Although the lifespan of a tire depends on an variety of different factors, most will need to be replaced about every five years. However, a new 3D printed tire prototype from Michelin may one day outlast your vehicle — and then some.
At the Movin’On exhibition in Montreal, Michelin unveiled its 3D printed Visionary Concept tire. Unlike traditional air-pressurized tires, the 3D printed prototype doesn’t need to be inflated. Instead, the Visionary Concept tire uses a honeycomb pattern based on generative design models found in nature, such as coral and the air sacs in human lungs. This design diminishes the risk of a blowout or flats due to punctures.
While traditional rubber tires gradually lose their tread as a result of friction, this prototype uses 3D printers to “replenish” this tread as needed. A series of sensors built into the tire monitor the tread wear and provide real-time information about performance and maintenance.
This information is relayed to drivers via an app, where individuals can then preemptively order 3D printed tread replacements. These new 3D printed treads can be tailored for an array of settings to compensate for seasonal weather, more rugged terrains, and even different driving styles.
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, the Vision tire is also made from bio-sourced and biodegradable materials, including (but not limited to) natural rubber, bamboo, paper, tin cans, wood, and plastic. Michelin also minimized the amount of rubber in each of these “organic” tires to further reduce the overall environmental impact.
The entire wheel is produced from recyclable materials, which means that once the tire has reached the end of its life (“thousands and thousands of kilometers” down the road, according to Michelin), the tire itself will also be recyclable.
However, as this tire is still just a prototype, it looks like we’ll have to deal with our wildly inefficient, archaic, pressurized rubber tires for the time being. Michelin’s Executive VP of Research and Development, Terry Gettys, believes it will be at least another 10 years before the finalized Visionary Concept tire reaches the market.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.