Science & Technology News – Page 205

Engineering, new technology, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

Skin-like, flexible sensor lets robots detect us

March 18, 2020

A new sensor for robots is designed to make our physical interactions with these machines a little smoother—and safer. The sensor, which is now being commercialized, allows robots to measure the distance and angle of approach of a human or object in close proximity.

Industrial robots often work autonomously to complete tasks. But increasingly, collaborative robots are working alongside humans. To avoid collisions in these circumstances, collaborative robots need highly accurate sensors to detect when someone (or something) is getting a little too close.

Many sensors have been developed for this purpose, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Those that rely on sound and light (for example, infrared or ultrasonic time-of-flight sensors) measure the reflections of those signals and must therefore be closely aligned with the approaching object, which limits their field of detection.

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Batteries, Electric Automobile, Electric Vehicles, Energy, Science & Technology News

UK to get its first electric car forecourt THIS YEAR with 24 superchargers at a specially-designed charging site in Essex

March 17, 2020

First of a network of 100 electric forecourts to open this summer near Braintree

It will have 24 350kW superchargers that can boost EV batteries in half an hour.

The site will have a two-storey building with shops, meeting rooms and lounge.

The entire location is part of a £1bn nationwide scheme and uses 100% renewable energy, the company behind it – Gridserve – says.

The first of a £1billion nationwide network of more than 100 electric forecourts is to open this summer near Braintree in Essex.

It claims to be the first custom-built electric charging station in the UK.

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Economy, Housing, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

This company is building backyard homes at no cost to Los Angeles homeowners

March 17, 2020

Crews build an ADU in the backyard of the McCauley residence in Gramercy Park.

But homeowners have to be willing to rent out the units.

Davita and Martin McCauley were starting to think about how, in the years to come, they would care for her mother as she aged .

The McCauleys own a classic World War II-era Southern California home: a peach-hued stucco bungalow in Gramercy Park, with a grassy lawn in the front and a detached garage in the back.

They were toying with the idea of eventually moving her into their three-bedroom house, and adding a second story to make more space, when they were introduced at church to a mutual friend working for a new company called United Dwelling.

At no cost to homeowners, the company builds “granny flats” in the backyards of single-family homes, finds a tenant to rent them out to, and splits the lease revenue with the homeowner for up to 25 years, at which point the homeowner owns the unit outright.

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Batteries, Battery, Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News

High-density hybrid powercapacitors: A new frontier in the energy race

March 17, 2020

Toomen’s high-density hybrid power capacitors offer the density of lithium batteries, but with much greater charge and discharge rates, a massive range of safe operating temperatures, enormous lifespans and no danger of explosion

Hybrid “power capacitors” that can store as much energy as lithium batteries, but with much higher charge/discharge rates, a huge range of safe operating temperatures, super-long lifespans and no risk of explosion are already in production, says a small Belgian company that’s been testing them and selling them for some time.

Chinese family-owned company Shenzhen Toomen New Energy is tough to find, at least on the English-language internet, but Belgian electronic engineer Eric Verhulst bumped into Toomen representatives on a tiny stand at the Hannover Messe expo in Germany back in 2018, while looking for next-gen battery solutions for an electric mobility startup he was running.

The Toomen team made a hell of a claim, saying they’d managed to manufacture powerful supercapacitors with the energy density of lithium batteries. “Of course, that’s an unbelievable claim,” Verhulst told us. “It’s a factor of 20 better than what, for example, Maxwell had at the time. So I took my time, went over there, looked at their tests, did some tests myself, and I got convinced this is real. So at the end of 2018, we made an agreement to become their exclusive partner.”

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Drone, drones, military drones, Science & Technology News, Weapons

Drone swarms use nets to catch other drones in flight

March 16, 2020

Sandia National Laboratories researchers leading the MARCUS project are working to develop a system that addresses current and future national security threats posed by small unmanned aircraft systems

Robotics engineers from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) are developing drones that can capture hostile drones in flight. Funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme, the Mobile Adaptive/Reactive Counter Unmanned System (MARCUS) project uses swarms of four unmanned quad-copters working in concert to intercept a drone and catch it in a net.

As drones become more numerous and more sophisticated, they also pose a growing threat. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are now a major component of the world’s major militaries but drones are also showing up in terrorist attacks, invasions of privacy, or acts of mischief at airports that could down an aircraft.

There have been a number of anti-drone systems developed over the years, including jammers, lasers, and even eagles trained to bring them down, but MARCUS aims to not only counter the threat of small UAVs but also to capture them for disposal or information gathering. According to SNL, this isn’t the first system to use nets but it is the first to combine nets with teams of drones controlled by a ground-based computer to coordinate the swarm’s course to ensure interception.

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Elon Musk, Science & Technology News, Space Flight, SpaceX

Elon Musk says he’s ‘definitely going to be dead’ before humans ever reach Mars — unless the pace of innovation picks up

March 16, 2020

An illustration of a woman orbiting Mars inside a SpaceX vehicle. Elon Musk/SpaceX

Elon Musk said he’s “definitely going to be dead” before humans reach Mars unless innovation speeds up.

