Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI

When Khoshnevis imagines the future of colonies on Mars, he imagines very tall buildings, with a lot of protection from the elements.

“Gravity is one third of Earth’s, and therefore with less construction material we can build stronger structures out there, therefore we can build much taller,” he says. “The cost of energy for elevators and all that will be much less. Theoretically everything could be three times as high as here with the same consumption of energy,” he says.

A human utopia on Mars will soon be technologically feasible, but it will take some political will to get there, he says. It will take sustained resources and effort over decades to get the ball rolling, and keep it moving forward. “There really has to be philosophical support for this — that this is the future of humanity, Mars is the closest thing to a livable planet, so we should not miss the opportunity — we should dedicate a good effort in making sure that we go there and we change the conditions of Mars to make it habitable, because one planet is not enough for this amazing species.”

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#SyntheticBiology: Robotic lab to custom-make synthetic bacteria.

Imperial College opens UK’s first robotic lab that automates the creation & rebooting of bacteria custom-made to produce pharmaceuticals and other materials. The robots will automate the synthesise of complete DNA strands, which consists millions of base pairs, and transplant entire genomes into bacteria chassis.

H/T: @CSERCambridge

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The Sea Hunter, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s most ambitious unmanned vessel to date, may well be the most advanced self-navigating surface craft in the world. Its 130-foot trimaran hull is designed for a maximum speed of 27 knots and operations in conditions up to sea state five. It can conduct missions of up to 70 days without resupply, and can work unmanned to perform tasks too risky for human sailors. It is even capable of complying with the Rules of the Road, in certain well-defined situations. And it can do all of these things at a construction cost of $23 million, a bit under one percent of the price for a Zumwalt -class destroyer (excluding R&D).

But the project’s engineers acknowledge that truly autonomous operation lies some way off for Sea Hunter. Crucially, it does not presently have the ability to perceive and understand COLREGS-defined lights, shapes, sounds and vessel categories. The Rules require vessels to “at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing as well as by all available means… so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.” Among other things, this implies the bridge team’s ability to understand the COLREGS give-way requirements for differing vessel types (Rule 18). While Sea Hunter knows that under the right circumstances it has the right of way when interacting with a power driven vessel, it cannot tell the difference between a power driven vessel and a sailboat or a vessel restricted in its ability to maneuver – vessel classes which will have the right of way over Sea Hunter (with exceptions).

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Interesting; however, I can not wait to see Nividia’s new car especially with their new GPU chip & DGX-1 technology.

While companies such as Google chase the fully autonomous car, Toyota is taking a more measured approach toward a “guardian angel” car that would seize control only when an accident is imminent.

But as starkly different as those approaches are, they both will require a wide range of data-intensive technologies, according to Gill Pratt (pictured), chief executive officer of the Toyota Research Institute, a research center focused on AI and robotics. He spoke at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose today.

Toyota has made a huge bet– a billion dollars over five years, in fact–not only on semiautonomous cars but robots that could help older people with indoor mobility. The Toyota Research Institute, which will have facilities near Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is intended to focus both on what Toyota calls outdoor mobility (cars) as well as indoor mobility (robots).

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Bots and artificial intelligence are all the rage right now. Whether it’s Siri or Cortana, computers are trying to take things off our plate and make life easier. Making life easier and more comfortable — and more luxurious — is what Bentley is about, too, and that’s why the company is imagining what the future of automotive luxury might be like.

One of those things, according to this mock-up image provided by Bentley, is a holographic butler that could appear in the car and help you out. Perhaps it would make restaurant recommendations and reservations, or you’d tell the digital Jeeves where you’re looking to go before your autonomous car takes over.

Bentley design director Stefan Sielaff said, according to The Mirror, that how these sorts of “yet-to-be-invented connectivity and technologies… are integrated into the cabin will become ever more important.” The holographic butler could put a more human face on the self-driving car, so just call out “Home, James!” and you’ll be on your way.

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Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new 3D printing process that creates fully functional robots from the moment they come out of the printer.

MIT process of robot making is quite streamlined, as the robot’s solid and hydraulic parts are created in one step. CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, who oversaw the project, said that their approach of printable hydraulics is a step ahead in the rapid fabrication of functional machines.

The single-step process involves printing a small six-legged robot that crawls with the help of 12-hydraulic pumps embedded in its body. Working of the printer includes inkjet printer deposits drops of material quite small in size. The object is printed layer wise from bottom to the top. High-intensity UV light solidifies the materials that were used to create the object.

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To the Robots of this restaurant “You’re Fired!”.

Employing robots and artificial intelligence in Chinese restaurants has turned out to be not such a smart idea after all, with restaurants in Guangzhou either closing down or firing their mechanical staff.

According to Workers’ Daily, two restaurants which made use of robotic waiters have closed down and a third which remains open has given all but one of the robots the sack.

Their human counterparts at the restaurant were full of complaints about their former colleagues. “The robots weren’t able to carry soup or other food steady and they would frequently break down. The boss has decided never to use them again,” said one employee.

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Hmmmm;

Liberty International Underwriters (LIU), part of Liberty Mutual Insurance, has launched a cyber extortion endorsement to its Product Recall and Contamination insurance policy for food and beverage companies.

This endorsement offers coverage to food and beverage policyholders for cyber extortion monies and consultant costs up to the policy sub-limit for acts against production and day-to-day operations.

“With operations being mostly automated now and an increasing reliance on technology, the food and beverage industry faces a very real risk of having its systems hijacked by cyber criminals and held for ransom,” said LIU Senior Vice President of Global Crisis Management, Jane McCarthy. “But what many companies don’t realize is that cyber extortion is not always covered under a typical cyber policy or by a general liability policy. We developed this to address the risks associated with new technology and –‘ransomware’–, malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid.”

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