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Toyota’s cleaning robot has demonstrated new skills, revealing an ability to detect clear objects and snap perfect selfies.


The challenge: While seeing a reflection in a toaster isn’t going to stop us from knowing that it’s a toaster, robots can be easily confused by reflections, as well as transparent objects, such as glasses and windows.

Our houses are full of those tricky objects, so training robots to see them for what they are is key to bringing domestic bots into our homes.

Toyota’s cleaning robot: To ensure Toyota’s cleaning robot wouldn’t be fooled by its own reflection, they developed a training method that helps it “perceive the 3D geometry of the scene while also detecting objects and surfaces,” according to a blog post.

“Interstellar Travel and Post-Humans” by Martin Rees is one of the chapters of the book “The Next Step: Exponential Life”.


Astronomers like myself are professionally engaged in thinking about huge expanses of space and time. We view our home planet in a cosmic context. We wonder whether there is life elsewhere in the cosmos. But, more significantly, we are mindful of the immense future that lies ahead—the post-human future where our remote descendants may transcend human limitations—here on Earth but (more probably) far beyond. This is my theme in the present chapter.

The stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture. But the even longer time-horizons that stretch ahead—though familiar to every astronomer —have not permeated our culture to the same extent. Our Sun is less than half way through its life. It formed 4.5 billion years ago, but it has got six billion more before the fuel runs out. It will then flare up, engulfing the inner planets and vaporizing any life that might still remain on Earth. But even after the Sun’s demise, the expanding universe will continue—perhaps forever—destined to become ever colder, ever emptier.

Any creatures witnessing the Sun’s demise six billion years hence will not be human —they will be as different from us as we are from a bug. Post-human evolution could be as prolonged as the Darwinian evolution that has led to us, and even more wonderful—and will have spread far from Earth, even among the stars. Indeed, this conclusion is strengthened when we realize that future evolution will proceed not on the million-year timescale characteristic of Darwinian selection, but at the much accelerated rate allowed by genetic modification and the advance of machine intelligence (and forced by the drastic environmental pressures that would confront any humans who were to construct habitats beyond the Earth). Natural selection may have slowed: its rigors are tempered in civilized countries. But it will be replaced by “directed” evolution.

One Virginia family received the keys to their new 3D-printed home in time for Christmas.

The home is Habitat for Humanity’s first 3D-printed home in the nation, according to a Habitat news release.

Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, told CNN it partnered with Alquist, a 3D printing company, earlier this year to begin the process.

Though innovation is often associated with Silicon Valley and high-tech start-ups, sometimes all that’s needed to make a big difference in people’s lives is a new spin on tradition, UNCTAD Deputy Secretary-General Isabelle Durant said on 2 July at the opening of a meeting in Geneva on the topic.

Mitticool, the clay refrigerator that requires no electricity, costs less than $50 and can keep food fresh for 2 to 3 days, is just one example of the power of “frugal innovation”, Ms. Durant said.

Inspiration came to the Indian inventor, Mansukhbhai Prajapati, after seeing his community suffer during the Gujarat earthquake of 2001, when a magnitude seven quake wrecked more than 8,000 villages, killing around 20,000 and leaving a million others without a home.

A Canadian hemp company just bought nearly 1,000 acres of land in Colorado as part of a new plan to showcase how hemp can be used to help build affordable housing.


Although most of America’s new hemp industry is focused on producing CBD and other cannabinoids, some companies are still using this remarkable plant for more traditional uses.

How far our safety regulations have come…


Dr Suzannah Lipscomb looks at the hidden dangers of the British post-war home. In the 1950s, people embraced modern design for the first time after years of austerity and self-denial. The modern home featured moulded plywood furniture, fibreglass, plastics and polyester — materials and technologies that were developed during World War II.

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WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WTKR) — Habitat for Humanity made the first 3D printed home in the U.S. for a woman in Virginia.

“To have a home right before Christmas is really, really exciting,” homeowner April Stringfield said.

In July, crews broke ground on the 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom concrete home.

Summary: Neurons in the primary olfactory cortex play a role in encoding spatial maps, a new study reports.

Source: champalimaud centre for the unknown.

Smell has the power to transport us across time and space. It could be the sweet fragrance of jasmine, or the musty scent of algae. Suddenly, you are back at your childhood home, or under the burning sun of a distant shore.