2019 – Page 8 – Impact Lab

Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

The artificial skin that allows robots to feel

December 2, 2019

This artificial skin lets robots ‘feel’ like humans can

London (CNN Business)Robots are one step closer to gaining a human sense that has so far eluded them: Touch.

Scientists last month unveiled an artificial skin that enables robots to feel and respond to physical contact, a skill that will be needed as they come in increasingly close contact with people.

In 2017, manufacturers worldwide used roughly 85 industrial robots per 10,000 employees, according to a report by the International Federation of Robotics. The same report predicts the global supply of industrial robots to grow 14% per year until 2021.

But if robots end up working more closely with their fleshy colleagues, one concern is how they will interact safely.

“Currently, robots do not have any sense of touch,” Professor Gordon Cheng, who developed the special skin with his team at the Technical University of Munich, tells CNN Business.

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

U.S. life expectancy declining due to more deaths in middle age

December 1, 2019

(Reuters Health) – After rising for decades, life expectancy in the U.S. decreased for three straight years, driven by higher rates of death among middle aged Americans, a new study suggests.

Midlife all-cause mortality rates were increasing between 2010 and 2017, driven by higher numbers of deaths due to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse, suicides and organ system diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, according to the report published in JAMA.

“There has been an increase in death rates among working age Americans,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. “This is an emergent crisis. And it is a uniquely American problem since it is not seen in other countries. Something about life in America is responsible.”

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government, Military, military drones, Science & Technology News, Weapons

Australian Defence Force looks to integrate robots

December 1, 2019

A Ghost Robotics’ Vision 60 quadruped robot supports the soldiers of the Australian Army during an autonomous systems demonstration at the Majura Training Area, Canberra.

What could possibly go wrong?

The same week the latest movie in the Terminator franchise hit theatres, an Australian Defence Force publication ran photos of a prototype Ghost Robotics Vision 60 quadruped robot “supporting” Australian Army soldiers during an autonomous systems demonstration at the Majura Training Area, Canberra on November 8.

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Big Problems, Economy, Housing, Report, Science & Technology News

Boomer homes to flood US market, but who will buy them?

December 1, 2019

Baby Boomer home sales will flood the housing market: Report

Baby Boomers’ homes will be sold on a large scale over the next 20 years, but with millennials refraining from home ownership, who will be buying them?

The U.S. housing market is on the verge of being inundated with homes for sale on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the housing bubble in the mid-2000s.

The tsunami is being driven by a grim reality: Baby Boomers dying.

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Artificial Intelligence, Big Problems, IBM, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

Robot debates humans about the dangers of artificial intelligence

December 1, 2019

Project Debater argued both for and against the benefits of artificial intelligence

An artificial intelligence has debated the dangers of AI – narrowly convincing audience members that the technology will do more good than harm.

Project Debater, a robot developed by IBM, spoke on both sides of the argument, with two human teammates for each side helping it out. Talking in a female American voice to a crowd at the University of Cambridge Union on Thursday evening, the AI gave each side’s opening statements, using arguments drawn from more than 1100 human submissions made ahead of time.

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Genes, Genetics, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

A new CRISPR technique could fix almost all genetic diseases possible

December 1, 2019

A new method, called “prime editing,” could, in principle, correct around
89 percent of the mutations that cause inherited human disease.

A less error-prone DNA editing method could correct many more harmful mutations than was previously possible.

Andrew Anzalone was restless. It was late fall of 2017. The year was winding down, and so was his MD/PhD program at Columbia. Trying to figure out what was next in his life, he’d taken to long walks in the leaf-strewn West Village. One night as he paced up Hudson Street, his stomach filled with La Colombe coffee and his mind with Crispr gene editing papers, an idea began to bubble through the caffeine brume inside his brain.

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Automation, Robots, Science & Technology News, Shopping

The robots of Black Friday

November 30, 2019

Delivery robot from Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn. Photo: Niels Wenstedt/AFP via Getty Images

Look out for the first of the retail robots as you shop this year.

