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Category: robotics/AI

MIT researchers have created an algorithm that hopes to understand human visual social cues and predict what would happen next. Giving AI the ability to understand and predict human social interaction could one day pave the way to efficient home assistant systems as well as intelligent security cameras that can call an ambulance or the police ahead of time.

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory created an algorithm that utilizes deep learning, which enables artificial intelligence (AI) to use patterns of human interaction to predict what will happen next. Researchers fed the program with videos featuring human social interactions and tested it to see if it “learned” well enough to be able to predict them.

The researchers’ weapons of choice? 600 hours of Youtube videos and sitcoms, including The Office, Desperate Housewives, and Scrubs. While this lineup may seem questionable, MIT doctoral candidate and project researcher Carl Vondrick reasons out that accessibility and realism were part of the criteria.

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The Zapata technology platform is the safest, easiest, lightest, most maneuverable, and least expensive personal aviation system ever created.

Capable of being operated with only 20 hours of flight training, or in fully autonomous mode with GPS guidance, ZAPATA’s proprietary balance methodology and algorithms are truly disruptive.

ZAPATA’s technology and innovative products will unlock hundreds of applications across multiple industry sectors, from military and rescue to entertainment and recreation.

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The idea of a space elevator to lift us into orbit is one of the oldest concepts in sci-fi, but thanks to the efforts of scientists in Japan, we might soon be seeing this fantastic feat of engineering become a reality at last.

A mini satellite called STARS-C (Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite-Cube) is heading to the International Space Station in the coming months and is a prototype design that could form the basis of a future space elevator.

Once STARS-C has been delivered – on some to-be-determined date after the Northern Hemisphere’s summer – its makers at Shizuoka University will put it to the test: the orbiter will split into two 10-cm (3.94-inch) cubes and spool out a thin 100-metre tether made of Kevlar between them.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=IpJySHGpVMI

Overview

This is the third article in a series of posts documenting how a team of six interns used IBM Watson to program robots to play poker.

In the previous article, we introduced the Watson services that are available to developers and how to interact with them with Watson Developer Cloud. In this article, we’ll show how we used the Speech-to-Text service to extract speech from audio.

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-1x-1

“There’s a high-stakes race under way in Silicon Valley to develop software that makes it easy to weave artificial intelligence technology into almost everything, and Google has sprinted into the lead.”

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I wonder, if NASA and/or SpaceX goes to Mars in the 2030’s as planned, by the time the 2050’s roll around a manned attempt to Ceres or Jupiter trojans might be attempted or perhaps an unmanned vehicle made on Mars beats this sail.

Japan’s space agency has its sights on unexplored asteroids as far away as Jupiter, a project that at one level draws on centuries of sail science.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency this month unveiled a huge prototype solar sail designed to power a JAXA probe as it explores asteroids that circle the sun on roughly the same orbit as Jupiter. The sail measures 2,500 sq. meters and is made up of thousands of ultraslim solar panels.

“The fascination of the universe lies in its countless unknowns, and our research is a challenge to reveal the mysteries with our own hands,” said Jun Matsumoto, a JAXA researcher who designed the kite-like sail.

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Luv this.

The University of Bristol’s Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre (QTEC) is looking to recruit its first cohort of Enterprise Fellows that will be the next generation of quantum technology entrepreneurs.

Merging training in systems thinking, quantum engineering and entrepreneurship, QTEC will provide the necessary skills for budding innovators to develop their own business ideas and for them to branch out into the emerging field of quantum technologies.

The Centre, which is the first of its kind in the world, was funded as part of the UK’s £270 million investment into quantum technologies. These technologies exploit the laws of quantum mechanics to create practical and useful technologies that will outperform their classical rivals and that have the potential to transform artificial intelligence, healthcare, energy, finance, cyber security and the internet.

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Nice and a big deal.

[Via Satellite 07-21-2016] Space Systems Loral (SSL) has received $20.7 million from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to design and build robotic arm flight hardware for the first phase of the agency’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program. SSL is receiving the funds through MDA US Systems, a division of MDA that SSL manages, and is working with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which is the prime contractor managing the program.

The contract calls for two complete robotic arm systems capable of capturing and berthing with satellites that were not previously designed for docking. The robotic arms would each have multiple joints enabling dexterous movement, with the ability to carry and use multiple generic and mission-specific tools. Building on contracts SSL received in both 2012 and 2013 for prior DARPA research into space robotics, the total contract value awarded now stands at more than $40 million. The contract could grow further if all remaining options are exercised.

The goal of the RSGS program is to cooperatively inspect, capture, reposition, repair, and upgrade geosynchronous spacecraft. DARPA plans to take the hardware and software developed through RSGS and integrate it into a commercially owned and operated servicing vehicle to provide on-demand servicing in space.

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