Lifeboat Foundation

Chinese company Fourier Intelligence says it plans to manufacture 100 of its GR-1 general-purpose humanoid robots by the end of 2023, making the remarkable promise that they’ll be able to carry nearly their own weight. They also have a unique focus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYhycqEsWDk

Fourier seems to specialize mainly in rehabilitation technologies; its RehabHub platform offers a series of integrated physical therapy devices for treating various issues, from wrist strength games to hand and finger grip training, all the way up to lower-body exoskeletons for training people to walk, sit, stand, balance and climb stairs.

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What happens when humans begin combining biology with technology, harnessing the power to recode life itself.

What does the future of biotechnology look like? How will humans program biology to create organ farm technology and bio-robots. And what happens when companies begin investing in advanced bio-printing, artificial wombs, and cybernetic prosthetic limbs.

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The Apogee+ exoskeleton aims to help support caregivers in healthcare settings. | Source: German Bionic.

German Bionic has unveiled the Apogee+, a powered exoskeleton for the North American healthcare market. Apogee+ aims to merge cutting-edge robots with research-backed, data-driven insights to better support caregivers.

Apogee+ is designed to provide personal lift assistance to caregivers, and it specifically addresses concerns with care worker safety and job satisfaction. This is German Bionic’s first foray into the healthcare space, and the mover underscores its success in industrial settings.

BEIJING, Aug. 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — On August 22, the 2023 World Robot Conference (WRC), which was held in Beijing with the theme of “Spurring Innovation for the Future,” came to a big success. The 2023 World Robotics Expo and the 2023 World Robot Contest took place at the same time, bringing together about 160 robotics companies and scientific research institutions from around the globe, and showcasing close to 600 advanced technologies and products, over 320 representatives from international organizations, academicians, renowned experts, and entrepreneurs at home and abroad have been invited to attend.

As a general robotics company, Dreame Technology took center stage for the first time at the World Robot Conference. It unveiled a wide range of robots, including general-purpose humanoid robots, consumer-grade bionic quadruped robots, industrial-grade quadruped robots, wireless Robotic Pool Cleaner, commercial food delivery robots and floor-cleaning robots. This range highlighted Dreame’s broad competitiveness across the fields of R&D for robotic ecosystems and technologies, supply chains, production and manufacturing, talent development, and commercialization.

New bionic hand with better move of fingers.

Successful testing of the bionic hand has already been conducted on a patient who lost his arm above the elbow.

In a world first, surgeons and engineers have developed a new bionic hand that allows users with arm amputations to effortlessly control each finger as though it was their own body.

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How would it feel to control objects with your mind? Or hear colors? Or maybe even live forever? Well, if you want to find out, all you have to do is become a cyborg. How would being part machine affect us? Would it cause a greater divide between the rich and the poor? And is this the next step in human evolution?

Transcript and sources: https://whatifshow.com/what-if-we-become-cyborgs/

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Transhumanism — advocates strongly for humans to develop and make widely available sophisticated technologies that enhance human physiology and intellect greatly. In layman’s terms, transhumanists would like for human beings to become cyborgs; cybernetic organisms.

As such, transhumanist concepts feature greatly in science fiction. Cyborgs are commonly seen in all forms of science fiction media…

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A speech-to-text brain–computer interface that records spiking activity from intracortical microelectrode arrays enabled an individual who cannot speak intelligibly to achieve 9.1 and 23.8% word error rates on a 50-and 125,000-word vocabulary, respectively.

Materials scientists aim to develop autonomous materials that function beyond stimulus responsive actuation. In a new report in Science Advances, Yang Yang and a research team in the Center for Bioinspired Energy Science at the Northwestern University, U.S., developed photo-and electro-activated hydrogels to capture and deliver cargo and avoid obstacles on return.

To accomplish this, they used two spiropyran monomers (photoswitchable materials) in the hydrogel for photoregulated charge reversal and autonomous behaviors under a constant electric field. The photo/electro-active materials could autonomously perform tasks based on constant external stimuli to develop intelligent materials at the molecular scale.

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