liquid

After setting a world record for the longest distance traveled on Earth's surface by a robot, Liquid Robotics today unveiled the latest version of its Wave Glider technology.

The updated platform is capable of autonomously prowling the world's seas while analyzing, processing, and transmitting data gathered from a wide variety of on-board sensors.

The new Wave Glider SV3 is essentially a self-powered sea-faring data center, a system that gives users the ability to investigate the world's water ways for months on end. The SV3 features a hybrid propulsion system, Silicon Valley's Liquid Robotics said, that can … Read more

IBM has come up with a new technique for making the tiny switches and memory cells at the heart of computer chips: a drop of ionic liquid.

The technique converts a metal oxide on a computer chip from a conducting to an insulating state and back again, a transition that, using a different approach, is at the heart of conventional semiconductor chips today. Insulators don't conduct electricity and conductors do, so changing a material's state is instrumental to how it performs the logical operations of computer processing.

Today's semiconductor chips work by applying electrical voltage to a &… Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Acer's new Liquid E1 is proof that an Android Jelly Bean handset doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. At an unsubsidized price of 199 euros (about $260, or £175), this midrange smartphone comes with a respectable list of components to match its modern software.

Powered by 1GHz dual-core MediaTek processor paired with 1GB of RAM, the Liquid E1 offers a pleasantly quick if not blisteringly swift Android experience. And while its 4.5-inch screen has a lower than average qHD resolution (960x540 pixels), it's large, bright, and uses IPS technology for acceptably … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain- Don't dismiss the Acer Liquid Z2 because of its small stature. This new handset showcased at MWC 2013 may be on the petite side in terms of many Android smartphones, but the gadget manages to squeeze Android 4.1 Jelly Bean plus support for dual-SIM cards in its compact frame.

If you're expecting a massive screen here, the Liquid Z2 will disappoint. That's because the device uses a miniscule 3.5-inch LCD with a low 480x320-pixel resolution. The phone's other components won't prove thrilling to mobile computing mavens, either, such as a 3-megapixel … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Launched two weeks ago in Thailand and making its first appearance outside of Asia is Acer's latest Intel Atom smartphone, the Liquid C1. The U.S. $331 handset sports a single-core Intel Atom Z2420 1.2GHz processor, a 4.3-inch qHD LCD display, 1GB RAM, and only 4GB of storage (but it does have a microSD card slot).

The quad-band C1 weighs just 140 grams, and also features an 8-megapixel camera. It also packs a 2,000mAh battery that should last you a day of use.

Meant for the Asia market, the Liquid C1 will soon head to … Read more

Acer has shown off a new smartphone it's calling the Liquid E1.

Announced in China yesterday, the Liquid E1 will ship with a 4.5-inch, 960- x 540-pixel display and a dual-core 1GHz processor. The device will have two cameras onboard, including a 5-megapixel rear-facing and 0.3-megapixel front-facing lens. The Liquid E1 will ship with 1GB of onboard memory and 4GB of storage. According to Acer, the handset will run Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean).

The device's design is as underwhelming as its specs. The Liquid E1 comes with rounded edges, a flash and lens on the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--TLDR is software that summarizes Web information automatically when you don't have time to read the whole story. It's available now as a plug-in for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, but developers Stremor say the Android and iPhone apps have been submitted to the major app stores, so you'll be able to use it on your smartphone as early as this week.

A quick demo was all it took to see how well this software works. Once you download the free plug-in for your Web browser, you simply restart and you're ready to go. The … Read more

After a record-breaking 9,000-mile journey across the ocean, a small autonomous robot recently arrived in Australia having collected and transmitted a wealth of scientific data that could lead to a better understanding of the world's seas.

On November 17, 2011, a Silicon Valley startup called Liquid Robotics launched four of its Wave Glider robots from San Francisco, two of which were heading toward Australia and the other two on their way to Japan. The hope was that the Wave Gliders, which are designed to travel across the globe without fuel or outside propulsion, would set the Guinness World … Read more

Hurricane Sandy has destroyed houses, cars, and boats, and caused some $20 billion in property damage, but one robot rode out the storm at sea without a scratch, as far as its maker can tell.

Liquid Robotics said one of its Wave Glider marine robots named Mercury was 100 miles east of Toms River, N.J., when Sandy hit, but the machine continued to function.

It withstood winds of up to 70 knots and continued to transmit real-time weather data about the storm. … Read more