2020 – Page 28 – Impact Lab

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

The fourth generation of AI is here, and it’s called ‘Artificial Intuition’

September 16, 2020

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most powerful technologies ever developed, but it’s not nearly as new as you might think. In fact, it’s undergone several evolutions since its inception in the 1950s. The first generation of AI was ‘descriptive analytics,’ which answers the question, “What happened?” The second, ‘diagnostic analytics,’ addresses, “Why did it happen?” The third and current generation is ‘predictive analytics,’ which answers the question, “Based on what has already happened, what could happen in the future?”

While predictive analytics can be very helpful and save time for data scientists, it is still fully dependent on historic data. Data scientists are therefore left helpless when faced with new, unknown scenarios. In order to have true “artificial intelligence,” we need machines that can “think” on their own, especially when faced with an unfamiliar situation. We need AI that can not just analyze the data it is shown, but express a “gut feeling” when something doesn’t add up. In short, we need AI that can mimic human intuition. Thankfully, we have it.

Continue reading… “The fourth generation of AI is here, and it’s called ‘Artificial Intuition’”

Amazon.com, Business, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Amazon plans to invest $100 million to help small businesses attract sales on Prime Day

September 13, 2020

Amazon Global Online Stores Net Sales

Amazon is investing $100 million to help small businesses attract sales on Prime Day and during the holidays,

This is a key moment for Amazon to recruit SMBs because of the coronavirus pandemic and a rise in competition.

The etailer is investing $100 million to help small businesses boost their sales and customer acquisition efforts for Prime Day, which may occur in October, and through the holiday season.

It’s also on pace to invest $18 billion to help independent businesses make sales through spending on logistics, services, and other areas. It intends to work with 500,000 US small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that sell on its marketplace over the next 12 months to offer them its ecommerce expertise and other forms of support, as Amazon appears to be making a push to appeal to SMB merchants.

Continue reading… “Amazon plans to invest $100 million to help small businesses attract sales on Prime Day”

Automobiles, City Planning, Coronavirus, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

What Coronavirus mean for the future of self-driving cars

September 13, 2020

It’s 2025 and driverless cars still aren’t zooming around everywhere. Where are the chilled out passengers on their phones, or napping, as an invisible “driver” navigates a crowded intersection?

They’re still mostly stuck in the backseat as a human driver shuttles them around. They’re likely in a highly automated and autonomous-capable vehicle, but a human is still there monitoring the machine. That doesn’t mean robo-vehicles aren’t on the road. Instead they’re working behind the scenes. They’re picking up our groceries, filling trucks with our endless online shopping purchases, and hauling crates of produce across the country.

The pandemic made us more comfortable with the idea of autonomous vehicles, but most industry experts still predict a slow transition to their widespread adoption in the U.S. When you’re avoiding exposure to a deadly disease, perhaps a driverless robotaxi, like the Waymo One service in suburban Phoenix, looks more attractive. But autonomous tech and testing regulations won’t accelerate just because of sudden mainstream acceptance and new social distancing norms.

Motional, the new brand from self-driving startup Aptiv and Hyundai, asked just over 1,000 U.S. adults in July about autonomous vehicle (AV) perception. More than 60 percent said AVs “are the way of the future.” A quarter of those surveyed said they are interested in experiencing the tech regularly. A year ago, the American Automobile Association (AAA) surveyed a similarly sized group of Americans and found 71 percent were afraid to ride in a self-driving car. (Note: How the two groups’ demographics compare is unknown.)

The next five years will likely continue to shift and refocus how we think about self-driving technology. While self-driving ride-shares won’t be the norm, more people will have experienced autonomy on the road. Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma thinks that by 2025, “if you haven’t taken a driverless journey you will know someone who has.”

Continue reading… “What Coronavirus mean for the future of self-driving cars”

Environment, Science & Technology News, Space, Weather

Alphabet’s Loon balloons are helping scientists study gravity waves

September 13, 2020

The research could lead to better models for predicting the weather.

