Janani Gopalakrishnan: 7 books

From being used to prototype designs and build custom toys, 3D printing technology is now ready to churn out everything from space stations and human organs to houses and food too

Far from the days of racing to catch-up with technologies, an era has now dawned where Indian start-ups are forerunners in trendy fields like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data.

This is not a ‘frog turned into a prince’ story, but a very long quest by technologists. Technologists and, yes, advertisers, started dreaming about printed and flexible electronics decades ago, as early as 1970s. Products they wanted to develop evolved over time, but the core requirement of such...

Smartwatches, smartglasses and fitness wearables have been much talked about in the past year. While some go for wearables that help them stay fit or get a richer media experience, others use their wearables for always-on connectivity, especially to social media. However, the fact is that this class of devices is much larger than these hyped eye-grabbers.

Even as buyers wonder whether to buy a 3G phone or a 4G one, even as developers discuss which platform to develop their apps for, even as wearable makers and media houses harness the boons of 4G, elsewhere in the world, researchers are moving ahead.

Programming devices—and robots—to do stuff is no longer exciting. The next thing on the wish list is robots that learn how to behave and do things autonomously, just like humans and animals learn as they grow up

With a simple Google search, you can read about dozens of revolutionary developments in three-dimensional (3D) printing. You can read about how it has given wings to do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiasts, how everybody is a maker today, how nutritious food can be 3D-printed in the shapes of cartoon characters...