In the GIF below, we see Bluebots trying another task: a search mission. This behavior is a bit more complex, guided by a few separate directives in the algorithm. The first step is known as dispersion; the algorithm directs the robots to keep away from one another. This spreads them out in search of their […]
Read MoreIn the GIF below, we see Bluebots trying another task: a search mission. This behavior is a bit more complex, guided by a few separate directives in the algorithm. The first step is known as dispersion; the algorithm directs the robots to keep away from one another. This spreads them out in search of their […]
Read MoreThe SL1 is meant to be attached to submersible sensor-laden research robots known as profiling floats. These devices collect data during short trips as far as a mile beneath the surface. When they emerge from the depths, they beam that information to a satellite. Today, there are thousands of profiling floats drifting through Earth’s oceans […]
Read MoreStudy hard enough, kids, and maybe one day you’ll grow up to be a professional robot fighter. A few years ago, Boston Dynamics set the standard for the field by having people wielding hockey sticks try to keep Spot the quadrupedal robot from opening a door. Previously, in 2015, the far-out federal research agency Darpa […]
Read MoreAnderson and her colleagues went a step further and programmed the Smellicopter to hunt for odors just like an actual moth would. If you’re able to smell an odor, there’s a good chance that the source is upwind from you. The same goes for insects like moths, who do something called cross-wind casting, in which […]
Read MoreUncrewed submarines have been diving into the hadal zone for decades, but Brennan Phillips, an ocean engineer at the University of Rhode Island who specializes in remotely operated and autonomous deep sea robotics, says it’s hard to beat a human when it comes to exploring the seabed. For starters, humans can see more. Our eyes […]
Read MoreEstablished aerospace companies like Airbus and startups like Zunum have been working on electrifying passenger aircraft for years. But even if they’re successful, packing a plane full of conventional cells has some major safety risks. A short circuit in a large battery pack could cause a disastrous fire or explosion. “The aerospace sector is very […]
Read MoreIt’s impossible to talk about Boston Dynamics robots without acknowledging two things: They’re a marvel of modern engineering, and their agility can be incredibly unnerving. A 46-second video of Spot the robot “dog” opening a door has more than 56 million views on YouTube. Atlas, the company’s headless humanoid robot, can go for a jog […]
Read MoreNo two ice sheets have ever been laid down the exact same way, both because of this random bumpiness, and because of the quality of the water used, which can affect the way the liquid hardens into a surface. Accordingly, human curlers are allowed to take practice throws before a match to get a feel […]
Read MoreSpot, Boston Dynamics’ famous robot dog, dutifully follows my every command. The machine traipses forward, then automatically scrambles over a raised bed of rocks. I make it side-step. I command it up a flight of stairs, which it tackles with ease. It meets its match when I steer it at a medicine ball, though; it […]
Read MoreIn order to understand how a gait looks, though, the robot needs objective data, not subjective judgements. So the researchers used algorithms that analyzed videos of the people walking, with each person’s image overlaid by a skeleton with 16 joints, including at the neck, shoulders, and knees. Then, they used deep learning algorithms to get […]
Read MoreRobots are well-suited for the kinds of repetitive skill-building activities that would quickly wear down a human teacher. They can’t totally replace human interaction (yet), but they may be able to augment it. “There’s evidence to support the idea that social robots can help with skill development in children,” says Kate Darling, a research specialist […]
Read MoreIf the age of the coronavirus is anything, it’s surreal. And one of the most surreal things yet is happening at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where help has arrived not from extra human medical professionals, but in the form of famous Boston Dynamics robot dog Spot, now traipsing around with a tablet […]
Read MoreWhat you see when Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot does a backflip or its Spot dog robot fights off a human and opens a door is incredible hardware engineering, to be sure. But what you don’t see is the wildly complex underlying code that makes it possible. What comes so easily to you—OK maybe not backflips, […]
Read MoreModern capitalism has never seen anything quite like the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In a matter of months, the deadly contagious bug has spread around the world, hobbling any economy in its path. In the United States, where consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, commerce has come to a standstill as people […]
Read MoreIn their experiments with Hamilton and three other subjects, the team found that after doing the grafts, the nerves that control the thumb interacted with this new muscle just as they would if the person still had their thumb. “We know the intent—in that case, to flex the thumb—just like the nerve and muscle interacted […]
Read More“Extracting information out of those 1,000 signals in an analytical way—it’s very, very hard to do,” says Ciocarlie, who developed the system. “I would venture to say that it’s impossible without modern machine learning.” Courtesy of Columbia University Machine learning comes into play when they’re calibrating the system. They can stick the finger on a […]
Read MoreHyundai is solving and robots are evolving, but first: a cartoon about parental phone tracking. Here’s the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Spot the robot dog trots into the big, bad world You’ve probably […]
Read MoreThis autumn, after years of dropping view-amassing videos of Spot the robot dog fending off stick-wielding humans and opening doors for its pals, Boston Dynamics finally announced that the machine was hitting the market—for a select few early adopters, at least. BD’s people would be the first to tell you that they don’t fully know […]
Read MoreUnder the watchful eye of a microscope, busy little blobs scoot around in a field of liquid—moving forward, turning around, sometimes spinning in circles. Drop cellular debris onto the plain and the blobs will herd them into piles. Flick any blob onto its back and it’ll lie there like a flipped-over turtle. Their behavior is […]
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