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Category: robotics/AI

CIA reveals Spacenet ‘AI in the sky’ that could constantly monitor activity on Earth via high resolution satellites…

It sounds like something out of a sci-fi film — an AI that constantly monitors the Earth, looks for unusual activity.

However, CosmiQ Works, a division of the CIA’s venture arm, has revealed SpaceNet, a project with Amazon, satellite mapping firm DigitalGlobe and chip firm Nvidia to train algorithms to work out what’s happening on our planet.

The project will create a giant online database of hi-res images that AIs will be able to use to teach themselves — and started with images of Rio during the Olympics.

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In the US during the early 2000s there was an old political term for low skilled jobs, politicians called these jobs “the jobs that no one in America wanted.” Well, we now can start seeing the slogan by politicians as “the jobs that Robots can do for free.”

The focus of automation in farming has shifted from assisting humans to replacing them.

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The average age of Japanese farmers is 67. Across all developed countries, the average age of growers is 60. Robotics and automation technologies are just now reaching the stage where agricultural robots can replace human farmers for many or most crop growing tasks.

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It echoes the nanite and nanobot technology seen in science fiction TV series like Star Trek and Red Dwarf, where swarms of microscopic robots can be used to repair damaged tissue.

Researchers at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, built their nanobots using a form to DNA origami to create hollow shell-like structures.

Drugs could then be placed inside these before they were chemically locked shut with particles of iron oxide.

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Hmmmm.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps should advance the way they use unmanned systems, favoring greater autonomy over remotely-controlled missions and developing multi-vehicle systems such as swarms and cascaded operations, according to a recently released report by the Defense Science Board.

The DSB report, requested by the Pentagon’s acquisition chief in November 2014, notes a variety of Pentagon-wide challenges in developing, testing, fielding and operating autonomous systems, such as operator trust, cyber security and developing a test and evaluation plan for learning systems.

Specific to the Navy, the board recommends adding greater autonomy to Navy counter-mine unmanned underwater systems as a way to save time and keep personnel even farther from potential dangers.

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Excellent! Super human capabilities at work via brain-controlled robotics.

Eight people who spent years paralyzed from spinal cord injuries have regained partial control of their lower limbs as well as some sensation following work with brain-controlled robotics. Five of the participants had been paralyzed for at least five years and two had been paralyzed for more than ten.

It took seven months of training before most of the subjects saw any changes. After a year, four patients’ sensation and muscle control changed significantly enough that doctors upgraded their diagnoses from complete to partial paralysis.

According to Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., who led the study, brain-machine systems establish direct communication between the brain and computers or prosthetics, such as robotic limbs. According to the report, published by Duke Today, Nicolelis has worked for 20 years to build systems that record hundreds of simultaneous signals from neurons in the brain. His goal is to extract motor commands from those signals and translate them into movement.

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SINGAPORE (AP) — The world’s first self-driving taxis will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday.

Select members of the public will be able to hail a free ride through their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup. While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo, have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy says it will be the first to offer rides to the public. It will beat ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, by a few weeks.

The service will start small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy says.

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Fantastic news! (for once)

Paris (AFP) — Scientists Wednesday announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting the star nearest our Sun, opening up the glittering prospect of a habitable world that may one day be explored by robots.

Named Proxima b, the planet is in a “temperate” zone compatible with the presence of liquid water — a key ingredient for life.

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