Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘mapping’ category: Page 9

Sep 11, 2023

Lumigrids Projects a Laser Grid In Front Of Your Bicycle To See Terrain Changes at Night

Posted by in categories: mapping, transportation

Not everyone uses their bicycle at night, but for those that do, safety is key! You’ve probably already have a bicycle helmet, a bicycle safety light and reflectors, but what about seeing the road/path in front of you. Well, this ingenious invention helps map the terrain changes in front of you while you’re riding. It’s called Lumigrids, and it’s essentially a mini projector that you mount on the front of your bicycle handlebars, and it places a grid of laser lights in front of you, mapping any terrain changes such as bumps, curbs, potholes, and more, to make it easy for you to see and maneuver around them.

The creators of the Lumigrids bicycle grid projection light claims that its an improvement over regular bicycle lights which cast shadows over ridges, bumps, and concaves which make it harder to for the bike rider to react properly to the terrain in front of them. Since the Lumigrids projecting light uses a grid system, it makes it much easier to identify issues with the terrain in front of you whether a spot is concaved, convexed, etc. If lines on the grid don’t line up properly, you’ll know there’s something in front of you.

You can change the settings of the bicycle grid projector to emit a larger or smaller sized grid depending on your needs, including a small grid for single bicycle usage at lower speeds, a higher speed setting for single bicycle usage which emits a larger grid, as well as an extra large grid that measures for use with multiple bikers.

Sep 11, 2023

A physics-based Ising solver based on standard CMOS technology

Posted by in categories: computing, mapping, quantum physics

Quantum computers, systems that perform computations by exploiting quantum mechanics phenomena, could help to efficiently tackle several complex tasks, including so-called combinatorial optimization problems. These are problems that entail identifying the optimal combination of variables among several options and under a series of constraints.

Quantum computers that can tackle these problems should be based on reliable hardware systems, which have an intricate all-to-all node connectivity. This connectivity ultimately allows representing arbitrary dimensions of a problem to be directly mapped onto the .

Researchers at University of Minnesota recently developed a new electronic device based on standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology that could support this crucial mapping process. This device, introduced in a paper in Nature Electronics, is a physics-based Ising solver comprised of coupled ring oscillators and an all-to-all node connected architecture.

Sep 10, 2023

Imaging brain tissue architecture across millimeter to nanometer scales

Posted by in categories: mapping, nanotechnology, neuroscience, robotics/AI

Another excellent paper from Johann G. Danzl’s research group. They develop methods that combine novel negative staining techniques, deep learning, and super-resolution STED microscopy or expansion microscopy to facilitate nanoscale-resolution imaging of brain tissue volumes. They also show semi-automated (and some fully automated) segmentation of neuron morphology and identification of synapses. Very cool work and I’m excited to see how it influences connectomics in the future! #brain #neuroscience #imaging #microscopy #neurotech


Mapping fixed brain samples with extracellular labeling and optical microscopy reveals synaptic connections.

Sep 5, 2023

Toyota Robots That Do Housework!

Posted by in categories: mapping, robotics/AI, transportation

“Operating and navigating in home environments is very challenging for robots. Every home is unique, with a different combination of objects in distinct configurations that change over time. To address the diversity a robot faces in a home environment, we teach the robot to perform arbitrary tasks with a variety of objects, rather than program the robot to perform specific predefined tasks with specific objects. In this way, the robot learns to link what it sees with the actions it is taught. When the robot sees a specific object or scenario again, even if the scene has changed slightly, it knows what actions it can take with respect to what it sees.

We teach the robot using an immersive telepresence system, in which there is a model of the robot, mirroring what the robot is doing. The teacher sees what the robot is seeing live, in 3D, from the robot’s sensors. The teacher can select different behaviors to instruct and then annotate the 3D scene, such as associating parts of the scene to a behavior, specifying how to grasp a handle, or drawing the line that defines the axis of rotation of a cabinet door. When teaching a task, a person can try different approaches, making use of their creativity to use the robot’s hands and tools to perform the task. This makes leveraging and using different tools easy, allowing humans to quickly transfer their knowledge to the robot for specific situations.

Continue reading “Toyota Robots That Do Housework!” »

Sep 5, 2023

This Neural Net Maps Molecules to Aromas

Posted by in categories: mapping, neuroscience

Sights and sounds are easily digitized, but scents have eluded researchers until now.

Sep 3, 2023

Better paths yield better AI: Enhancing pre-existing architectures

Posted by in categories: mapping, robotics/AI

Deep Learning (DL) performs classification tasks using a series of layers. To effectively execute these tasks, local decisions are performed progressively along the layers. But can we perform an all-encompassing decision by choosing the most influential path to the output rather than performing these decisions locally?

In an article published today in Scientific Reports, researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel answer this question with a resounding “yes.” Pre-existing deep architectures have been improved by updating the most influential paths to the output.

Continue reading “Better paths yield better AI: Enhancing pre-existing architectures” »

Aug 31, 2023

NASA Shares First Images from US Pollution-Monitoring Instrument

Posted by in categories: mapping, space

On Thursday, NASA released the first data maps from its new instrument launched to space earlier this year, which now is successfully transmitting information about major air pollutants over North America.

Aug 21, 2023

Mapping the Mind: Worm’s Brain Activity Fully Decoded

Posted by in categories: mapping, neuroscience

Summary: Researchers successfully mapped the neural activity of the C. elegans worm, correlating it to its behaviors such as movement and feeding.

Using novel technologies and methodologies, they developed a comprehensive atlas that showcases how most of the worm’s neurons encode its various actions.

This study provides an intricate look into how an animal’s nervous system controls behavior. The team’s findings, data, and models are available on the “WormWideWeb.”

Aug 20, 2023

Bringing ultrafast physics to structural biology reveals the dance of molecular ‘coherence’ in unprecedented clarity

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, mapping, physics

How molecules change when they react to stimuli such as light is fundamental in biology, for example during photosynthesis. Scientists have been working to unravel the workings of these changes in several fields, and by combining two of these, researchers have paved the way for a new era in understanding the reactions of protein molecules fundamental for life.

The large international research team, led by Professor Jasper van Thor from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, report their results in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Crystallography is a powerful technique in for taking ‘snapshots’ of how molecules are arranged. Over several large-scale experiments and years of theory work, the team behind the new study integrated this with another technique that maps vibrations in the electronic and nuclear configuration of molecules, called spectroscopy.

Aug 18, 2023

10-fold Speed up For The Reconstruction of Neuronal Networks

Posted by in categories: computing, mapping, neuroscience

Scientists working in connectomics, a research field occupied with the reconstruction of neuronal networks in the brain, are aiming at completely mapping of the millions or billions of neurons found in mammalian brains. In spite of impressive advances in electron microscopy, the key bottleneck for connectomics is the amount of human labor required for the data analysis. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, have now developed reconstruction software that allows researchers to fly through the brain tissue at unprecedented speed. Together with the startup company scalable minds they created webKnossos, which turns researchers into brain pilots, gaining an about 10-fold speedup for data analysis in connectomics.

Billions of nerve cells are working in parallel inside our brains in order to achieve behaviours as impressive as hypothesizing, predicting, detecting, thinking. These neurons form a highly complex network, in which each nerve cell communicates with about one thousand others. Signals are sent along ultrathin cables, called axons, which are sent from each neuron to its about one thousand “followers.”

Continue reading “10-fold Speed up For The Reconstruction of Neuronal Networks” »

Page 9 of 46First678910111213Last