Impact Lab – Page 323 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

John Deere’s First Fully Autonomous Tractor to Begin Plowing This Year

February 1, 2022

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is often the stage for big announcements from even bigger companies and this year has been no exception, with everybody from software and automation developers to automotive and consumer goods manufacturers vying for the attention of the tech-minded.

Stakeholders in the agricultural industry were greeted with some exciting news from industry leader John Deere when the company announced at the CES that its autonomous tractor is production-ready.

Back in 2019, John Deere showed off its prototype at this very event and now says it’s ready for prime time, revealing that it intends to embark on large-scale production in 2022, with the driverless tractors being available to farmers before the end of the year.

Elektrek calls it “a step into the future” as John Deere’s new vehicle will allow farmers to leave the cabs of their tractors after programming the devices to accomplish the task at hand.

Metaverse, Science & Technology News

Personal AI avatars could be metaverse’s killer app

February 1, 2022

Big Tech race is on to define and dominate the metaverse’s projected $800 billion market

By ALEX CONNOCK

Big numbers coming. Microsoft’s US$75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has landed – true to Call of Duty vernacular – “like a bomb” on the $200 billion revenue video games industry.

It heavily arms the Xbox giant for its vision of the metaverse, in which gaming is the marketing adrenaline of this much-touted online future that is to be experienced immersively through virtual reality (VR) headsets or augmented reality (AR) glasses. The stock market knocked $10 billion off Playstation maker Sony’s valuation on the news.

The metaverse was also a big noise at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, branded “tech’s hottest trend” by Variety magazine. Product launches included Samsung’s new VR world My House, offering virtual home makeovers; and US beauty tech group Perfect Corp’s AR-driven virtual beauty makeover range, which lets people experiment with cosmetics and accessories using AR.

Certainly the metaverse has been fast-moving, even since (in October 2021) Facebook renamed itself Meta – a bold step when VR only brings in about 3% of the company’s current revenue. But Bloomberg is predicting that the overall metaverse will be generating revenues of $800 billion as soon as 2024 (compared to $500 billion in 2020), so the prize is huge.

About half of that 2024 projection is expected from video games, while a substantial remainder is from live entertainment – and major artists like Ariana Grande and Marshmello have already been holding concerts in the virtual world.

Yet besides niche attractions for early adopters, what about the rest of us? Will we sign up for virtual interaction en masse when the technology is ready in a few years time? Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg thinks that the metaverse will allow people “to feel present – like we’re right there … no matter how far apart we actually are.”

quantum computing

New Quantum Computing Partnership Makes 100-Qubit Algorithms a Reality

February 1, 2022

ColdQuanta, a leader in cold atom quantum technology, and Classiq, which provides the leading software platform for Quantum Algorithm Design, today announced a partnership to make 100-qubit quantum circuits a reality for companies and researchers that crave quantum computing solutions to their most pressing problems. The partnership combines the power of two industry-leading platforms: ColdQuanta’s cold atom quantum computers and Classiq’s quantum algorithm design software.

Together, this combined solution provides customers the unique ability to create, simulate and execute unique quantum circuits to address a wide range of finance, material science, supply chain and machine learning challenges.

Alternative Transportation

UK Startup Wants to Build 200 Flying Taxi Vertiports in 65 Cities

January 31, 2022

A massive boost for eVTOL infrastructure.

By Chris Young

U.K. startup Urban-Air Port (UAP) announced that it has secured a new investment from Supernal, which was previously the Urban Air Mobility Division of Hyundai Motor Group.

The funds will help it build 200 vertiport sites in 65 cities across the globe over the next five years, a press statement reveals.

AI

Researchers develop an AI light-field Camera that reads 3D Facial Expressions

January 31, 2022

The new technology can capture facial expressions from 3D images with an accuracy of over 80%.

ByDipayan Mitra

Researchers from Korea’s one of the best science and technology universities, KAIST’s Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, have developed a new artificial intelligence-powered light field camera that can read 3D facial expressions.

