Robotics
MIT Engineers Build A Battery-Free, Wireless Underwater Camera
Scientists estimate that more than 95 percent of Earth’s oceans have never been observed, which means we have seen less of our planet’s ocean than we have the far side of the moon or the surface of Mars. The high cost of powering an underwater camera for a long time, by tethering it to a …
AI-Generated Art Is Booming – But Who Really Owns It?
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a growing trend in the art world, with some works made this way fetching huge sums at auctions. However, advances in AI have fuelled concerns over the ethical and legal implications of co-creating art with machines. It also raises questions surrounding copyright and digital theft, as some AI …
Soft Robots That Grip With The Right Amount Of Force
Tool use has long been a hallmark of human intelligence, as well as a practical problem to solve for a vast array of robotic applications. But machines are still wonky at exerting just the right amount of force to control tools that aren’t rigidly attached to their hands. To manipulate said tools more robustly, researchers …
HP Revolutionizes Construction Layout Process With New SitePrint Robotic Solution
HP Inc. has today announced HP SitePrint, a robotic solution that prints the most complex construction site layouts with pinpoint accuracy, in a fraction of the time it takes manually – improving productivity by as much as ten times. HP SitePrint will be available to customers in North America through an Early Access Program, starting …
Intel Labs Improves Interactive, Continual Learning For Robots With Neuromorphic Computing
Intel Labs, in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Munich, has introduced a new approach to neural network-based object learning. It specifically targets future applications like robotic assistants that interact with unconstrained environments, including in logistics, healthcare or elderly care. This research is a crucial step in improving the …
Making Robots More Helpful With Language
Even the simplest human tasks are unbelievably complex. The way we perceive and interact with the world requires a lifetime of accumulated experience and context. For example, if a person tells you, “I am running out of time,” you don’t immediately worry they are jogging on a street where the space-time continuum ceases to exist. …
New Programmable Materials Can Sense Their Own Movements
MIT researchers have developed a method for 3D printing materials with tunable mechanical properties, that sense how they are moving and interacting with the environment. The researchers create these sensing structures using just one material and a single run on a 3D printer. To accomplish this, the researchers began with 3D-printed lattice materials and incorporated …
Amazon And iRobot Sign An Agreement for Amazon To Acquire iRobot
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire iRobot. iRobot has a history of making customers’ lives easier with innovative cleaning products for the home. iRobot has continued to innovate with every product generation, solving hard problems to help give customers valuable time back in their …
The Hub Of The Local Robotics Industry
The MIT spinout Ori attracted a lot of attention when it unveiled its shapeshifting furniture prototypes in 2014. But after the founders left MIT, they faced a number of daunting challenges. Where would they find the space to build and demo their apartment-scale products? How would they get access to the machines and equipment necessary for prototyping? …
Why Banning Autonomous Killer Robots Wouldn’t Solve Anything
Autonomous weapons – killer robots that can attack without a human operator – are dangerous tools. There is no doubt about this fact. As tech entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Mustafa Suleyman and other signatories to a recent open letter to the United Nations have put it, autonomous weapons ‘can be weapons of terror, weapons …