Impact Lab – Page 335 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Robots

Ford Invents The Ultimate Barbeque Robot

December 24, 2021

It’s the Terminator of cooked meats.

As the world becomes increasingly automated, car manufacturers, who have historically been innovators in the field of automation, are taking things to the next level. Hyundai’s newest employees are all robots, and even Honda plans on employing an army of delivery robots in the near future. Ford has also shown some serious advancement in the world of automation, with its most impressive being this robotic grilling machine, complete with a Ford Ranger front-end. The robot operates from Ford’s Silverton assembly plant in South Africa, and is blowing people away with its ability to flip a burger better than SpongeBob could ever dream of. Welcome to the future ladies and gentleman.

Ford calls this wondrous machine the TCF BBQ (Braai Boerewors Quickly), which refers to a type of South African sausage cooked on open coals. The TCF BBQ was salvaged from decommissioned tooling used in the Silverton Assembly Plant, and was dreamt up by Claude Roux, an area manager from the trim and chassis and final (TCF) line. The robot was programmed as part of a competition held by Ford South Africa to design something unique from decommissioned tools sitting at the plant.

New Inventions

Self-healing 3D printed plastic can repair itself using only light

December 23, 2021

3D printed materials treated with a reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agent have been shown to self-heal under UV lights.

by Neil Martin

UNSW engineers have demonstrated a way to help 3D printed plastic heal itself at room temperature using only lights.

Professor Cyrille Boyer and his team, Dr. Nathaniel Corrigan and Mr Michael Zhang, in the UNSW School of Chemical Engineering have shown that the addition of “special powder” to the liquid resin used in the printing process can later assist with making quick and easy repairs should the material break.

This can be done very simply by shining standard LED lights on the printed plastic for around one hour which causes a chemical reaction and fusion of the two broken pieces.

The entire process actually makes the repaired plastic even stronger than it was before it was damaged, and it is hoped that further development and commercialisation of the technique will help to reduce chemical waste in the future.

That is because broken plastic parts would not need to be discarded, or even recycled, and could be mended simply even when remaining embedded in a component including many other materials.

The results of the team’s research have now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Food

California’s New Lab-Grown Meat Facility Is the Most Advanced in the World

December 23, 2021

And it will be open to visitors.

If you weren’t aware of it, the amount of meat that humans consume globally has rapidly risen over the decades and meat production is now at an all-time high. According to the Worldwatch Institute, meat production has tripled over the last forty years, increasing by 20 percent in just the last decade. And more meat production leads to more carbon emissions that feed climate change.

Since the issue has become a major problem, companies around the world have been working on green alternatives to meat products. Perhaps you might remember our previous coverage of Impossible Foods’ Impossible Burgers and how they’re nearly identical to regular patties and Redefine Meat’s 3D-printed steaks.

One such company is Upside Foods, a cultured meat company that is headquartered in Berkley, California, and it claims that its vast 53,000-sq ft (16,154-m²) facility is the world’s most advanced lab-grown meat facility, so far.

Driverless vehicles

Ford to launch free food delivery program in southwest Detroit using autonomous shuttle

December 23, 2021

By Jordyn Grzelewski

In a move aimed both at fulfilling a community need and advancing vehicle technologies considered a key part of its future, Ford Motor Co. is launching a fresh food delivery pilot in southwest Detroit using an autonomous vehicle shuttle.

The Dearborn automaker, with its philanthropic arm the Ford Motor Co. Fund, on Tuesday announced a six-month initiative kicking off after the holidays that aims to deliver approximately 10,000 pounds of fresh food to residents of Rio Vista Detroit Co-op Apartments, a senior living center near Ford’s under-construction Michigan Central campus in Corktown.

The pilot builds on a free food program, called Ford Resource and Engagement Center on the Go, that the Ford Fund and Gleaners Community Food Bank launched earlier this year, doubling the existing food deliveries for more than 20 Rio Vista residents who participate in the service.

“We’re constantly thinking about how to expand our reach in communities for those who don’t have access to the most basic goods, like groceries or warm meals,” Joe Provenzano, mobility director for the Ford Fund, said in a statement. “Bringing Ford’s mobility expertise together with local collaborations allows us to create innovative solutions that make communities stronger and people’s lives better.”

