One of the worst fears the people might have of robots would probably be if one day they end up replacing us, sometime in the future.

Sounds like something straight out of a science fiction movie? Maybe not, with this computer chip that is able to mimic the human brain’s ability to learn new tasks.

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Digital displays dominate our lives, from our small digital devices to large television screens. While not a problem with large displays, as they are hardly moved around, glare can be rather disadvantageous for our handheld devices.

To solve this problem of glare, Nippon Electric Glass Co Ltd has developed an “invisible glass” that exhibited last month at the FPD International 2011.

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There have been many ways people have tried to add the sense of smell to what we see and hear through the TV or monitor. Imagine being able to smell a field of lavender, or that delicious steak being prepared. Perhaps to some it might sound like a bad idea, but maybe it’s just able to add another dimension to those who are Googling scents of flowers on the Internet.

Olly, the web-connected robot that’s able to emit smells to whatever input it gets from the net, might just be the solution to the problem.

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Ordering food at a food court usually means placing your order at the counter and waiting in line. Australian design firm S-Digital is set to change that by implementing some technology into the fray.

The Brand Table is a concept application that’s designed to take your order via a mobile device, where your item selection and payment occurs.

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There have been many modern advances that have tried to make technology more accessible to the disabled. Certainly, there have been some companies that have tried to design specialised touchphones for the blind, and even proper laptops with Braille keys are much too expensive and rarely very useful in everyday situations.

So perhaps this new app designed by NMSU undergraduate Adam Duran, along with Stanford Assistant Professor Adrian Lew, and Stanford Doctoral candidate Sohan Dharmaraja over the Army High Performance Computing Research Center’s summer course held at Stanford, could help make the smooth screen of a tablet more functional for the blind person.

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