I spent quality time with the HyperSpace Trackpad Pro, which attempts to bring Apple's Magic Trackpad experience to Windows. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Apple was the first to truly popularize the touchpad (or trackpad, as Apple calls it), and most importantly, make it good. Over the years, the company enhanced the experience with a handful of features, such as multi-finger gestures or haptic feedback.

Physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) remains a key challenge for achieving intuitive and safe interaction with robots. Current advancements often rely on external tactile sensors as interface, which increase the complexity of robotic systems. In this study, we leverage the intrinsic tactile sensing capabilities of collaborative robots to recognize digits drawn by humans on an uninstrumented touchpad mounted to the robot's flange. We propose a dataset of robot joint torque signals along with corresponding end-effector (EEF) forces and moments, captured from the robot's integrated torque sensors in each joint, as users draw handwritten digits (0-9) on the touchpad. The pHRI-DIGI-TACT dataset was collected from different users to capture natural variations in handwriting. To enhance classification robustness, we developed a data augmentation technique to account for reversed and rotated digits inputs. A Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) network, leveraging the spatiotemporal nature of the data, performs online digit classification with an overall accuracy of 94\% across various test scenarios, including those involving users who did not participate in training the system. This methodology is implemented on a real robot in a fruit delivery task, demonstrating its potential to assist individuals in everyday life. Dataset and video demonstrations are available at: https://TS-Robotics.github.io/pHRI-DIGI/.

In this paper, we present a touch technology to achieve tactile interactivity for human-robot interaction (HRI) in soft robotics. By combining a capacitive touch sensor with an online solid mechanics simulation provided by the SOFA framework, contact detection is achieved for arbitrary shapes. Furthermore, the implementation of the capacitive touch technology presented here is selectively sensitive to human touch (conductive objects), while it is largely unaffected by the deformations created by the pneumatic actuation of our soft robot. Multi-touch interactions are also possible. We evaluated our approach with an organic soft robotics sculpture that was created by a visual artist. In particular, we evaluate that the touch localization capabilities are robust under the deformation of the device. We discuss the potential this approach has for the arts and entertainment as well as other domains.

The MSI Stealth A16 AI is a jack-of-all-trades that tries to deliver strong CPU and GPU performance in a thin chassis yet also provide lengthy battery life. It mostly succeeds, though its mediocre display is a bummer. Shoppers looking for a 16-inch laptop have no shortage of choice. The MSI Stealth A16 AI is yet another option in this packed arena and, as its name implies, it doesn't stand out at first glance. However, the MSI Stealth A16 AI is worth your attention if you need one laptop that can handle a bit of everything.

Today at IFA in Berlin, Acer unveiled the first Swift and TravelMate laptops with the latest Lunar Lake CPUs from Intel. Not only are these laptops equipped with the latest processing capabilities, but they're also designed to handle demanding AI workloads. The Swift even boasts a premium aluminum cover as well as an OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. The new TravelMate, on the other hand, is stupidly lightweight at just 2.20 pounds (!!!). Let's not waste anymore time and dive right in.

The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 offers reliable performance, a 1080p webcam, and a stunning design at a reasonable price point. What more could you ask for? Back in the day, Chromebooks were nothing more than low-powered machines that ran a web browser as your operating system, an extension of Google Chrome if you will. They were durable and largely virus-free, making them a popular choice in the educational market. Nowadays, they're capable of cloud gaming, which I never thought I'd see.

Hypothesis are trained models and Space means possibilities. So hypothesis space means a set of possible models for the given training dataset. It defines all possible parameters that the cost function (model) can assume. The cost function measures the performance of a machine-learning model. The purpose of the function is to either minimise the cost (regression-based models/error minimising models) or maximise the cost (reward-based model).

I love my Apple TV, but I can't stand the old Siri remote that came with it. Its touchpad is too sensitive, and I never know if it's in the right orientation when I grab it. Apple did fix all that with its second-generation Siri remote, but why buy another one when the one I currently have still works--especially when I can use a few handy Siri commands to do more than what the touchpad can do. On the Apple TV and accompanying Siri remote there's a handy microphone button that lets you chat directly with Siri to get your TV to do things like search for movies in a specific genre or year, ping other devices, and even fast forward by a specific amount of time. Not every command is intuitive, though, so it's helpful to know a few of them off-hand before you binge another series.

Google is always collaborating with academic researchers for many technical ideas. Two of the passed researched innovative ideas, which were VR controllers and smart tattoos. These ideas were funded by the Google Faculty Research Awards. Google is trying to stick its toe into wearable devices. For that, 370 million dollars were funded by Google on accessories such as watches, earbuds, jackets, and jeans. Tied up with Levi's and many shoe brands like Adidas for the smart fabric wears and shoe soles.

"Since it's hydrogel, it's inexpensive and biocompatible -- you can put it on the skin without any toxic effects. It's also very adhesive, and it doesn't fall off, so there are so many avenues for this material," Professor Xinyu Liu, whose lab is focused on the emerging areas of ionic skin and soft robotics. The adhesive AISkin is made of two oppositely charged sheets of stretchable substances known as hydrogels. By overlaying negative and positive ions, the researchers create what they call a "sensing junction" on the gel's surface. When the AISkin is subjected to strain, humidity or changes in temperature, it generates controlled ion movements across the sensing junction, which can be measured as electrical signals such as voltage or current.