Impact Lab – Page 348 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

FedEx teams up with Neolix for autonomous delivery vehicle test

November 10, 2021

Neolix-FedEx delivery vehicle

By Gabriella From Gasgoo

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Global express transportation giant FedEx Express announced that it is working with China’s Neolix to test autonomous delivery vehicles in China. This marks the first time that FedEx has partnered with local Chinese tech company for driverless vehicle tests.

The partnership signifies FedEx’s effort to embrace the innovative, sustainable and intelligent logistics in China.

FedEx disclosed that the Neolix collaborative vehicles will be electric-powered with a range of 100km on a full charge and features L4 autonomous functions. The vehicles will be mounted with an interchangeable cargo box that can be converted into a temperature-controlled storage or a parcel locker. The maximum cargo capacity is roughly 500 kg.

Startup

Here are the top 10 nations enjoying the fastest growth in small businesses – and why it matters

November 10, 2021

The innovation born from the pandemic has created a host of new digitally native businesses designed to meet evolving needs and new market opportunities.
The fuel driving this exponential growth of new small business formations around the world is ease and accessibility of digital operations.
The top countries with the largest new business formation growth in 2020 were the UK (+101%), US (+86%), Australia (+73%), Germany (+62%) and Canada (+58%).

The global health crisis has disrupted businesses around the world in vastly different ways, but particularly small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), which make up more than 90% of the total worldwide. Many businesses closed their doors temporarily and others for good, while some saw unprecedented growth.

Yet a lesser-known outcome from the past 18 months has been the innovation born from this worldwide disruption, as a host of new digitally native businesses were created to meet evolving needs, new market opportunities and a global shift to remote-work environments, which has enabled the entrepreneurial to thrive.

Robots

Self-Driving Farm Robot Uses Lasers To Kill 100,000 Weeds An Hour, Saving Land And Farmers From Toxic Herbicides

November 10, 2021

The nutrient content of our vegetables is down 40% over the last two decades and our soil health is suffering due to increasingly harsh herbicide use, according to Carbon Robotics founder Paul Mikesell. And farmers are increasingly concerned about the long-term health impacts of continually spraying chemicals on their fields.

But not weeding will cost half your crop, killing profitability.

The solution?

A self-driving farm robot that kills 100,000 weeds an hour … by laser.

Robots, Science & Technology News

Waterloo startup performs first ever robotic intramuscular injection

November 10, 2021

A company founded at the University of Waterloo’s flagship incubator has performed the first autonomous robotic intramuscular injection, paving the way to improved patient care in an industry faced with labour shortages.

Cobionix, an autonomous robotics company located in Kitchener-Waterloo, performed the injection-without needles-using their Cobi platform.

“Cobi is a versatile robotics platform that can be rapidly deployed to complete tasks with 100 per cent autonomy,” said Tim Lasswell, co-founder and CEO of Cobionix. “We outfitted Cobi to use a needle-free injection technology and to demonstrate that patients could receive intramuscular injections, such as vaccines, without needles and no involvement from a healthcare professional.”

Nima Zamani, co-founder and CTO of Cobionix, said there are many benefits to the new technology.

“Autonomous solutions such as Cobi could protect healthcare workers, reduce healthcare costs, and improve patient outcomes,” Zamani said. “The autonomous nature of Cobi also dramatically reduces the infrastructure requirements of vaccine clinics which could help reach populations in remote areas with limited access to medical care.”

AI, Science & Technology News

THE FUTURE OF AI IS A CONVERSATION WITH A COMPUTER

November 10, 2021

AI writing tools can tell us a lot about artificial intelligence

By James Vincent

How would an AI writing program start an article on the future of AI writing? Well, there’s one easy way to find out: I used the best known of these tools, OpenAI’s GPT-3, to do the job for me.

Using GPT-3 is disarmingly simple. You have a text box to type into and a menu on the side to adjust parameters, like the “temperature” of the response (which essentially equates to randomness). You type, hit enter, and GPT-3 completes what you’ve written, be it poetry, fiction, or code. I tried inputting a simple headline and a few sentences about the topic, and GPT-3 began to fill in the details.

It told me that AI uses “a series of autocomplete-like programs to learn language” and that these programs analyze “the statistical properties of the language” to “make educated guesses based on the words you’ve typed previously.”

So far, so good, I thought. I hit enter again, and the program added a quote from Google’s head of AI, Jeff Dean, then referenced an experimental piece of software from the 1960s before promising that an “AI Revolution” was coming that would reap immense rewards across the fields of science, technology, and medicine.

THE MEDIUM INCLUDED PLAUSIBLE FABRICATIONS; ENDLESS OUTPUT; AND, CRUCIALLY, AN OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND TO THE ROBOT WRITER

new technology

Stanford engineers team up with Michelin-star chef to build modular restaurants

November 8, 2021

By Christine Hall

While studying engineering at Stanford, Alex Kolchinski, Alex Gruebele and Max Perham met and bonded around the lack of food options on campus and the cost of the options that were there.

“Even on a subsidized meal plan, it would cost $10 for lunch and more for dinner,” Kolchinski told TechCrunch. “I would sit and do my work in the dining hall just to be able to eat two lunches. Alex (Gruebele) would just go to Chipotle and spend his stipend there.”

While thinking about how to provide good food at a lower cost, both Kolchinski and Gruebele, who were doing PhD work involving robotics, got to thinking about how robots could help people with meal prepping and other tasks.