The SpaceX CEO made the comments on Monday while speaking to attendees of the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC.

Musk said the biggest obstacle is designing and building a large and “rapidly reusable” rocket.

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Electric Automobile, Elon Musk, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News, Tesla

Tesla produces its 1 millionth electric car

March 14, 2020

Tesla announced that it produced its 1 millionth electric car — becoming the first automaker to achieve the milestone.

Only a few years ago, many people didn’t believe that Tesla could produce electric vehicles in any meaningful numbers, but the automaker managed to ramp up three electric vehicle programs: Model S, Model X, and Model 3.

Now it is about to launch its fourth electric vehicle, the Model Y, and it is doing it on the momentum of a new milestone.

Today, CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla produced its 1 millionth car and released a picture of the car, a Model Y, and the team who made it:

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Genes, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Science & Technology News

How caloric restriction prevents negative effects of aging in cells

March 14, 2020

Summary:

A new study provides the most detailed report to date of the cellular effects of a calorie-restricted diet in rats. While the benefits of caloric restriction have long been known, the new results show how this restriction can protect against aging in cellular pathways.

If you want to reduce levels of inflammation throughout your body, delay the onset of age-related diseases, and live longer, eat less food. That’s the conclusion of a new study by scientists from the US and China that provides the most detailed report to date of the cellular effects of a calorie-restricted diet in rats. While the benefits of caloric restriction have long been known, the new results show how this restriction can protect against aging in cellular pathways, as detailed in Cell on February 27, 2020.

“We already knew that calorie restriction increases life span, but now we’ve shown all the changes that occur at a single-cell level to cause that,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a senior author of the new paper, professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and holder of the Roger Guillemin Chair. “This gives us targets that we may eventually be able to act on with drugs to treat aging in humans.”

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communication, cutting edge, Engineering, Science & Technology News

Cloud data speeds set to soar with aid of laser mini-magnets

March 14, 2020

Model of a single-molecule magnet

Tiny, laser-activated magnets could enable cloud computing systems to process data up to 100 times faster than current technologies, a study suggests.

Chemists have studied a new magnetic material that could boost the storage capacity and processing speed of hard drives used in cloud-based servers.

This could enable people using cloud data systems to load large files in seconds instead of minutes, researchers say.

A team led by scientists from the University of Edinburgh created the material—known as a single-molecule magnet—in the lab.

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AI, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News, Shopping

AI is growing, but the robots are not coming for customer service

March 14, 2020

Recent data out of the World Economic Forum in Davos has shed new light on the role that AI and customer service are playing in shaping the future of work. Jobs of Tomorrow: Mapping Opportunity in the New Economy provides much-needed insights into emerging global employment opportunities and the skill sets needed to maximize those opportunities. Interestingly, the report, supported by data from LinkedIn, found that demand for both “digital” and “human” factors is fueling growth in the jobs of tomorrow, raising important considerations for a breadth of industries worldwide.

The report predicts that in the next three years, 37% of job openings in emerging professions will be in the care economy; 17% in sales, marketing and content; 16% in data and AI; 12% in engineering and cloud computing; and 8% in people and culture. Among the roles with fastest projected growth include specialists in both AI and customer success, underscoring the need for technology, yes, but technology that incorporates the human touch.

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AI, Machine Learning, Robots, Science & Technology News

This robot taught itself to walk entirely on its own

March 14, 2020

Google is creating AI-powered robots that navigate without human intervention—a prerequisite to being useful in the real world.

Within 10 minutes of its birth, a baby fawn is able to stand. Within seven hours, it is able to walk. Between those two milestones, it engages in a highly adorable, highly frenetic flailing of limbs to figure it all out.

That’s the idea behind AI-powered robotics. While autonomous robots, like self-driving cars, are already a familiar concept, autonomously learning robots are still just an aspiration. Existing reinforcement-learning algorithms that allow robots to learn movements through trial and error still rely heavily on human intervention. Every time the robot falls down or walks out of its training environment, it needs someone to pick it up and set it back to the right position.

Now a new study from researchers at Google has made an important advancement toward robots that can learn to navigate without this help. Within a few hours, relying purely on tweaks to current state-of-the-art algorithms, they successfully got a four-legged robot to learn to walk forward and backward, and turn left and right, completely on its own.

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3D Printer, Housing, new technology, Robotics, Science & Technology News

3D-Printed Homes: The concept is now turning into something solid

March 17, 2020

Homes of the future, made through 3-D printing

In a Northeast Austin neighborhood, new 3-D-printed homes are taking their distinctive shape on the grounds of the Community First Village, where about 180 formerly homeless people have found shelter and camaraderie in the most expensive city in Texas. (Regan Morton Photography)

AUSTIN — Tim Shea is counting the days until he can move into a new 3-D-printed house. Shea, 69, will be the first to live in one of six such rentals created by what some in the housing industry call a futuristic approach that could revolutionize home construction.

Shea is among a growing number of seniors in America who have struggled to keep affordable housing. He has, at times, been homeless. He has arthritis and manages to get around with the aid of a walker. He said he looks forward to giving up the steep ramp he’s had to negotiate when entering or exiting the RV he’s called home.

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