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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2,294

It’s a technology looking for a new mission.

The technology is solar electric propulsion (SEP), which NASA has identified in recent years as a key enabler for eventual human missions to Mars. SEP, the agency argued, could be used to propel cargo missions to Mars in advance of crewed missions much more efficiently than conventional chemical propulsion systems.

High-power SEP was to be tested in interplanetary space on the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), powering the robotic spacecraft that would travel to a near Earth asteroid, grab a boulder off its surface, and fly back to cislunar space. However, NASA announced earlier this year it planned to cancel ARM, and Congress, never much of a fan of the mission, has shown no signs of opposing it.

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Government finance will lead the way in AI research, including the development of supercomputers, and high performance semiconductor chips, software and the hiring of key talent to lead the field, China’s science and technology minister Wan Gang said in March during the country’s parliamentary meeting.

The Chinese government’s July 8 plan aims to keep pace with AI technology by 2020, make major breakthroughs by 2025, and lead the world in AI by 2030.

PUBLISHED : Friday, 21 July, 2017, 1:28pm.

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In our last film, we explored how the introduction of autonomous, self-driving cars is likely to kill a lot of jobs. Many millions of jobs, in fact. But is it short sighted to view self-driving vehicles as economic murderers? Is it possible that we got it totally wrong, and automated vehicles won’t be Grim Reapers — but rather the biggest job creators since the internet?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

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Congress took the first step toward setting rules for self-driving cars, as a House panel unanimously approved a measure that would allow thousands of automated vehicles to hit the road while federal regulators develop safety standards and preempt state rules.

The legislation garnered bipartisan support after Republican leaders adopted Democratic proposals for provisions to bolster safety oversight of self-driving vehicles by federal regulators.

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So I am anxious to explain the idea to my parents. The purpose of the Dadbot, I tell them, would simply be to share my father’s life story in a dynamic way. Given the limits of current technology and my own inexperience as a programmer, the bot will never be more than a shadow of my real dad. That said, I would want the bot to communicate in his distinctive manner and convey at least some sense of his personality. “What do you think?” I ask.

For months, he recorded his dying father’s life story. Then he used it to re-create his dad as an AI.

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You know that creepy black sphere used as a floating interrogation droid in Star Wars? It seems like scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) pretty much designed the complete opposite of that, and we want one for our very own.

Called Int-Ball, this adorable little camera drone resembles something Pixar might have come up with, but it’s totally real, and is now a floating companion to astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) – where it helps out by taking photos and recording video, freeing up valuable astronaut time.

Int-Ball was delivered to the ISS in a SpaceX cargo shipment last month – the company’s first involving a reused Dragon cargo capsule – and is now operational, currently undergoing initial testing.

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July 18 (UPI) — Officials at a Washington, D.C., office building patrolled by a security robot they are investigating after workers reported the robot “drowned itself.”

MRP Realty announced last week there was a “new sheriff in town,” namely a K5 security robot developed by Silicon Valley startup Knightscope, but Bilal Farooqui, a worker at the office complex, tweeted a photo Monday revealing the mechanical guard had met with a watery end.

“Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself,” Farooqui wrote alongside an image of the robot horizontal inside a fountain. “We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots.”

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