Why it matters: From machines that can restock shelves to robot deliverers, automation is creeping into the retail industry. The first-ever cargo-carrying robot for consumers comes from Italian company Piaggio. The robot is similar to the delivery bots that FedEx and Amazon have been testing, but it can be yours for a few thousand bucks, AP reports.

Between the lines: On top of the more than 15 million Americans who work in retail year-round, companies routinely hire hundreds of thousands of temporary workers to staff stores and warehouses during big shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The development of more — and smarter — retail robots puts those jobs at risk.

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Business, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News, Startup

The age of celebrity cofounders

November 29, 2019

Feel like more celebrities have become venture capitalists than ever before? You’re not alone.

Not a week goes by that another actor, athlete, musician, or internet celebrity doesn’t pop up on a cap table as an angel investor or via their family office-turned-venture fund. The media treats Ashton Kutcher as patient zero of the celebrity investing bug, but the truth is, celebrities have acted as minority partners in brands, businesses, and startups for decades prior. No disrespect to Kelso but if I’m being honest, it’s all become quite boring.

A decade ago, being a celebrity-turned-tech investor used to mean you were an early adopter, with rare connections into the new, exciting world of technology startups. Likewise, getting a celebrity investor in your company meant you were well-networked or that your product had the potential to catch the eye of the elusive glitterati. But with all the deal flow, advisers, syndicates and co-investment opportunities available to celebrities today, if you’re not at-least passively allocating some of your wealth into startups as an A-Lister, well, consider yourself B+ at best.

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Corporate Manipulation, government, Internet, Science & Technology News

Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web

November 29, 2019

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Inventor of web calls on governments and firms to safeguard it from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched a global action plan to save the web from political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations and other malign forces that threaten to plunge the world into a “digital dystopia”.

The Contract for the Web requires endorsing governments, companies and individuals to make concrete commitments to protect the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity.

“I think people’s fear of bad things happening on the internet is becoming, justifiably, greater and greater,” Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, told the Guardian. “If we leave the web as it is, there’s a very large number of things that will go wrong. We could end up with a digital dystopia if we don’t turn things around. It’s not that we need a 10-year plan for the web, we need to turn the web around now.”

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Artificial Intelligence, Google, Machine Learning, Robotics, Science & Technology News

Google’s parent company Alphabet introduced a new project aimed at developing A.I-enabled robots that learn on their own

November 29, 2019

The new project is focused on building robots capable of useful, everyday tasks, like sorting recycling.

Alphabet’s X group, the R&D lab formerly known as Google X, introduced the Everyday Robot Project on Thursday.

The project comes out of Alphabet’s string of robotics acquisitions several years ago, which had been put on hold.

The new project is focused on building robots capable of useful, everyday tasks, like sorting recycling.

Alphabet’s X group said it will focus on AI-enabled robots that can be learn tasks on their own, rather than being programmed to do specific things.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is getting back into robotics after a first attempt several years ago fizzled. But this time the company wants to create robots with minds of their own.

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2020 Predictions, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Science & Technology News

Top Artificial Intelligence predictions for 2020 from IDC and Forrester

November 28, 2019

IDC and Forrester issued recently their predictions for artificial intelligence (AI) in 2020 and beyond. While external “market events” may make companies cautious about AI, says Forrester, “courageous ones” will continue to invest and expand the initial “timid” steps they took in 2019.

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Augmented Reality, Science & Technology News, Wearables

Smart contacts: The future of the wearable you won’t even see

November 28, 2019

One day, contact lenses could do much more than just correct our vision

The notion of wearing lenses over our eyes to correct our vision dates back hundreds of years, with some even crediting Leonardo da Vinci as one of the first proponents of the idea (though that remains somewhat controversial). Material science and our understanding of the human eye have come a long way since, while their purpose has remained largely the same. In the age of wearable computers, however, scientists in the laboratories of DARPA, Google, and universities around the world see contact lenses not just as tools to improve our vision, but as opportunities to augment the human experience. But how? And why?

As a soft, transparent disc of plastic and silicone that you wear on your eyeball, a contact lens may seem like a very bad place to put electronics. But if you look beneath the surface, the idea of a smart contact lens has real merit, and that begins with its potential to improve our well-being.

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