Lifeboat Foundation

NASA has given the green light for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch the first unmanned test of its seven-seat Crew Dragon capsule on March 2 after passing a full day of reviews, bringing the space agency one step closer to replacing the retired Space Shuttle program after years of delays and ending its dependency on contracted Russian Soyuz rockets.

The test flight was originally scheduled for January, but was later delayed to complete hardware testing and other reviews. Per Space.com, NASA and SpaceX officials have now completed an in-depth review of the Crew Dragon’s capabilities called a flight readiness review, with NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Kathy Leuders telling reporters they needed to verify the craft “can safely go rendezvous and dock with the space station, and undock safely, and not pose a hazard to the International Space Station.”

“One way or another, this technology is coming. These cars are already being tested in cities,” Richard Ezike, the lead author of the study, said in an organization-published press release. “If we do not plan and set out thoughtful policies, driverless cars could exacerbate the challenges we see in transportation today — especially for underserved communities.”

Take the Bus

The researchers argue that cities that introduce autonomous vehicles should also invest in public transit, to make sure that those who have longer commutes and would get stuck in the newly-introduced congestion can still find and make it to their jobs.

This next wave of automation won’t just be sleek robotic arms on factory floors. It will be ordering kiosks, self-service apps and software smart enough to perfect schedules and cut down on the workers needed to cover a shift. Employers are already testing these systems. A recession will force them into the mainstream.

Robots’ infiltration of the workforce doesn’t happen gradually, at the pace of technology. It happens in surges, when companies are given strong incentives to tackle the difficult task of automation.

Typically, those incentives occur during recessions. Employers slash payrolls going into a downturn and, out of necessity, turn to software or machinery to take over the tasks once performed by their laid-off workers as business begins to recover.

Continue reading “When the next recession comes, the robots will be ready” »

We already had a robot that could make fast food burgers. And now we have an artificial intelligence that can take your order for one. Earlier this month, Colorado-based startup Valyant AI announced the launch of a voice-based AI customer service platform, which is now taking customer orders at the drive-thru at Denver’s Good Times Burgers and Frozen Custard.

The AI is reportedly not taking jobs from humans, either.

How do you balance openness and responsibility?

Introduction

The rise of https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/”>the https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/”>silicon brain that can give rise to thought, emotion and behavior in a machine seems to be on the way. This is mainly due to rapid advances in software and hardware that are paving the way for next generation computational systems with cognitive abilities modeled after the human brain. This will prove to be a significant evolutionary development and especially important to enhancing https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning…id/1331480” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning…id/1331480”>machine intelligence for the complex problems that need to be solved for the future of humanity. So, as we envision a rapidly evolving silicon brain taking in the data from its surroundings in cyberspace, geospace, space (CGS) and run the data through some known/unknown computing processes and then tell the computer/machine to act, feel or behave in a certain way seems to bring humanity a lot more questions than answers. This is mainly because it is not known how the information on the silicon brain will be processed, stored or recalled; how the computer commands will emerge and become effective, and even how the silicon brain will experience the sensory world around it in CGS, and how it will think, feel or empathize.

As we evaluate all these emerging questions surrounding the rise of the silicon brain, there is an intense effort already going on to create neuromorphic chips that can mimic the human brain. There is also an initiative emerging to create a neuromorphic chip based on an octopus brain. While the emerging neuromorphic chips are still nowhere near as capable as a human brain or octopus brain, much is expected to change for machine intelligence very rapidly in the coming years, as these chips begin learning to process available sensory data from CGS to evolve their abilities in real time for the goals defined for them.

Continue reading “The Rise Of The Silicon Brain” »

An ice-penetrating robotic system to transport an exploration AUV.

TheTeredo IceShuttle is a robotic probe which is capable to transport a payload through an ice-shield towards an environment located beneath the ice. The System is developed in context of the project Europa-Explore r. For that project, a set of robots are developed to model the exploration of the hypothesized ocean on Jupiters icy moon Europa by an analog mission on earth. Within the scenario the IceShuttle transports an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) as its payload. (image below)

Universities and big pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to match those resources. But thanks to cloud computing services offered by Google and other tech giants, the price of computing power continues to drop. Dr. AlQuraishi urged the life-sciences community to shift more attention toward the kind of A.I. work practiced by DeepMind.

Researchers at DeepMind, owned by Google’s parent company, and other companies are applying their powerful A.I. systems to drug discovery research.

Researchers have developed a next-generation bionic hand that allows amputees to regain their proprioception. The results of the study, which have been published in Science Robotics, are the culmination of ten years of robotics research.

The next-generation bionic hand, developed by researchers from EPFL, the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and the A. Gemelli University Polyclinic in Rome, enables amputees to regain a very subtle, close-to-natural sense of touch. The scientists managed to reproduce the feeling of proprioception, which is our brain’s capacity to instantly and accurately sense the position of our limbs during and after movement – even in the dark or with our eyes closed.

The new device allows patients to reach out for an object on a table and to ascertain an item’s consistency, shape, position and size without having to look at it. The prosthesis has been successfully tested on several patients and works by stimulating the nerves in the amputee’s stump. The nerves can then provide sensory feedback to the patients in real time – almost like they do in a natural hand.