Moravec‘s Paradox

Humans have built cranes capable of lifting ridiculously heavy objects and moving them around with ease. We have also designed massive ships to transport large, heavy cargo across thousands of miles without breaking a sweat. But what if we wanted to perform something seemingly less spectacular? What if the goal…

by Jeff Foust — February 3, 2022 Quantum Space, a startup co-founded by former NASA associate administrator Steve Jurczyk, plans to develop platforms hosting payloads in cislunar space serviced by robotic spacecraft. Credit: Quantum Space WASHINGTON — A startup led by a former acting administrator of NASA has announced plans…

A flying robot with wings controlled by an electric field instead of heavy motors and gears slightly outperforms insect muscles Technology 2 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins A small robot with wings like an insect can fly and generate more power than a similarly sized animal in nature. Most flying…

JLG Industries has partnered with RE2 Robotics to advance the integration of robotics with access equipment, increasing operator safety and productivity on the job site. "Robotic technologies have long been used in a variety of industries," says Frank Nerenhausen, Oshkosh Corporation executive vice president and president, JLG Industries. "The productivity…

Published January 30, 2022 1:30PM article A team from Johns Hopkins University successfully used a robot to perform a complex abdominal surgery — this time, without guidance from humans.  The STAR, short for Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot, operated on the soft tissue of pigs to reconnect two ends of an intestine,…

The proposed Lunar Crater Radio Telescope would turn a crater on the far side of the moon into a massive dish-shaped antenna to survey the universe, accumulating massive amounts of data that need to be sent back to Earth for analysis.NASA/JPL If that comes to pass, lunar denizens will need…

Geneva, Switzerland, January 29, 2022 --(PR.com)-- The Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI) standards developing organisation has concluded its 16th General Assembly, the first of 2022, approving its 2022 work program. The work program includes the development of reference software, conformance testing and per-formance assessment for 2…

(Source: AutoX) Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio AutoX, an autonomous driving firm, announced on Friday that it has been testing its RoboTaxi operations in the top four cities in China. It has now expanded its largest Robotaxi operations zones to be over 1000 km². AutoX was founded in September…

Conventional cameras in stereo mode can indeed detect objects, gauge their distance, and estimate their speeds, but they don’t have the accuracy required for fully autonomous driving. In addition, cameras do not work well at night, in fog, or in direct sunlight, and systems that use them are prone to…

At one time IBM Watson Health was featured in articles that claimed it might cure cancer. But the splashy coverage of IBM’s artificial intelligence brand aimed at the healthcare industry was maybe an instance when the hype about a particular technology -- AI -- got ahead of that technology’s actual…