A new chip design from UC San Diego could make data centers far more energy-efficient by rethinking how power is converted for GPUs. By combining vibrating piezoelectric components with a clever circuit layout, the system overcomes limitations of traditional designs. The prototype achieved impressive efficiency and delivered much more power than previous attempts. Though not ready for widespread use yet, it points to a promising future for high-performance computing.

Claire chatted to Simona Aracri from National Research Council of Italy about innovative robot designs for oceanography and environmental monitoring.

Simona Aracri is a researcher in the Institute of Marine Engineering at the National Research Council of Italy. Previously, she was a Post Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Edinburgh, working on the award winning project ORCA Hub and focusing on offshore robotic sensors. Her research uses innovative sensors and robotic platforms to push the boundaries of observational oceanography and environmental monitoring. She has spent more than 6 months at sea on oceanographic sampling campaigns, in the Mediterranean Sea, Pacific Ocean and the North Sea.

The all-new wheeled dual-arm humanoid robot Panther is fitted with the world's first mass-produced 8-DoF bionic arms, an adaptive intelligent gripper on its high-DOF joint platform and features an omnidirectional four-wheel steering and four-wheel drive (4WS+4WD) chassis.