New 'Gel' May Be Step Toward Clothing That Computes

A gel-like material that can carry out pattern recognition could be a major step toward "materials that compute," with possible applications for "smart" clothing or sensing skins for robots, according to a new study. Recent advances in both materials and computer science have prompted researchers to look beyond standard silicon-based electronics and exploit the inherent properties of materials to create systems where the material itself is the computer. Now, a team from the University of Pittsbu