Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Introducing WildCat
October 4th, 2013Via: Boston Dynamics: WildCat is a four-legged robot being developed to run fast on all types of terrain. So far WildCat has run at about 16 mph on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits. The video shows WildCat’s best performance so far. WildCat is being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA’s M3 […]
Japan: New Robot Picks Ripe Strawberries While Farmers Sleep
October 2nd, 2013Via: AFP: A robot that picks ripe strawberries while farmers sleep has been unveiled with claims it could cut workloads by two-thirds. The device, unveiled Wednesday, can pick a piece of fruit every eight seconds by using three cameras to determine which strawberries are ready to pick. A mechanized arm then darts out to snip […]
DARPA’s Plan to Flood the Sea With Drones, Carrying More Drones
September 30th, 2013Via: Wired: DARPA, the Pentagon’s research agency, has recently revealed its plans to boost the Navy’s response to threats in international waters by developing submerged unmanned platforms that can be deployed at a moment’s notice. Hydra, named after the serpent-like creature with many heads in Greek mythology, would create an undersea network of unmanned payloads […]
‘Robots May Revolutionize China’s Electronics Manufacturing’
September 24th, 2013Via: Wall Street Journal: A new worker’s revolution is rising in China and it doesn’t involve humans. With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor. A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end […]
Empty F-16 Jet Tested by Boeing and U.S. Air Force
September 24th, 2013Via: BBC: Boeing has revealed that it has retrofitted retired fighter jets to turn them into drones. It said that one of the Lockheed Martin F-16 made a first flight with an empty cockpit last week. Two US Air Force pilots controlled the plane from the ground as it flew from a Florida base to […]
Neurosynaptic Chips: Building Blocks for Cognitive Systems
September 19th, 2013Via: IBM: In many ways computers today are nothing more than very fast number-crunchers and information manipulators. They can process lots of data, but they really don’t think. They all adhere to the Von Neumann architecture, largely unchanged in the last half-century, in which computers are constructed by separating memory and processing and operate by […]
Tesla Enters Race to Build Self-Driving Car
September 18th, 2013Via: Reuters: Electric car company Tesla Motors is working to produce a car capable of running on “auto-pilot” within the next three years, CEO Elon Musk said, joining tech giant Google and rival carmakers in the race to roll a driverless car into the market. The California-based company’s autonomous car would allow the driver to […]
‘Dartmouth Researchers Discover How and Where Imagination Occurs in Human Brains’
September 17th, 2013“Understanding these differences will give us insight into where human creativity comes from and possibly allow us to recreate those same creative processes in machines.” Via: Dartmouth University: Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over where human imagination comes from. In other words, what makes humans able to create art, invent tools, think scientifically and […]
Recovery: Widest Gap in Employment Rates Between Rich, Poor in a Decade
September 16th, 2013Via: AP / Newser: The gap in employment rates between America’s highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press. Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families _ those earning less than $20,000 […]
Oxford Researchers Say 45 Percent of America’s Occupations Will be Automated Within the Next 20 Years
September 15th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review: Rapid advances in technology have long represented a serious potential threat to many jobs ordinarily performed by people. A recent report (which is not online, but summarized here) from the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology attempts to quantify the extent of that threat. It concludes that […]
