Lifeboat Foundation

Robots capable of the sophisticated motions that define advanced physical actions like walking, jumping, and navigating terrain can cost $50,000 or more, making real-world experimentation prohibitively expensive for many.

Now, a collaborative team at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Tübingen and Stuttgart, Germany, has designed a relatively low-cost, easy-and-fast-to-assemble quadruped robot called “Solo 8” that can be upgraded and modified, opening the door to sophisticated research and development to teams on limited budgets, including those at startups, smaller labs, or teaching institutions.

The researchers’ work, “An Open Torque-Controlled Modular Robot Architecture for Legged Locomotion Research,” accepted for publication in Robotics and Automation Letters, will be presented later this month at ICRA, the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, one of the world’s leading robotic conferences, to be held virtually.

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The system studied 17,000 celebrity headshots before learning to make its own.

In the last few years, most of the data such as books, videos, pictures, medical and even the genetic information of humans are moving toward digital formats. Laptops, tablets, smartphones and wearable devices are the major source of this digital data transformation and are becoming the core part of our daily life. As a result of this transformation, we are becoming the soft target of various types of cybercrimes. Digital forensic investigation provides the way to recover lost or purposefully deleted or hidden files from a suspect’s device. However, current man power and government resources are not enough to investigate the cybercrimes. Unfortunately, existing digital investigation procedures and practices require huge interaction with humans; as a result it slows down the process with the pace digital crimes are committed. Machine learning (ML) is the branch of science that has governs from the field of AI. This advance technology uses the explicit programming to depict the human-like behaviour. Machine learning combined with automation in digital investigation process at different stages of investigation has significant potential to aid digital investigators. This chapter aims at providing the research in machine learning-based digital forensic investigation, identifies the gaps, addresses the challenges and open issues in this field.

Robotmaker Boston Dynamics has finally put its four-legged robot Spot on general sale. After years of development, the company began leasing the machine to businesses last year, and, as of today, is now letting any US firm buy their very own Spot for $74,500.

It’s a hefty price tag, equal to the base price for a luxury Tesla Model S. But Boston Dynamics says, for that money, you’re getting the most advanced mobile robot in the world, able to go pretty much anywhere a human can (as long as there are no ladders involved).

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This mouth-full of a boat uses simple physics to create a cushion of air that allows it to effortlessly fly along the tops of ocean waves with near inexhaustible solar energy. The researchers say that this sleek, solar vessel could act as a mobile charging station for drones in the deep ocean or could conduct oceanic search and rescue missions.

Researchers in Russia have designed a solar-powered, and AI piloted, boat that can walk on water and serve as a mid-ocean fuel-up station for drones.

Interesting.

How we can all benefit from cognitive automation.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence, & Fully Automated Luxury Capitalism” »

NASA is planning to bring Martian samples back to Earth — and they’re looking for someone to lead the mission.

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, set to take place over the next decade, aims to collect samples of Martian rock, soil, and atmosphere for analysis and testing on Earth.

NASA has previously sent several rovers to Mars, but no program or robot has ever been able to bring back samples, which could give researchers new insights into the Red Planet.

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In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made history when it became the first robotic explorer to conduct a flyby of Pluto. This was followed by another first, when the NASA mission conducted the first flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) on 31 December 2018 – which has since been named Arrokoth.

Now, on the edge of the Solar System, New Horizons is still yielding some groundbreaking views of the cosmos.

For example, we here on Earth are used to thinking that the positions of the stars are “fixed”. In a sense, they are, since their positions and motions are relatively uniform when seen from our perspective.

Continue reading “New Horizons Is So Far From Earth, It Shows Us How Stars Look Different Out There” »

A survey of millions of people in more than 200 countries shows ethical decisions are never simple.