Lifeboat Foundation

Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, or as it is more commonly known, JARVIS, is a highly advanced personal digital assistant. And it could be your best friend of tomorrow.

Among all of the fictional artificial intelligence (AI) systems, by far, the coolest one has to be Tony Stark’s JARVIS—It can not only control everything for Iron Man, it’s also a highly intuitive and sentient entity that has become part and parcel of his Tony Stark’s way of life.

Continue reading “Microsoft Is Developing a New JARVIS-Like Artificial Intelligence System” »

When Khoshnevis imagines the future of colonies on Mars, he imagines very tall buildings, with a lot of protection from the elements.

“Gravity is one third of Earth’s, and therefore with less construction material we can build stronger structures out there, therefore we can build much taller,” he says. “The cost of energy for elevators and all that will be much less. Theoretically everything could be three times as high as here with the same consumption of energy,” he says.

Continue reading “Meet Behrokh Khoshnevis, the Man Designing Robots to Build Colonies on Mars” »

#SyntheticBiology: Robotic lab to custom-make synthetic bacteria.

Imperial College opens UK’s first robotic lab that automates the creation & rebooting of bacteria custom-made to produce pharmaceuticals and other materials. The robots will automate the synthesise of complete DNA strands, which consists millions of base pairs, and transplant entire genomes into bacteria chassis.

H/T: @CSERCambridge

Continue reading “Imperial opens UK’s first synthetic-biology foundry” »

The Sea Hunter, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s most ambitious unmanned vessel to date, may well be the most advanced self-navigating surface craft in the world. Its 130-foot trimaran hull is designed for a maximum speed of 27 knots and operations in conditions up to sea state five. It can conduct missions of up to 70 days without resupply, and can work unmanned to perform tasks too risky for human sailors. It is even capable of complying with the Rules of the Road, in certain well-defined situations. And it can do all of these things at a construction cost of $23 million, a bit under one percent of the price for a Zumwalt -class destroyer (excluding R&D).

Continue reading “DARPA Christens (Mostly) Autonomous Vessel” »

Interesting; however, I can not wait to see Nividia’s new car especially with their new GPU chip & DGX-1 technology.

While companies such as Google chase the fully autonomous car, Toyota is taking a more measured approach toward a “guardian angel” car that would seize control only when an accident is imminent.

But as starkly different as those approaches are, they both will require a wide range of data-intensive technologies, according to Gill Pratt (pictured), chief executive officer of the Toyota Research Institute, a research center focused on AI and robotics. He spoke at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose today.

Continue reading “Toyota’s ‘guardian angel’ cars will be supercomputers on wheels” »

Nvidia’s interim solution to QC.

Nvidia has announced a new deep learning system for supercomputers, deep learning, and artificial intelligence firms, alongside a new high-end GPU.

Bots and artificial intelligence are all the rage right now. Whether it’s Siri or Cortana, computers are trying to take things off our plate and make life easier. Making life easier and more comfortable — and more luxurious — is what Bentley is about, too, and that’s why the company is imagining what the future of automotive luxury might be like.

One of those things, according to this mock-up image provided by Bentley, is a holographic butler that could appear in the car and help you out. Perhaps it would make restaurant recommendations and reservations, or you’d tell the digital Jeeves where you’re looking to go before your autonomous car takes over.

Bentley design director Stefan Sielaff said, according to The Mirror, that how these sorts of “yet-to-be-invented connectivity and technologies… are integrated into the cabin will become ever more important.” The holographic butler could put a more human face on the self-driving car, so just call out “Home, James!” and you’ll be on your way.

Continue reading “Bentley wants to put a holographic butler in your car” »

Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new 3D printing process that creates fully functional robots from the moment they come out of the printer.

MIT process of robot making is quite streamlined, as the robot’s solid and hydraulic parts are created in one step. CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, who oversaw the project, said that their approach of printable hydraulics is a step ahead in the rapid fabrication of functional machines.

The single-step process involves printing a small six-legged robot that crawls with the help of 12-hydraulic pumps embedded in its body. Working of the printer includes inkjet printer deposits drops of material quite small in size. The object is printed layer wise from bottom to the top. High-intensity UV light solidifies the materials that were used to create the object.

Continue reading “MIT researchers develop 3D printing process that creates fully functional robots as soon as they come off printer” »

To the Robots of this restaurant “You’re Fired!”.

Employing robots and artificial intelligence in Chinese restaurants has turned out to be not such a smart idea after all, with restaurants in Guangzhou either closing down or firing their mechanical staff.

According to Workers’ Daily, two restaurants which made use of robotic waiters have closed down and a third which remains open has given all but one of the robots the sack.

Continue reading “Guangzhou restaurant fires its robot staff for their incompetence” »