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Category: robotics/AI – Page 1,688

Nigerian immigrant begins manufacturing first-ever Black-owned fleet of self-driving pods

A Black-owned tech firm based in Miami, Florida, has begun manufacturing self-driving vehicles called JéGO Pods. The firm will start releasing the pods in late 2022 and will be used to mobilize healthcare services.

JéGO Technologies Inc is founded by Frederick Akphoghene, a Nigerian immigrant, who started his career in tech as early as 16. Since he started his journey, he has built and partnered with hundreds of companies and startups including Abovav Technologies and Oddio Tribe Holdings.

According to Akphoghene, the purpose of his company is to use its mobile platform to connect users with businesses that provide on-demand services like Flu Testing, COVID testing, IV therapy and other services which can be brought directly to customers using driverless JéGO pods.

Shape-shifting material morphs robot from driving to flying

A new shape-shifting material out of Virginia Tech can be used to give robots the power to transform smoothly between different shapes — like going from a drivable robot to a flying drone.

The challenge: Most of today’s robots are really good at one function — drones are designed to fly, but they can’t swim, and wheeled bots can drive, but they can’t fly.

The few exceptions typically use complex systems of motors, gears, and hinges to reconfigure themselves into different shapes suited for different tasks, but every extra part is a new potential point of failure.

Are lifelike digital humans the future of customer experience?

Soul Machines, a New Zealand-based company that uses CGI, AI and natural language processing to create lifelike digital people who can interact with humans in real time, has raised $70 million in a Series B1 round, bringing its total funding to $135 million. The startup will put the funds toward enhancing its Digital Brain technology, which uses a technique called “cognitive modeling” to recreate things like the human brain’s emotional response system in order to construct autonomous animated characters.

The funding was led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with additional participation from Cleveland Avenue, Liberty City Ventures and Solasta Ventures. Existing investors Temasek, Salesforce Ventures and Horizons Ventures also participated in the round.

While Soul Machines does envision its tech will be used for entertainment purposes, it’s mainly pursuing a B2B play that creates emotionally engaging brand and customer experiences. The basic problem the startup is trying to solve is how to create personal brand experiences in an increasingly digital world, especially when the main interaction most companies have with their customers is via apps and websites.

New artificial enamel is harder and more durable than the real thing

And it’s a perfect fit. Enamel is an incredible material. It’s sturdy enough so that humans can chew but flexible enough that it doesn’t crack with every bite. Unfortunately, humans can not regenerate it. Once lost or damaged, it’s gone forever.

OpenAI’s chief scientist has admitted what we all fear — that artificial intelligence may be gaining consciousness.

Su-75: Is Russia’s New Stealth Fighter Actually Stealth?

Earlier this year, Russia unveiled their forthcoming “stealth fighter,” the single-engine Su-75 Checkmate, with bold claims about its expected performance and capabilities. Now, as the fighter is being displayed on foreign soil for the first time at this week’s Dubai Air Show, formal statements from its manufacturer have called its stealth credentials into question.

As we discussed at the time, Russia has a long and illustrious history of exaggeration when it comes to unveiling new defense technologies, from the Uran-9 infantry robot that garnered global headlines despite secretly not working at all, to the Checkmate’s older sibling, the Su-57, which is considered the least stealth of its fighter generation and currently exists only in token numbers. Even successful designs like the T-14 Armata main battle tank are smothered under a lack of funding, with Russia unable to produce or field them in any reasonable numbers.

And while the Su-75 has yet to even manifest in a flyable way, the firm responsible for developing the aircraft has carefully tip-toed around the topic of stealth throughout multiple stories published by Russia’s state-owned news outlets in recent months. Even the language used by these outlets is more reserved than you’ll often find in the international media. As one glaring example, you’ll find the Su-75 Checkmate referred to as a stealth fighter all throughout American media… but you won’t find Rostec (the firm developing the aircraft) use that term.

Is the Artificial Intelligence Classified as Machine Learning Becoming More Personable?

Please welcome Samantha Higgins, who defines herself as a professional writer with a passion for research, observation, and innovation. She resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband and her two twin boys. When she’s not writing about artificial intelligence and other technology subjects, Samantha loves kayaking and reading creative non-fiction. In this her first contribution to 21st Century Tech Blog, she talks about the progress being made by those who create the neural networks that make computers learn about the patterns in human existence. That’s what machine learning is all about.

Machine learning is a technology that gives us language translation applications, word prediction when composing emails and texts, and suggestions on the order presentation within social media feeds. It is a technology used by many industries from healthcare where it can aid in medical diagnosis and interpretation of radiology images, as well as in the operation of autonomous vehicles.

Machine learning is a subcategory of artificial intelligence (AI), software tools that learn without explicitly relying on programming. Many companies deploying AI today are primarily using machine learning to help reduce labor costs and increase productivity.

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