Lifeboat Foundation

Imagine the perfect personal assistant.

This partner would understand your needs — often before you’ve even expressed them — and know exactly how to deliver what you’re asking for. They would make helpful suggestions without becoming intrusive, and keep you from missing appointments and opportunities. Most importantly, this personal assistant would be someone you can trust implicitly.

Now, how do you embody those traits in an artificial intelligence-powered service? Our experience creating our travel assistant app, Mezi, illustrates key principles of AI regarding the ongoing role of human involvement and how to draw the dividing line between valued assistance and unwelcome intrusion. Here’s what we’ve learned recently.

Continue reading “How to create the ‘perfect’ AI-driven bot” »

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in studying the strength of hydrogen bonds in a single molecule using an atomic force microscope. Researchers from the University of Basel’s Swiss Nanoscience Institute network have reported the results in the journal Science Advances.

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and is an integral part of almost all organic compounds. Molecules and sections of macromolecules are connected to one another via hydrogen atoms, an interaction known as hydrogen bonding. These interactions play an important role in nature, because they are responsible for specific properties of proteins or nucleic acids and, for example, also ensure that water has a high boiling temperature.

To date, it has not been possible to conduct a spectroscopic or electron microscopic analysis of hydrogen and the hydrogen bonds in single molecules, and investigations using atomic force microscopy have also not yielded any clear results.

Could this be a viable alternative to open heart surgery?

Can this 3D body scanner help you get fit?

The price of lab-grown meat keeps dropping.

A breakthrough solution to oil spills!

These specialized genes could help us prevent aging.

Scientists want to control individual molecules so precisely they could snap them together like Lego pieces. Now they’re a little bit closer.

Intelligent Machines

A single autonomous car has a huge impact on alleviating traffic.

Even intelligent cruise control systems could be used to clear up congestion.

Continue reading “Watch a single autonomous car stop a traffic jam from happening” »