Lifeboat Foundation

Animatronics engineer Matt Denton has worked on some pretty mindblowing projects. He’s built special effects robots for “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” and “Jurassic World.”

But his latest project may just be his most ambitious yet. Denton has created a huge, six-legged driveable robot that has been compared to a spider. And it’s won him a Guinness World Record.

Continue reading “The man who built ‘Star Wars’ droid BB-8 has created a giant rideable robot spider — here it is in action” »

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the automaker is soon going to release new software updates with an upgraded rain-sensing neural net and several Easter Eggs.

With the Autopilot 2.0 system, Tesla decided not to go with a normal rain sensor to activate its automatic windshield wiper system and instead relies on a neural net system to detect rain with its camera.

They started releasing a beta version earlier this year.

Continue reading “Elon Musk announces Tesla software update with new rain sensing neural net and Easter eggs” »

Recently, I came across a video featuring Jimmy Fallon interacting with the world’s first robot citizen, Sophia, and a new edition to the robot world, her little sister, Little Sophia. If you have not come across Sophia and Hanson Robotics then check out Zara‘s article to find out more. In short, Sophia is a human-like robot created by Hanson Robotics, an artificial intelligence company located in Hong Kong.

In a new book published this week titled Architects of Intelligence, writer and futurist Martin Ford interviewed 23 of the most prominent men and women who are working in AI today, including DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Google AI Chief Jeff Dean, and Stanford AI director Fei-Fei Li. In an informal survey, Ford asked each of them to guess by which year there will be at least a 50 percent chance of AGI being built.

Short answer: maybe within our lifetimes, but don’t hold out.

Artificial intelligences are about to get a place to call their own — and it’s located somewhere humans are unlikely to want to visit.

According to a story published Monday in the South China Morning Post, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences plan to construct a research base deep in the South China Sea, and they want artificially intelligent robots to run it.

This base could be the “first artificial intelligence colony on Earth,” those involved in the project told the SCMP.

A few years back, we heard about Mobile Recon Systems’ KittyHawk, a large-ish quadcopter that could carry three GoPro cameras. Well, the Kentucky-based company has now announced the new Dauntless UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), which can lift and transport over 200 lb (90 kg).

Ordinarily, city officials only know about leaks in municipal water pipes once those leaks have become quite large and troublesome. A new artificial intelligence-based system, however, could catch such leaks much earlier – by listening for them.

Robotic refueling. 3D Forest imagery. And two student experiments inspired by Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” These are just a few of the studies that will be added to the hundreds onboard the International Space Station with the SpaceX cargo launch on Dec. 4! Watch more:

Mars just received its newest robotic resident. Our NASA InSight lander successfully touched down on the surface of the Red Planet yesterday after its 300-million-mile journey from Earth. Learn what insights we hope to gain from it and get your Mars on: https://go.nasa.gov/2FJEygW