2022 – Page 46 – Impact Lab

Baidu’s Electric Vehicle Firm Jidu Unveils First ‘Robot’ Car

July 3, 2022

Baidu’s electric vehicle (EV) arm Jidu Auto on Wednesday launched a “robot” concept car, the first vehicle to be revealed by a Chinese internet company’

Baidu’s electric vehicle (EV) arm Jidu Auto on Wednesday launched a “robot” concept car, the first vehicle to be revealed by a Chinese internet company.

The concept car, which is free of door handles and can be fully controlled via voice recognition, was launched through an online press conference held on Baidu’s metaverse-themed app Xirang.

Jidu, an EV venture controlled by Baidu and co-funded by Chinese automaker Geely, plans to mass produce the model, which would be 90% similar to the concept car, in 2023.

The ‘robot’ EVs will possess autonomous Level 4 capabilities that need no human intervention as well as utilize Qualcomm’s 8295 chips, which will enable users to access voice assistance offline when internet connection is poor.

Baidu’s EV-making plan comes as tech companies around the world race to develop smart cars after Tesla’s success in commercializing electric vehicles.

Aviation

Flying car boss makes ‘world’s first’ commute to work in Jetson craft

July 3, 2022

Jetson claims its EVTOL craft forms part of an ‘aviation renaissance’

By Anthony Cuthbertson

The founder of a flying car startup claims to have made the first ever commute to work using an electric vertical takeoff and landing (EVTOL) aircraft.

Tomasz Patan, who is also the chief technology officer of Jetson, flew the company’s $83,600 vehicle ONE from his home in Tuscany to work, cutting the usual travel time by car by nearly 90 per cent.

The low-altitude flight through the Italian countryside saw Mr Patan pilot the craft just metres above the ground in the one person craft, which resembles a large-scale version of a commercial quadcopter drone.

A video of the flight, which took place in May, was shared to the company’s official Facebook page, together with the tagline “Everyone is a pilot”.

Jetson claims that the EVTOL craft will not require a pilots license to operate, though regulations and laws may prohibit its use in most countries.

Cancer

New Technology Could Offer 50-fold Boost For Testing Cancer Therapies

July 3, 2022

By Dr Sheena Meredith

A new technology platform developed by researchers in Scotland could boost the number of tests that can be performed on a solid tumour sample by up to 50 times. The technique could enable large-scale testing of immunotherapies, and accelerate the development of novel cancer treatments, its developers said.

The team, from the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, the Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow, and the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow, explained that while chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cell immunotherapies have been “remarkably successful” in the treatment of haematological malignancies, using cellular immunotherapy to treat solid tumours has been more challenging.

Widespread application of CAR-T therapy has been hampered because of high manufacturing costs of CAR-T cell production, which requires an autologous acquisition process from patients. In addition, off-target toxicity can trigger serious or even life-threatening therapy responses.

Aviation

VERIJET THE AI-POWERED AIR TAXI SERVICE SETS STANDARDS FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL

July 2, 2022

By Lynzie Montague

Verijet is a private air charter company promoting environmentally responsible aviation. They are purveyors of a charter service with a lower carbon and noise footprint in the USA. They have recently earned a place in the 2021 Luxury Lifestyle Awards and were awarded Best Luxury Private Jet Service in the USA. With a massive increase in demand for private jet services during the pandemic as limited flights have been available, the Verijet team is committed to providing first-class services to even the most discerning clients and sticking to a philosophy of consistency. Verijet is unlocking high-speed travel, increasing the ease of door-to-door air mobility, and opening private aviation to more people by making it more accessible, unlocking high-speed travel. Its goal is to be the safest, most efficient airline for and on the planet.

drones

Airrow is automating battery and payload swapping for drones

July 2, 2022

By Brian Heater

Any given year, the real unsung highlight of re:Mars are the dozen or so startups and researchers who show off their wares on the show floor. There are always a couple of cool projects that have somehow managed to escape our radar, thus far. Los Angeles-based Airrow jumped out with a clever product offering.

The startup makes a device designed to automatically remove and replace batteries and payloads for drones. It operates similarly to a CNC machine or 3D printer, with a gantry that moves along X- and Y-axes to get the battery from the charger to the drone and back again.

