of galaxies known as the Local Group, which is nearly 3 million light years away. Lately, a research has open up new avenues with respect to new galaxies within 35-million…

The UHTTR-1: Hoffman’s Table Tennis Robot

March 10, 2014March 20, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

Ulf Hoffman, a hobbiest engineer has designed the table tennis robot, a bot that plays tennis but with one hand. The team has named it the UHTTR-1. Within no time, the machine reverts the ball after servicing. Its ability to respond rapidly is due to its efficient servo motors and light weight aluminum construction. At the moment, the bot works in passive mode but the engineer claim to tune it to work for the next higher level and envision to integrate other higher dimensional skill set. Unlike Watson, it is…

Multiferroics’ Propagating Disturbance: Power Booster for Processors

March 9, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

It’s been quite a some time now since researchers were working upon conserving heat that get wasted when electronic device(s) – laptops, computers, smartphones – is in operation. Researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have come up with a new form of material named “multiferroics” which is rich in magnetic properties. The researchers aim that by incorporating this material, they could enhance the efficiency of energy in the next lot of future devices, an element that is missing in the current technologies. Electric current…

EcoMotors’ Opoc Engine: Breaking the Conventional Designs

March 6, 2014May 16, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

EcoMotors, a Michigan-based start-up, is about to revolutionize the internal combustion engines by creating an innovative type of engine, which they claim would pay less stress on wallet and at the same time, might enhance fuel economy by twenty percent with respect to turbo diesel engines. The company has decided to work in co-ordination with China because they feel that China has right market for the technology. Government in East Asia is quite particular when it comes to air quality and fuel efficiency.

Nano Innovation to Cure Macular Degeneration

March 6, 2014 Pooja Kashyap

Until now, treatment for eye disorders and other related problems were administered through injections, which were not only unpleasant but expensive as well. However, this would very soon become obsolete since researchers at University College London (UCL) have come up with eye drops for procuring macular degeneration. Nearly 2 in 10 people over 75 have age-related macular degeneration. And at this point of time, the research would prove a boon in combating the growing numbers of patients, and especially when the escalating demands of eye injections becomes responsible for halting…