The highly capable camera uses a technique that uses infrared light to read facial expressions. Professors Ki-Hun Jeong and Doheon Lee led the research team which developed this artificial intelligence-enabled technology.

The research named ‘Machine-Learned Light-field Camera that Reads Facial Expression from High-Contrast and Illumination Invariant 3D Facial Images’ was published in Advanced Intelligent Systems.

Prof Ki-Hun Jeong said, “The sub-miniature light-field camera developed by the research team has the potential to become the new platform to quantitatively analyze the facial expressions and emotions of humans.”

Medical Breakthrough

SCIENTISTS BUILD NEW DEVICE THAT MAY HELP PEOPLE WHO ARE BLIND ‘SEE’ IN INFRARED

January 31, 2022

Infrared goggles can even help wearers navigate in darkness, say researchers

By Vishwam Sankaran

A new device that can help blind people navigate and avoid obstacles was developed by scientists using infrared goggles and an array of vibrating pads on the forearm.

Unlike canes and many other tools commonly available to visually impaired people for navigation, the new device enables the full use of their hands, according to a yet-to-be peer-reviewed study on the device that was posted in the preprint repository arXiv this month.

“The most common tool available to them is the cane. Although the cane allows good detection of objects in the user’s immediate vicinity, it lacks the ability to detect obstacles further away,” researchers Manuel Zahn and Armaghan Ahmad Khan from the Technical University of Munich in Germany wrote in the study.

The new device also does not interfere with the user’s sense of hearing – which is extensively used by the visually impaired – according to the scientists.

It uses a pair of infrared cameras inserted in 3D-printed prototype goggles to capture a stereoscopic image that a small computer uses to create a map of the surrounding area.

Virtual Reality

New VR Boots Allow Users to ‘Physically’ Explore Virtual Spaces

January 30, 2022

They could solve VR’s ‘infinite walking’ problem.

By Chris Young

One of the surprising issues with virtual reality headsets to date has been user safety — get too immersed in the experience and you might find yourself leaping and bounding in virtual reality only to smash against the floor in your momentarily-forgotten physical reality.

One firm, Ekto VR, believes it may have a solution to this problem with its new “EKTO ONE” boots, a report from YankoDesign reveals. The company’s new technology allows users to walk on the spot in order to traverse a virtual space.

Alternative Transportation

Boeing Invests $450 Million in Wisk to Fund Moonshot Self-Flying Air Taxi Project

January 30, 2022

Wisk is developing an autonomous electric eVTOL that can seat three to four passengers.

By Sissi Cao

CERTIFICATION FOR SELF-DRIVING EVTOLS COULD BE YEARS AWAY.

Boeing said on Monday it has agreed to invest $450 million in the air taxi startup, Wisk Aero, to fund the development of a fully autonomous, electric aircraft that could one day fly millions of commuters in the world’s busiest cities. The funding around is one of the largest in the nascent eVTOL (electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle) industry.

Wisk was created in 2019 as a joint venture between Boeing and a unit of Kitty Hawk, the flying company founded by Google cofounder Larry Page that was developing an autonomous two-seater eVTOL called Cora. Cora is currently being tested as Wisk’s fifth-generation eVTOL. The investment from Boeing will fund the company’s development of the sixth-generation aircraft, a larger vehicle designed to seat three to four passengers, Wisk said.

Wisk seeks to certify the sixth-generation vehicle for urban taxi use in the U.S., Europe and Asia, CEO Gary Gyson told Observer in an interview last year.

The certification process could take years, however, especially for an unpiloted aircraft like Wisk’s. Wisk declined to disclose its estimated timeline for obtaining the FAA flight approval, but acknowledged that it may come after piloted eVTOLs get certified.

Blockchain

Opera Releases Web3 Browser to Let Users Seamlessly Link Crypto Wallets to Blockchain Services

January 30, 2022

Opera’s crypto browser will allow users to link wallets like Metamask, apart from its native crypto wallet that was launched in 2018.

By Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee

Opera’s new browser offers direct, frictionless access to Web3 services.

Opera has launched the beta version of its “Crypto Browser Project”
Opera’s Web3 browser features a news and data aggregator section
The beta is currently available for Windows, Mac, and Android

Opera, the team behind the popular multi-platform browser has now unveiled a new browser project which the company dubbed “Crypto Browser Project,” aimed at offering users direct access to Web3 services with beta versions already rolling out for Windows, Mac, and Android. With the crypto browser project, Opera intends to make it easier for crypto natives, as well as relative newbies to browse decentralised apps (dApps), access blockchain games and metaverse portals more seamlessly across platforms and devices.

Space Flight

SpaceX wins $102 million Air Force contract to demonstrate technologies for point-to-point space transportation

January 29, 2022

Rendering of a ‘rocket cargo’ vehicle set to launch and deliver supplies for the U.S. military. Credit: Air Force Research Laboratory

by Sandra Erwin

Program manager Greg Spanjers: ‘DoD is very interested in the ability to deliver the cargo anywhere on Earth to support humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force awarded SpaceX a $102 million five-year contract to demonstrate technologies and capabilities to transport military cargo and humanitarian aid around the world on a heavy rocket.

The contract is for the rocket cargo program, a new project led by the Air Force Research Laboratory to investigate the utility of using large commercial rockets for Department of Defense global logistics.

Greg Spanjers, rocket cargo program manager, said in a statement to SpaceNews that the contract formalizes a government-industry partnership to help “determine exactly what a rocket can achieve when used for cargo transport, what is the true capacity, speed, and cost of the integrated system.”

The contract, awarded Jan. 14, was not announced by the Air Force and was first reported by AviationWeek.com.

This is the largest contract awarded to date for rocket cargo. U.S. Transportation Command in 2020 signed cooperative research and development agreements with SpaceX and Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) to study concepts for rapid transportation through space. The command last month also signed a CRADA with Blue Origin.

Space Flight

Producers on a Tom Cruise film set in space are planning to launch the world’s first movie studio connected to the International Space Station

January 29, 2022

The exterior of an Axiom module, which the studio will be modeled after.

UK-based Space Entertainment Enterprise signed a deal to launch the first entertainment studio in space.
The ISS module is intended for creatives who want to film in low-orbit, micro-gravity environments.
The studio is tied to a highly-anticipated Tom Cruise-led project, which is working with SpaceX and NASA to shoot on the ISS.

“Adding a dedicated entertainment venue to Axiom Station’s commercial capabilities in the form of SEE-1 will expand the station’s utility as a platform for a global user base and highlight the range of opportunities the new space economy offers,” Axiom president and CEO Michael Suffredini said in a statement.

The Levenskys’ U.K. studio confirmed to CNBC it is currently in production on the Tom Cruise-led film, though it is not clear whether Cruise will wait for the debut of the SEE-1 studio to shoot.

drones, Science & Technology News

Berkeley researchers design self-folding in-flight drone arms

January 29, 2022

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a drone whose hinged arms can fold themselves from horizontal to vertical position in order to pass through tight spaces or carry light objects.

By Bruce Crumley

The objective of researchers at Berkeley’s High Performance Robotics Laboratory (HiPeRLab) was to design a quadcopter capable of raising and lowering its arms while in flight to adjust to limited spaces, or increase the tasks it could perform. To do that, they inserted hinges between the body of the square craft and its rotor-equipped appendages to enable their lowering and raising. In contrast to other experimental UAVs tricked up for similar folding movement, however, HiPeRLab scientists figured out a way for the drone itself to power all that flapping.

Previous limb-adjusting vehicles created by labs like Purdue University’s Engineering Technology school were outfitted with actuators that shifted the arms and rotors into different positions, making them more efficient in certain conditions like heavy winds. The HiPeRLab staff wanted to avoid inclusion of actuators, which draw off the drone’s batteries and thereby reduce its flight time. Their solution: use passive hinges whose up and down folding is powered by the rotors themselves.