In between beaming internet to people in developing countries and sometimes passing for UFOs, Alphabet’s Loon balloons have been busy helping scientists study how our planet works. A team led by Stanford professor Aditi Sheshadri recently published a report on gravity waves, ripples created by gravity when it pushes down on air forced up into the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

To compile their report, professor Sheshadri and her team used data that Alphabet’s Loon balloons collected over 6,811 separate 48-hour periods between 2014 and 2018. “This was just a very lucky thing because they weren’t collecting data for any scientific mission. But, incidentally, they happened to be measuring position and temperature and pressure,” the researcher told Stanford News.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft, Science & Technology News, Video

AI researchers use heartbeat detection to identify deepfake videos

September 12, 2020

Facebook and Twitter earlier this week took down social media accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm that interfered in the U.S. presidential election four years ago, that had been spreading misinformation to up to 126 million Facebook users. Today, Facebook rolled out measures aimed at curbing disinformation ahead of Election Day in November. Deepfakes can make epic memes or put Nicholas Cage in every movie, but they can also undermine elections. As threats of election interference mount, two teams of AI researchers have recently introduced novel approaches to identifying deepfakes by watching for evidence of heartbeats.

Existing deepfake detection models focus on traditional media forensics methods, like tracking unnatural eyelid movements or distortions at the edge of the face. The first study for detection of unique GAN fingerprints was introduced in 2018. But photoplethysmography (PPG) translates visual cues such as how blood flow causes slight changes in skin color into a human heartbeat. Remote PPG applications are being explored in areas like health care, but PPG is also being used to identify deepfakes because generative models are not currently known to be able to mimic human blood movements.

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3D Printer, new technology, Robots, Science & Technology News, Wearables

New silicone 3D printing opens up applications for robotics, medicine, wearables

September 12, 2020

The fabrication of soft devices is evolving further, with the completion of recent research performed by US scientists. With the results published in “3D printable tough silicone double networks,” the authors explain how soft materials can be fabricated with micron resolution for complex systems like robotics, as well as new types of wearables.

Soft materials are produced industrially for many applications, with soft matter deployed for shock absorption, conformal requirements, energy recapture and robotics, where devices must be able to deform. Cross-linked materials like silicone rubbers (more formally known as poly(dimethylsiloxanes)) are popular for use due to strong mechanical properties, and temperature and chemical resistance. Most methods for using such materials with traditional techniques like injection molding are extremely limited though, and only suitable for creating basic geometries.

Previous research has shown success with liquid silicone rubber material for 3D printing ink, yielding more complex shapes. Challenges have been noted, however, in terms of structures being printed with overhangs, as well as those with a “high aspect ratio structure,” due to lack of stability like “slumping” before curing. Other experimental techniques have resulted in a lack of resolution, inferior mechanical properties, or slower printing speed.

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Bitcoin, Blockchain, China, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

MIT is helping the Boston Fed build a CBDC that can be scaled for consumer use

September 12, 2020

MIT is helping the Boston Fed build a CBDC that can be scaled for consumer use

Can MIT help the U.S. catch up to China in the CBDC race?

The MIT Digital Currency Initiative, or DCI, is helping the federal reserve bank of Boston build a digital currency with the goal of scaling for consumer use. The DCI’s director Neha Narula told Cointelegraph:

“We’re trying to build a high throughput, low latency transaction system that could be used by consumers and could handle the security and resilience required for a national currency.”

The multi-year collaboration between the two organizations is still in very early stages and not much information is being released to the public. Yet the focus is not on building a newer version of interbank digital ledger, but rather something that the consumers would be able to use. It is hard to estimate the required transactional throughput of such technology, but considering that the U.S. population is around 330 million and the fact that the dollar is the most widely used currency in the world (some nations have even officially adopted it), this number would have to be rather high.

Continue reading… “MIT is helping the Boston Fed build a CBDC that can be scaled for consumer use”

Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, new technology, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

This tiny robot tank could one day help doctors explore your intestine

September 11, 2020

With a bulky, armored appearance, heavy duty treads for gripping, and a claw arm on the front, the Endoculus robot vehicle looks like it belongs on the battlefield. In fact, it’s just 3 cm wide, 2.3 cm tall, and designed for an entirely different kind of inhospitable environment: Your intestine.

“[This] robotic capsule endoscope, Endoculus, is a tethered robot designed for colonoscopy applications,” Mark Rentschler, a mechanical engineering professor in the Advanced Medical Technologies Laboratory at the University of Colorado, told Digital Trends. “The goals are twofold: design a platform for a robot endoscope in the gastrointestinal tract, and enable autonomous capabilities to assist physicians with disease diagnosis and treatment during these procedures.”

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Automobiles, Business, Electric Vehicles, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Volta Zero is an electric delivery truck built just for cities

September 11, 2020

DPD will start using the EV to deliver parcels in London next year.