“It turns out that a $10 burrito bowl really costs $3 in food costs, and the rest of the money goes to places like labor, overhead and real estate,” Kolchinski added. “If we built a self-contained restaurant, we would bring down the price of really good food, and it would be close by.”

Driverless cars

New technology gives smart cars ‘X-ray’ vision, detecting hidden pedestrians, cyclists

November 8, 2021

CP-enabled vehicle detects cyclist behind bus.

Australian researchers have developed disruptive technology allowing autonomous vehicles to track running pedestrians hidden behind buildings, and cyclists obscured by larger cars, trucks, and buses.

The autonomous vehicle uses game changing technology that allows it to “see” the world around it, including using X-ray style vision that penetrates through to pedestrians in blind spots and to detect cyclists obscured by fast-moving vehicles.

The iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre-funded project collaborating with the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics and Australian connected vehicle solutions company Cohda Wireless has just released its new findings in a final report following three years of research and development.

The technology’s applications, which are being commercialized by Cohda, involve an emerging and promising technology for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) called cooperative or collective perception (CP).

Cancer

New Drug-Like Molecule Counteracts Epigenetic Drivers of Cancer

November 8, 2021

A decade ago, genome sequencing revealed a big surprise: about 50 percent of human cancers are linked to mutations in what are known as epigenetic regulators, which control the activity of genes.

In a new study in Cell Chemical Biology, a team of scientists led by Oliver Bell from USC and Stephen V. Frye from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed a new drug-like molecule that can counteract the effects of mutated epigenetic regulators, which are known to drive certain types of cancer including lymphoma.

Alternative Transportation

This High-Speed Hydrogen Fuel Cell Catamaran Is a Game-Changer for Public Transport

November 8, 2021

by Otilia Drăgan

High-speed ferries can be an excellent alternative for commuting in cities that have access to inland waterways. Still, the problem is that they also burn a lot of fuel, which is bad for the environment and costly. With this in mind, two Swedish companies have joined forces to develop a high-speed catamaran that is also emissions-free.

Beluga24 could become the world’s first zero-emissions, high-speed catamaran for public transportation. Green City Ferries AB, a Stockholm-based systems integrator for waterborne transportation, wants to revolutionize this mobility sector with an electric ferry that also boasts high performance and significantly reduced operating costs.

This is how the Beluga24 was born, designed by Teknicraft in New Zealand and Studio Sculli in Italy. Green City Ferries built this catamaran’s foil-assisted hull from carbon fiber, which is known to be lightweight yet very efficient. It’s meant to be a comfortable commuter, with enough space for 150 passengers and 28 bikes. By being smaller and lighter than standard ferries, it can reduce operating costs and enable more frequent trips.

Robots, Science & Technology News

Skyscraper Window Washing Robots Are Here to Take Over One of Our Most Terrifying Jobs

November 8, 2021

Window washers are the next in line to see their jobs replaced by robots.

ByAndrew Liszewski

Even if they’re not afraid of heights, it still takes someone with nerves of steel to work as a window washer, dangling a hundred floors above the ground with a squeegee in hand. A company called Skyline Robotics wants to make window washing much safer because instead of humans, the lift that’s lowered down the side of a building is staffed with robots instead.

According to Skyline Robotics, the window cleaning industry, including those towering structures dotting the skylines of major metropolises, is a lucrative business with over $40 billion in revenue every year. The problem is that 74% of trained window washers are over 40 years old, and there’s not enough young blood to replace them. It’s easy to see why that’s the case. As anyone who’s ever seen the local news reporting on a daring window washer rescue already knows. It’s a risky gig, even if it comes with amazing views. One possible solution? Enter the robots.

Blockchain

The United States will become the global crypto and blockchain leader

November 8, 2021

The United States is rapidly embracing decentralized finance, the cryptocurrency sector and the innovative industry of blockchain technology.

We have some great news coming out of the United States on the cryptocurrency industry this month with potentially more good news coming later this fall.

On Oct. 6, Gary Gensler, head of the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), confirmed during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing that the regulator will not ban cryptocurrency, potentially blazing the path for the world’s largest economy to become the global leader in the development of decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain technologies.

Gensler, who taught a class on cryptocurrency at MIT, also said that prohibiting cryptocurrency doesn’t fall under the SEC’s mandate and the only way to legally ban digital assets would be through Congress.

“It’s a matter of how we get this field within the investor consumer protection that we have and also working with bank regulators and others — how do we ensure that the Treasury Department has it within Anti-Money Laundering, tax compliance,” Gensler said. He also added:

Alternative Transportation, Science & Technology News

THIS AUTONOMOUS, ROBOTIC BOAT COULD TRANSFORM A CITY’S WATERWAYS

November 7, 2021

The Roboat is sailing now in the canals of Amsterdam, with visions for picking up waste and serving as temporary bridges or floating performance spaces.

In Amsterdam, autonomous, electric boats are navigating the city’s vast network of canals, ready to ferry passengers as a water taxi, collect trash as part of a waste management system, deliver packages, or even turn into a temporary bridge or floating stage. It’s a kind of dynamic infrastructure that can adapt to the needs of a city as they change, and help Amsterdam decongest its streets and better use its waterways.

The robotic boat, called Roboat, is a project from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Senseable City Laboratory, with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions. A research project about six years in the making, two Roboats are now entering the water, ready for people to use them.