The process is currently a manual one, requiring a human to swap and replace. It’s only slightly inconvenient one to one but can become a major hassle when scaling up, like, say, in the case of drone-based food delivery programs.

Healthcare

This hospital of the future gives a glimpse of healthcare transformed

July 2, 2022

Proposed structure in Qatar shows it will grow medicinal plants, generate energy and manage waste

Al Daayan Health District, a proposed hospital in Qatar, will be built on a 1.3-million-square-metre site near Doha.

With its low-rise profile, attractive courtyard gardens and modular construction, the proposed Al Daayan Health District in Qatar offers a stark contrast to hospitals that many residents in the Gulf — or other parts of the world — will be familiar with.

The plan for the 1.3-million-square-metre site near Doha is ambitious, but designers suggest it could become a regional standard in the future.

There are no tower blocks, medicinal plants are grown on-site and the facility can generate its own energy as well as deal with its own waste.

And it will be built by robots using 3D printing.

Commissioned by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), a Qatari hospital operator, the master plan for Al Daayan Health District, unveiled in late 2021, is the work of Dutch architectural practice OMA and British engineering company Buro Happold.

In its brief to the architects, HMC said its existing infrastructure lacked space, did not have the capacity for current and future demand, and was “a major barrier to clinical service transformation”.

Speaking earlier this year at a healthcare conference in Berlin, Reinier de Graaf, the partner at OMA overseeing the project, suggested that hospital design, in general, was in need of a shake-up.Hospitals came to look like shopping malls or airports or hotels. They looked more like fantasy buildings or buildings that offered some escapeAnnmarie Adams, professor at McGill University

“When you consider that the main task of a hospital is to care for people, the environments they generate don’t seem to care about people. You see this impenetrable fortress,” he said.

Many contemporary hospitals are, Mr De Graaf said, large, anonymous, ugly and distant from the people they are built to serve.

“It’s fair to say that it’s probably largely the fault of hospitals that people dislike modern architecture, because they represent the worst of modern architecture,” he added.

The Qatari hospital is envisaged as having 1,400 beds, with patients staying on the first floor, while the ground floor is used for consultation rooms and other services. Machines located underground, meanwhile, are involved in keeping the hospital running.

Electric Vehicles

First electric flying ferry will make Stockholm’s waterborne public transport faster than cars and subway

July 1, 2022

The world’s fastest electric ship, the Candela P-12 Shuttle, is set to hit Stockholm’s waters next year, heralding a new era of transport. The innovative hydrofoiling electric ferry will reduce emissions and slash commuting times – and the city believes it will make waterborne public transport more attractive than trains, buses, and cars.

The marine technology company Candela released the first pictures of what will be the world’s fastest, longest-range and most energy efficient electric ship ever. The Candela P-12 Shuttle, as the innovative vessel is called, will be shuttling citizens between the sprawling Stockholm suburb of Ekerö and the city center in the coming year. Flying across the water, the 30-passenger electric vessel has a speed of 30 knots – considerably faster than any other electric ship in the world. It also provides faster commuting than the subway and bus lines it competes with, as well as being infinitely more energy efficient than the diesel vessels currently servicing the same route. Perhaps most signficant, the ship is faster than travelling by car during rush hour.

The secret to its high speed and long range are the three carbon fiber wings that extend from under the hull. These active hydrofoils allow the ship to lift itself above the water, thus decreasing drag.

Driverless cars

CRUISE’S DRIVERLESS AUTONOMOUS CARS START GIVING RIDES TO PAYING PASSENGER

July 1, 2022

By Darrell Etherington

The era of commercial autonomous robotaxi service is here — Cruise officially became the first company to offer fared rides to the general public in a major city as of late Wednesday. The milestone comes after Cruise received official approval from the California Public Utilities Commission in early June to operate driverless in a commercial capacity.

Initially, Cruise’s driverless autonomous offering will operate only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and only on designated streets in the city. But the limits are part of a plan by regulators and the company to prove out the safety and efficacy of its system before deploying it in more locations at additional times. The new operating window already extends its total active time by 1.5 hours as compared to the free driverless test pilot service it was offering between June of last year and the debut of this paid service.

Medical Breakthrough

Could an electronic tattoo revolutionise blood pressure monitoring?