Volta Trucks

A Swedish startup named Volta Trucks has unveiled its first vehicle: an electric truck designed specifically for city parcel and freight deliveries. The Volta Zero is scheduled to start production in the UK in 2022, and the company is aiming to have as many as 500 vehicles on the road by the end of that year. While it’s far from the first EV designed with parcel delivery in mind — Amazon plans to use electric vans from Rivian and Mercedes—Benz to deliver customers’ orders — Volta Trucks has forged significant partnerships that could give it a role in shaping the future of deliveries.

European delivery service DPD will launch a pilot test using the Volta Zero to service customers within London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone in the first quarter of 2021. The company also told Reuters that it has “well progressed with another seven or eight customers.”

Continue reading… “Volta Zero is an electric delivery truck built just for cities”

Energy, Environment, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

New autonomous sustainable robots could mine the deep sea

September 11, 2020

Pliant Energy Systems says its C-Ray robot could be used as a less invasive ocean mining tool.

Mining companies are ready to tackle two new frontiers like never before: space and the deep sea.

The deep ocean is a place that’s not only rich in sea life, vast swathes of it are also abundant in metals such as nickel, copper, cobalt, zinc, which are essential to making smartphones, electric vehicles, and solar panel parts.

The problem is that marine scientists and environmentalists strongly oppose the invasive methods proposed by these mining companies as they might irreversibly damage fragile ecosystems. Renewable energy firm Pliant Energy Systems thinks it has the solution to this problem.

Continue reading… “New autonomous sustainable robots could mine the deep sea”

Analysis, Business, Coronavirus, Science & Technology News, Trending

‘Do I really need this much office space?’ Pandemic emptied buildings, but how long?

September 10, 2020

Empty offices sit above empty retail stores on Broadway in downtown Manhattan.

As commercial real estate continues to lie vacant around the U.S., it may contribute to a vicious economic cycle that reshapes our cities.

Adam Johnson enjoys going into the office. It helps that he works in one of the nicest buildings in Midtown Manhattan: a 35-story art deco high-rise at the corner of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park and the Plaza Hotel.

Johnson’s a stock picker — he writes an investment newsletter called Bullseye Brief — and, ostensibly, he shares the sixth floor with a real estate showroom and an assortment of hedge funds. They all left months ago.

“I am the only person who’s been coming in here since April 1st,” he says.

Continue reading… “‘Do I really need this much office space?’ Pandemic emptied buildings, but how long?”

Ecological Products, Science & Technology News, Tourism, Travel

These modular clamping tree tents were designed to encourage sustainable community travel!

September 10, 2020

I know treehouses were a thing of our childhoods but it doesn’t have to be! Get ready to take a beautiful virtual tour of the O2 Treehouse by Treewalkers that blend the best of our childhood imagination with glamping reality while keeping it all an eco-friendly experience! Treewalkers is one of the leading players in the world of treetop construction – they actually make treehouses that adults cannot reason out of.

The treehouses have unique geodesic domes and can be connected to create entire villages. The houses are modular so it enables franchisees to start their own village setups with one or more units – this can be a sustainable hotel, unusual Airbnb getaway, or simply a camping site that offers a different kind of stay. The innovative modular lattice design is what makes this a flexible accommodation — while catering to the individual’s needs and it also allows them to customize details. The units come with a standard a bug-proof outer socket, interior furniture, and canvas canopy roofing. As part of the franchise program, hosts have the option to open up their Treewalker to other hosts in exchange for points that can be used towards other stays – sustainable community tourism! There are many intriguing shapes but the most iconic one has to be the A-shaped floating tent because that is something we have all tried to create with a blanket in our living rooms. The interiors are warm + woody and have a plush bed with a seating area. As you can imagine there will be plenty of natural light and ventilation. While there is no clear indication of the bathroom being in-unit, I assume that will be a separate pod in itself or have other arrangements like porta-potty if its a campsite.

The California-based design studio has extended its realm with a franchise-hospitality brand to make it possible for anyone to own one of the O2 Treehouses. “Treewalkers is a franchise-based treehouse hospitality brand that lends homeowners a way to launch into the home-sharing market with low risk and a high ROI, and lends travelers an easily accessible network of eco experiences,” says founder Dustin Feider. Finally, O2 Treehouse estimates a 1-3 year return on investment based on a rate of $150 per night, occupied for 30-60% of the year and they have broken down the math for you on their website should you decide to go that route. The ultimate mission of the brand is to design architectural structures that heal the bond between humans and nature so they can coexist peacefully!

Continue reading… “These modular clamping tree tents were designed to encourage sustainable community travel!”