News

The CPSC has issued a $4.5 million civil penalty to Sunbeam Products for failing to immediately report a product defect. The CPSC claims that Mr. Coffee Single Cup Brewing System BVMC-KG1 series coffeemakers were defective and posed an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death to consumers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued penalties to three men for operating pirate radio stations in New Jersey. According to the Forfeiture Orders, the men willfully and repeatedly conducted illegal radio operations, despite repeated warnings from the FCC.

Researchers at The Institute of Photonic Sciences searched for photovoltaic technology that is thin, low-cost, flexible, and environmentally friendly, so that sustainable energy could be installed in more locations. They have developed a new kind of solar cell that is non-toxic, easy to produce, and made with abundant materials.

Ecovent is recalling 600 room sensors because they pose an electrical shock hazard. The cover can come off during normal use, exposing high voltage components.

A new microchip containing 1,000 independent programmable processors but is very energy efficient. The “KiloCore” chip can process 1.78 trillion instructions per second, contains 621 million transistors, and could be powered by a single AA battery.

Although today’s 3D printers are capable of some amazing things, researchers in MIT’s Media Lab are rethinking the technology and expanding its capabilities. They have found a way to bypass a time-intestive step in 3D printing so that hair-like structures can be printed. They have used their new technique to print “hairs” that can perform sensing, adhesion, and actuation.

A new autonomous vehicle is now cruising (slowly) through the streets of Washington, DC. Olli is an autonomous electric vehicle that can carry up to 12 people. It is the first autonomous vehicle to use IBM’s artificial intelligence platform, Watson Internet of Things (IoT).

Mayborn is recalling 255,000 Tommee Tippee electric bottle and food warmers. The warmers can overheat and catch on fire, posing a fire hazard to consumers. The company has received six reports of the warmers overheating, melting, smoking and catching on fire; which resulted in $16,000 in property damage.

NASA has released new details about an experimental aircraft that is part of the...

Researchers have taken a big step toward developing an implantable chip that can detect DNA mutations in real-time and transmit them wirelessly to a smartphone or computer. A team of bioengineers and the University of California, San Diego designed an electrical graphene chip that can detect a common mutation in DNA.