Whether mobile phone or automatic toilets - electronic devices are becoming increasingly complex. And who hasn't heard stories of devices that fail precisely after the warranty has expired? According to Empa researcher Peter Jacob, however, the shorter lifespan is not a malicious "planned obsolescence", but is mainly due to enormous cost pressure.

Trillions of sensors are in our future, and they will need energy. Batteries are routinely used to power tiny devices, but there are other options. Piezoelectricity, the technology that converts mechanical energy into electricity, is gaining attention these days because it can scavenge energy from movement or vibrations.

Switzerland is proud of its strongly developed use of hydropower. This covers almost 60% of the country's electricity needs.

Atomically thin materials developed by Stanford researchers could create heat-shields for cell phones or laptops that would protect people and temperature-sensitive components and make future electronic gadgets even more compact.

From warehouses to hospitals, soft robots are used in different places to assist humans in moving items, treating patients and gathering information. As interests in these robots keep growing, Carnegie Mellon University scientists are developing ways to give them the kind of sensing capabilities found in natural soft tissue.

When frost forms on the ground overnight even when temperatures are well above freezing, or water droplets appear on car windshields even on a clear night, the cause is often a phenomenon called radiative sky cooling.

Technology developed at the University of Birmingham could protect the UK and other countries from national electricity blackouts. Britain has high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) transmission links with neighbouring countries, including France, Ireland, Holland and Norway - an efficient way of transporting electricity, but vulnerable to alternating-current (AC) faults.

The rapidly changing climate in the Arctic is not only linked to melting glaciers and declining sea ice, but also to thinning ice on lakes.