The existing food delivery program operated by the Ford Fund and Gleaners already has distributed roughly 2.4 million pounds of food, according to a news release. Participants receive a mixture of dry and canned goods, plus fresh produce, milk and cheese. The pilot program will bring participants with an additional delivery, containing fresh produce and milk, each month.

Augmented Reality

Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

December 23, 2021

Job listings expose plans for a mobile AR platform intended to reach “billions.”

By SAMUEL AXON

Google was one of the early leaders in the first wave of modern augmented reality (AR) research and devices, but the company has appeared to cool to AR in recent years even as Apple and Facebook have invested heavily in it. But it looks like that trend will soon be reversed.

On LinkedIn, operating system engineering director Mark Lucovsky announced that he has joined Google. He previously headed up mixed reality operating system work for Meta, and before that he was one of the key architects of Windows NT at Microsoft. “My role is to lead the Operating System team for Augmented Reality at Google,” he wrote.

He also posted a link to some job listings at Google that give the impression Google is getting just as serious about AR as Apple or Meta.

DNA

New Gene-Writing Tool Helps To Develop Advanced Gene Therapies

December 23, 2021

| Original story from Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona

An international, multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain), led by Dr. Marc Güell, has published an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications showing the potential of Find Cut-and-Transfer (FiCAT) technology as a state-of-the-art tool for gene writing to develop advanced therapies that are safer and more effective in their future clinical application in patients with genetic and oncological diseases that have few treatment options.

The UPF Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory has been working on gene editing and synthetic biology applied to gene therapies since 2017. FiCAT technology is an important scientific breakthrough to overcome the current limitations of the technology used today for genome editing and gene therapy.

“Human genome engineering has significantly progressed in the last decade with the development of new editing tools, but there was still a technology gap that would allow therapeutic genes to be transferred efficiently with few size limitations”, comments Dr. Marc Güell, supervisor of the study.

In this work, the researchers develop an efficient and precise programmable gene writing technology based on the combination of modified proteins CRISPR-cas and piggy Bac transposase (PB), succeeding in inserting small and large fragments. Dr. Maria Pallarès, co-first author of the study explains that: “CRISPR stands out for its precision when editing small fragments. However, transposases allow us to insert large fragments but in an uncontrolled manner. We have combined the best of each technology”.

Robots

Autonomous Two-Legged Robot Ascento Pro Has Motorized Wheels, Jumps Like a True Athlete

December 23, 2021

by Cristina Mircea

Wheeled robots are really starting to catch on, as this design makes them suitable for a variety of applications. The Ascento Pro is a good example of versatile mobile bots and it combines both the flexibility of the legs and the speed of wheels. 6 photos

Developed by Swiss company Ascento Robotics, the Ascento Pro is an upgraded version of the previous Ascento 2 machine, which was launched in 2020. That robot was already impressive in terms of motor skills, but the Pro version brings even more features to the table.

With a simple, compact, and modular design, the Ascento Pro is designed in a way that leaves enough space for custom sensors and various payloads. It has two legs, each with a motorized wheel, and a tensional spring in the knees, which compensates for the bot’s own weight. It can bend its knees to get even smaller, it can walk on any surface, climb stairs, jump up and forward, and hop over obstacles.

Augmented Reality

Oppo Air Glass assisted reality device is like nothing we’ve seen before

December 21, 2021

By Chris Smith

Augmented reality (AR) is the next big thing in tech, with Apple making no secret of its focus on AR features for its products. One of the most exciting AR rumors out there says that Apple is developing sleek pair of Apple Glasses that will project AR content to the user retina. But technology has not gotten to the point where it can offer these features, and Oppo’s newly announced Air Glass device proves it. The Air Glass is light and sleek, but the device doesn’t provide augmented reality features. Instead, we’re looking at features that Oppo calls assisted reality or AR.

Robots

Courier service Glovo to use robots for Madrid deliveries

December 21, 2021

MADRID – The decision of the Madrid City Council to allow self-driving vehicles on the street is an excellent opportunity for Glovo to start with robot deliveries. The courier service has now applied for approval for a trial in the chic Salamanca district.

If it is up to Glovo, the robots will take to the streets after approval in January. This represents a major challenge for the city council of the Spanish capital. On one hand, it wants to make Madrid an attractive location for innovative companies. However, on the other hand, it must continue to monitor safety on the street.

