Lifeboat Foundation

The system could bring detailed GPS maps to otherwise under-served areas.

New immunology research has discovered the cure to cancer was possibly within us all along.

A Boeing-made TV satellite is being hastily moved into ‘graveyard orbit’ following a devastating ‘anomaly’ that turned its batteries into bombs.

And then dealt with, if they are enemy operatives.

Science and technology Jan 23rd 2020 edition.

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A Philippine city affected by heavy ashfall from the nearby Taal Volcano has started collecting ash to make bricks, providing needed building materials for post-disaster reconstruction in neighbouring towns.

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2nd new coronavirus case confirmed in the USA, CDC reports. What are the symptoms of coronavirus and what is it? The most recent coronavirus diagnosis.

Clayton M. Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and management guru, was an authority on what he called disruptive technologies who became more widely known for offering his life as a case study.

Dr. Christensen, whose books included “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and “How Will You Measure Your Life?,” died Thursday in Boston. He was 67 and had leukemia.

Into a Case Study.

16 different experiments and technology demonstrations are going to the moon, in the run-up to the Artemis program’s goal to send humans back in 2024.

The algorithm lets robots find the shortest route in unfamiliar environments, opening the door to robots that can work inside homes and offices.

The news: A team at Facebook AI has created a reinforcement learning algorithm that lets a robot find its way in an unfamiliar environment without using a map. Using just a depth-sensing camera, GPS, and compass data, the algorithm gets a robot to its goal 99.9% of the time along a route that is very close to the shortest possible path, which means no wrong turns, no backtracking, and no exploration. This is a big improvement over previous best efforts.

Why it matters: Mapless route-finding is essential for next-gen robots like autonomous delivery drones or robots that work inside homes and offices. Some of the best robots available today, such as Spot and Atlas made by Boston Dynamics and Digit made by Agility Robotics, are packed with sensors that make them pretty good at keeping their balance and avoiding obstacles. But if you dropped them off at an unfamiliar street corner and left them to find their way home, they’d be screwed. While Facebook’s algorithm does not yet handle outside environments, it is a promising step in that direction and could probably be adapted to urban spaces.