July 1, 2022

Researchers have developed an electronic tattoo that delivers continuous blood pressure monitoring at high accuracy.

Blood pressure is the most vital indicator of heart health, and although there is a range of monitoring devices, it remains difficult to reliably measure outside of a clinical setting. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have developed an electronic tattoo that could change the face of blood pressure monitoring forever.

“Blood pressure is the most important vital sign you can measure, but the methods to do it outside of the clinic passively, without a cuff, are very limited,” said Deji Akinwande, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT Austin and one of the co-leaders of the project.

The findings are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

AI

IKEA ROLLS OUT AN AI-POWERED INTERACTIVE DESIGN EXPERIENCE FOR SHOPPERS

June 30, 2022

By Lauren Forristal

Today, IKEA is launching a new AI-driven interactive design experience called IKEA Kreativ for IKEA.com and the IKEA app. With the new feature, U.S. customers can design and visualize their own living spaces with digitalized furniture on their smartphones instead of traveling to the brick-and-mortar store where they are likely to be distracted by the warehouse-shaped labyrinth of showrooms, blue shopping bags and Swedish meatballs.

Currently, the IKEA Kreativ feature is available on iOS devices and desktops. It will be coming to Android devices later this summer. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) experience is expected to launch in additional countries in September. However, there are no exact launch dates.

With IKEA Kreativ, the company continues taking steps toward digital transformation. According to IKEA, it is the home retail industry’s first fully featured mixed-reality design experience for lifelike and accurate interior design, bridging the gap between e-commerce and in-store customer journeys.

Virtual home design platforms aren’t new. In fact, the Swedish retailer was one of the first furniture companies to ride the AR wave in 2017 with its IKEA Place app. The app works with Apple’s ARKit to allow customers to scan a room and place an IKEA chair, bed, etc., in the space. There is also visual search tech that recommends similar furniture when a user scans an item that already exists in their home. Amazon, Wayfair, Target, The Home Depot, Overstock, Houzz and others have implemented AR apps to help clients design a room with purchasable products, too.

Robots

Tiny robot ‘fireflies’ could light the way for first responders

June 30, 2022

By Karin Mallett

When scientists get stumped, they often look to nature for inspiration.

That’s why, when robotics engineers at MIT were trying to build tiny robots that lit up, they turned to an obvious influence.

These man-made ‘fireflies’ are flying robots, the size of an insect, that could be a part of our everyday life in the near future.

But you may be wondering, why? Why build them, and what can they be used for?

One benefit is their size. These robots are seriously small.

They can fit on your fingertip, and weigh just a bit more than a paper clip. This allows them to navigate in tight spaces where other, larger robots just can’t reach.

The light they emit actually comes from the artificial muscles they use to flap their tiny, rubber-like wings.

Researchers say that ‘electro-luminescence’ also allows the robots to communicate with each other.

3D Printer

MOONRISE: LZH and TU Berlin bring 3D printing to the Moon with laser and AI

June 30, 2022

3D printing on the Moon: Scientists from the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) and the Technische Universitat Berlin (TU Berlin) are planning a flight to the Moon to melt lunar dust with laser beams.

In the MOONRISE project, the research team wants to explore the question of how we can use lasers to build landing sites, roads or buildings out of lunar dust in the future. To do this, the researchers want to bring a laser system to the lunar surface and melt the lunar dust, a material that is available everywhere on the Moon.

Artificial intelligence will support the laser process. The goal is to demonstrate that laser melting works on the Moon – and, in perspective, can be used to produce 3D-printed infrastructure for a lunar base.

From both a scientific and an economic perspective, our terrestrial satellite is a coveted target. Billionaires are not the only ones who want to fly well-paying guests around the Moon; the European Space Agency (ESA) also has plans for a “Moon Village”. The Moon’s dark backside would be suitable for powerful space telescopes.

In addition, the lower gravity and lack of an atmosphere make the Moon an ideal stopover for setting up missions to more distant destinations in space. But how will launch pads, landing sites and buildings be constructed on the lunar surface? “At a cost of up to a million dollars per kilogram, a complete transport of the material from Earth to the Moon would be extremely expensive”, explains Jorg Neumann, MOONRISE project manager at LZH.