In addition to Glovo, the Madrid start-up Goggo Network has also requested approval for putting self-driving vehicles on the road. The intention is that these vehicles, like Glovo’s robots, will be deployed in the Salamanca district. It will then be the first time that automated vehicles will drive around the city.

Transportation

Airbus’ Maritime Partner Launches Revolutionary Kite Tech Controlled by a Digital Twin

December 21, 2021

Airseas, the maritime project of Airbus, used its aeronautical expertise to develop a state-of-the-art sailing system for commercial ships, which combines the traditional principles of sailing with the most advanced autonomous technology.

by Otilia Drăgan

Today’s shipping industry has the immense opportunity to leverage both the benefits of wind power as a source of clean energy and the benefits of the latest technology. In 2013, Vincent Bernatets from Airbus decided to implement the company’s expertise in the maritime sector. This is how Airseas was born, the company that created Seawing, a revolutionary system that combines automated flight control features from the aerospace industry with kite technology.

Airseas has big plans for Seawing, set to become the most competitive shipping propulsion system based on renewable energy. The startup hopes to implement it on 10% of the global fleet over the next decade.

Robotics, Science & Technology News

Robot hand moves closer to human abilities

December 21, 2021

Fig. 1: Overview of the ILDA. a Configuration of the ILDA hand composed of five robotic fingers with fingertip sensors, the palm side integrating the actuators, and the controller and attachment. b ILDA hand with covers. c Ease of attachment of the ILDA hand to a developed robotic arm. d Actions performed using the ILDA hand such as grasping and manipulating everyday life tools, showing delicate and strong grasping.

by Bob Yirka

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in Korea has developed a robot hand that has abilities similar to human hands. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes how they achieved a high level of dexterity while keeping the hand’s size and weight low enough to attach to a robot arm.

Creating robot hands with the dexterity, strength and flexibility of human hands is a challenging task for engineers—typically, some attributes are discarded to allow for others. In this new effort, the researchers developed a new robot hand based on a linkage-driven mechanism that allows it to articulate similarly to the human hand. They began their work by conducting a survey of existing robot hands and assessing their strengths and weaknesses. They then drew up a list of features they believed their hand should have, such as fingertip force, a high degree of controllability, low cost and high dexterity.

The researchers call their new hand an integrated, linkage-driven dexterous anthropomorphic (IDLA) robotic hand, and just like its human counterpart, it has four fingers and a thumb, each with three joints. And also like the human hand, it has fingertip sensors. The hand is also just 22 centimeters long. Overall, it has 20 joints, which gives it 15 degrees of motion—it is also strong, able to exert a crushing force of 34 Newtons—and it weighs just 1.1.kg.

quantum computing, Science & Technology News

Rigetti Computing Announces Next-Generation 40Q and 80Q Quantum Systems

December 21, 2021

Rigetti’s 80-qubit Aspen-M: a commercial multi-chip quantum processor.

BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 15, 2021 — Rigetti Computing, a pioneer in hybrid quantum-classical computing, today introduced its next-generation “Aspen-M” 80-qubit quantum computer into private beta. Aspen-M is the world’s first commercial multi-chip quantum processor, solving a critical scaling challenge in the race toward fault-tolerant quantum computing. The Aspen-M processor leverages Rigetti’s proprietary multi-chip technology and is assembled from two 40-qubit chips.

Separately, a new Aspen system based on a single-chip 40-qubit processor will be released today for general availability on Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services, the Strangeworks Ecosystem, and Amazon Braket.In addition, Rigetti announced it is collaborating with Deloitte, a multinational professional services company, and Strangeworks, a leading managed quantum service provider, to explore quantum applications in material simulation, optimization, and machine learning using Rigetti’s new scalable processors.

These latest Rigetti Aspen superconducting processors incorporate improvements in scale, speed, and fidelity—three metrics critical to unlocking broad commercial value. In addition to more than doubling the processor size over its previous generation, the systems powered by these processors deliver a 2.5x speedup in quantum processing times and reduce readout errors by up to 50 percent, drastically improving the reliability of quantum program results.

“With these systems, we’ve reached a critical milestone in the emerging quantum advantage era,” said Chad Rigetti, founder and CEO of Rigetti Computing. “Our machines are now at a scale and speed where they can process the real-world data sets that underpin high-impact applications. We believe these systems give researchers and enterprises the best platform to pursue quantum advantage on real problems.”