Showing results by author "Elizabeth Woyke" in All Categories

Advocates for the visually impaired are talking to companies and legislators about developing vehicles they will be able to drive independently.

Colon cancer is less common in India than in the US, but it tends to affect younger people and to be more aggressive when it does occur there. Indians with colon cancer also have different genetic mutations from the ones affecting patients who have been studied in Western countries and whose information is the basis of most published data on the disease. A vegetarian diet may help explain the overall statistics, but why do some Indians develop a more serious form of the disease at a younger age?

Smartphones can tell you when to depart for the airport to make your flight, provide voice-guided directions on the way there, and route around traffic jams. But if you wanted to get audio directions to a specific counter at the airport, you’d be out of luck. That requires a phone to understand its position in great detail, all on its own - even when it is deep inside a building, beyond the reach of GPS signals. Even the most sophisticated phones can’t do that.

Joe Jones invents practical, mobile robots, among them the vacuum-cleaning Roomba and floor-washing Scooba, which he developed at his former employer iRobot. At his new startup, Franklin Robotics, he’s continuing to alleviate housework drudgery by making a waterproof robot that weeds flower and vegetable gardens. The Tertill, which has been prototyped and is scheduled to launch in summer 2017 for $250, operates autonomously.