Using a magnet to connect the transmitting and receiving coils, electrons behave more consistently and the phone is less likely to overheat. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. In-car wireless chargers are notoriously finicky. Your phone can slide off the slippery charging pad at a sudden stop, or overheat and stop charging; the case can also prevent your phone from connecting. Often, it's a pain in the neck, not to mention an added distraction while you're behind the wheel.

A new wearable gadget that fixes to the arm can measure blood sugar and muscle fatigue at the gym and alcohol levels at the pub. Created in California, the prototype can continuously monitor three health stats – glucose, alcohol and lactate levels – either separately or simultaneously in real-time. About the size of three poker chips stacked together, it is applied to the skin painlessly through a Velcro-like patch of microscopic needles. These needles take readings from fluid under the skin and then sends the data wirelessly to a custom smartphone app. Researchers hope to commercialise the device, which could provide a single solution for diabetes patients in everyday life.

Lenovo is back with more smart clocks. It's one of a handful of third-party companies that make Google Assistant-powered displays, and we were impressed by the original Lenovo Smart Clock's simplicity and low price. Lenovo then followed it up with the Smart Clock Essential, which was basically a smaller alarm clock with speakers and a mic for you to talk to Google's Assistant. This time around, the company is launching the Smart Clock 2, and it offers some improvements over its predecessor for $10 more. Plus, it comes with a wireless charging pad that lets you juice up your compatible devices and doubles as a nightlight.

The world's first autonomous indoor drone surveillance system has been developed by two European companies. The unmanned machine carries out its own patrol route through the corridors and rooms of the building it is monitoring, landing itself on a wireless charging pad whenever it runs low on power. A surveillance camera attached to the quadrocopter records and streams real-time footage and alerts human guards to any potential threats. The engineers behind the system claim building owners could replace hundreds of static cameras with a few drones, saving costs while keeping their property secure. The world's first autonomous indoor drone surveillance system (pictured) has been developed by two European drone companies'Drones work best in surveillance applications and are more cost effective,' said David Trillo, CEO of Spanish communications and drone technology developer Avansig, one of two companies working to create the new system.

After Steven Yang left his coveted job at Google, he asked his mother whether he should take venture-capital money to fund his business idea. If his online consumer-electronics enterprise was a risky bet, she told him, go with the venture capitalists. But if building the business into something great was his destiny, he instead should use her money from a pharmaceutical career in China. So Yang combined his Google money with his mom's, and with less than $1 million in seed capital he moved from California to Shenzhen, a hub in southern China for technology companies. Seven years later, Anker Innovations Technology Co. sells products ranging from smartphone chargers to portable power banks on Amazon.com.

HONG KONG – After Steven Yang left his coveted job at Google, he asked his mother whether he should take venture capital money to fund his business idea. If his online consumer electronics enterprise was a risky bet, she told him, go with the venture capitalists. But if building the business into something great was his destiny, he instead should use her money from her pharmaceutical career in China. So Yang combined his Google money with his mom's, and with less than $1 million in seed capital he moved from California to Shenzhen -- a hub in southern China for technology companies. Seven years later, Anker Innovations Technology Co. sells products ranging from smartphone chargers to portable power banks on Amazon.com.

This is what our readers loved most in February. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA Today's newsroom and any business incentives. Despite being a short month, February was full of deals on some great products. We saw sales on high-end OLED and 4K smart TVs, mattresses infused with green tea, Instant Pots, robot vacuums, and tons of kitchen and tech accessories.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. A new RoboBee from Harvard can swim underwater, and then launch itself into the air with a microrocket and fly away. At the millimeter scale, the water's surface might as well be a brick wall.