Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today including an alcohol powered robot, Samsung’s cheap foldable and leaks on the International Space Station. For today’s Start-up Stories we’ll be talking about Anodot. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
Letting off steam
Luckily, everybody on board is safe. Image credit: NASA
NASA Says There’s a Small Leak on the International Space Station
As we speak, a small amount of air is leaking out of the ISS, which NASA is now investigating. The three crew members on board are all safe and will be spending the coming weekend inside the Russian part of the station as the leak’s source is dealt with.
Surprisingly, a small amount of air leaking isn’t an unexpected occurrence. According to a NASA statement, “The station’s atmosphere is maintained at pressure comfortable for the crew members, and a tiny bit of that air leaks over time, requiring routine repressurisation from nitrogen tanks delivered on cargo resupply missions.” However, the rate of the leak has slightly increased, so a plan to isolate, identify and potentially repair the source is being set up by the teams.
While in the Russian segment of the station, the crew will be closing all hatches in order to let mission control monitor air pressure per module. An answer should be found by the end of next week, according to NASA.
What’s in store for the ISS.
The booze-bot
Do robots get hangovers? Image credit: Yang et al.
Relatable: This Tiny Robot is Powered by Alcohol
Methanol is a type of alcohol. As it turns out, it can also be used as fuel for robots. The alcohol powered robot in question, known as RoBeetle, weighs less than a tenth of a gram and doesn’t rely on anything but alcohol to move around.
According to Nestor Perez-Arancibia at the University of Southern California, who designed the robot, “The energy density of batteries is very low, so we needed new sources of power. We were able to make it so light and small because we’re not relying on batteries.”
So how does the boozy bot work? When the methanol is burned, the vapour that’s released forces small nickel-titanium alloy wires to repeatedly expand and contract as they heat up and then cool. These wires are essentially the bot’s artificial muscles, so the contraction and expansion force the robot to crawl forward. The RoBeetle can carry 2.6 times its own weight and can carry an additional 95-milligram fuel tank, allowing for two hours of crawl time. The team behind the robot is now working on making it run for even longer. They’re also working on attaching wings to it, with funding from DARPA.
Want to buy a robot?
Wake me up when September ends
Wave goodbye to the old Facebook. Image credit: Facebook
Facebook’s Old Web Design Will Disappear in September
The classic Facebook web design - the one with the blue navigation bar at the top - will be gone for good come September.
While you can still use the old interface, a Facebook support page now informs users that the new design will soon be replacing the old one for every user. Once we reach September, the change to the new design will be permanent.
The new design is chalk and cheese compared to the previous one. It’s much sleeker and cleaner and has a lot more white spaces. It also allows users to switch to dark mode. Additionally, the new design places more focus on Facebook’s Groups features, as well as increased visibility of Facebook’s Watch, Gaming and Marketplace sections at the top of the home page.
Facebook used to look very different.
Affordable foldables?
Foldables at normal prices. Image credit: Future
Samsung is Apparently Working on the First Cheap Foldable Phone
Samsung is pretty dominant in the foldable phone market, with its third foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 2, coming out next month.
Sadly, Samsung’s foldables aren’t cheap. However, a SamMobile report hints to that changing. The report suggests that Samsung might be working on an affordable foldable smartphone for the mass market. The device in question has the model number SM-F415, with the F suggesting that the device will be foldable. Put in the context of the new naming scheme Samsung is going with this year, the new phone will be part of the Galaxy Z lineup, although the final product name isn’t specified.
According to the report, the cheaper foldable will come in 64GB and 128GB storage options, with the choice of blue, green and black colourways. It might also be a clamshell design, similar to the Galaxy Z Flip as opposed to the tablet-converting Fold. The price isn’t clear at this point, but considering that Samsung’s Z Flip is priced at around $1,300, Samsung’s upcoming cheaper foldable could be priced even lower than that.
The future of smartphones.
Start-up Stories
Anodot
Image credit: Anodot
Big business requires big data. That’s where Anodot comes in.
The Redwood City, California-based start-up offers big data analytics software that monitors business and operational data. More specifically, their software leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence to give businesses the data they need in real-time.
Some of the key features of the software include financial management, IT system & application performance monitoring and customer experience management. Now, Anodot is working on expanding the features of their software, by adding things like banking & financial services and developing use-case-specific application packages.