Impact Lab – Page 381 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Toyota Teaches Robots to Deal With Transparent and Reflective Objects

June 22, 2021

Toyota Teaches Robots to Deal With Transparent and Reflective Objects

Picking up a glass or wiping a transparent surface is really confusing for most robots.

The most common robot found in homes today is probably a robot vacuum, but in the future we could see robots in control of most household chores. They need to understand how to deal with transparent objects first, though, and Toyota just solved that problem.

Healthcare, Science & Technology News

The hospital room of the future: 5 innovation execs outline what to expect in next 5 years

June 22, 2021

By Jackie Drees

Digital health and tech adoption have skyrocketed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving many hospitals and health systems adopting technologies that support remote patient monitoring, two-way video communications and more.

Here, five hospital executives share predictions for what they think the hospital room of the future will look like in the next five years.

Science & Technology News, SpaceX

SpaceX vs. China: The Quest for Satellite Internet

June 21, 2021

Photo illustration: Sharon Shi

SpaceX has more than 1,000 satellites beaming high-speed internet to Earth, but China promises to offer higher speeds with the launch of what it calls the world’s first 6G satellite. Here’s how both are on a quest to build powerful internet networks in space.

Via News.com.au

drones, Science & Technology News

US Will Try Using Lasers to Send Data From Space to Drones

June 21, 2021

An MQ-9 Reaper sits on the flightline at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. STOCKTREK IMAGES VIA GETTY

By PATRICK TUCKER

In the first experiment of its kind, military researchers will attempt to link drones to satellites via light.

Early next year, the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency will test whether low-earth orbit satellites can communicate with an MQ-9 Reaper drone via optical links, or lasers.

If the experiment is successful, it will pave the way for a new, less hackable means of communication between drones, jets, and other weapons and commanders and operators from afar.

“In just a few short days, we’ll be launching several satellites. Two of those are [MQ-9 maker] General Atomics satellites to be able to do the laser conductivity in space,” Derek Tournear, the head of the Space Development Agency, told Defense Oneduring a taping of a segment to air next week during the Defense One Tech Summit. “Then those satellites will also be able to do the laser conductivity down directly to an MQ-9 platform.”

Aviation, Science & Technology News

The World’s First Flying Race Car Has Taken Off

June 21, 2021

Image: Airspeeder

By Lauren Rouse

We are officially living in the future because the world’s first flying race car has just taken off.

Airspeeder announced that its remotely piloted Alauda Mk3 models have taken their first successful flight. The eVTOLs are being tested in anticipation of electric flying car races that will be held later in the year.

Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

Chinese web giant Baidu unveils Level 4 robo-taxi that costs $75k to make

June 20, 2021

Plans to roll 1,000 of ’em off the production line in three years

By Laura Dobberstein

Chinese tech giant Baidu and state-owned BAIC Group’s ARCFOX Brand have teamed to build 1000 autonomous electric vehicles (EVs) for use as taxis over the next three years — and claim they’ve cut manufacturing costs to just $75,000 apiece.

The announcement claims the reasonable price is due to maturation in technology and mass production capabilities and makes the vehicle, called the Apollo Moon, only one third of the cost of average L4 autonomous vehicles.

Apollo Moon has a projected operating cycle of over five years and is built on the fully electric midsize crossover SUV, Arcfox α-T. As for the tech, it uses the ANP-Robotaxi navigation platform, which is currently in pilot. Baidu claims the architecture can “reduce the weight of autonomous vehicle kits while sharing intelligent driving vehicle data to create a closed-loop information ecosystem.”

Science & Technology News, SpaceX

Elon Musk Says SpaceX’s Starship SN16 Might Jump to Hypersonic Flight

June 20, 2021

The Starship SN10, on ascent.

By Brad Bergan

Appearances can be deceiving.

In a bizarre turn of events, SpaceX just rolled its newest Starship, SN16, from its Boca Chica, Texas factory directly to the nearby “rocket garden,” where the private aerospace firm retires its Mars-vehicle prototypes. But appearances can deceive: Soon after industry experts made their peace with SN16, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that no, this was not the case, at all.

brain hacking, Science & Technology News

A $50,000 Helmet Can Read User’s Mind. And It’s Ready

June 20, 2021

The promise of a leagues-more-affordable technology that anyone can wear and walk around with is, well, mind-bending.

This helmet measures changes in blood oxygenation levels.

Over the next few weeks, a company called Kernel will begin sending dozens of customers across the U.S. a $50,000 helmet that can, crudely speaking, read their mind. Weighing a couple of pounds each, the helmets contain nests of sensors and other electronics that measure and analyze a brain’s electrical impulses and blood flow at the speed of thought, providing a window into how the organ responds to the world. The basic technology has been around for years, but it’s usually found in room-size machines that can cost millions of dollars and require patients to sit still in a clinical setting.

The promise of a leagues-more-affordable technology that anyone can wear and walk around with is, well, mind-bending. Excited researchers anticipate using the helmets to gain insight into brain aging, mental disorders, concussions, strokes, and the mechanics behind previously metaphysical experiences such as meditation and psychedelic trips. “To make progress on all the fronts that we need to as a society, we have to bring the brain online,” says Bryan Johnson, who’s spent more than five years and raised about $110 million-half of it his own money-to develop the helmets.

Aviation, Science & Technology News

Japan assembles superteam of aircraft component manufacturers to build supersonic passenger plane

June 19, 2021

Japan Supersonic Research wants to be in the air by 2030

By Laura Dobberstein

Japan has a assembled a supergroup of aviation, industrial, and space organisations to build a supersonic passenger jet.

The new organisation, Japan Supersonic Research (JSR), quietly signed itself into existence on March 31st. Yesterday, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that it is a member, alongside Japan Aircraft Development Association, Japan Aerospace Exploration Association, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries), IHI Corporation, and Subaru.

Japan’s aerospace industry currently focuses on manufacturing components for aircrafts and engines, including wings and fuselages. Mitsubishi recently hangared plans to build its own mid-size passenger jet. Another more successful exception is Subaru’s joint manufacturing deal for the Bell 412 helicopter, sold locally in modified versions called the Subaru Bell 412EPX and XUH-2.

JSR’s vision is to engage in international joint development of supersonic aircraft by 2030.

Robots, Science & Technology News

Meet SpaceBok: The First Four-Legged Robot Set for Mars

June 19, 2021

Spacebok during early tests ESA

By Chris Young

Though wheeled robots are more stable, legged robots can reach areas that a rolling rover couldn’t.

Every roving robot that has landed on Mars up to the latest Perseverance rover, which touched down in February, has one thing in common — every single one of them has wheels.

SpaceBok, built by a team of scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, is a small quadrupedal robot named after the springbok antelope, a report from Wired explains.

The robot was originally designed to leap and bound on the surface of the Moon in the same way astronauts did during the Apollo landings — Springboks are also known to “pronk” or leap into the air, though the exact reason is not known.

The team tested different gaits, as well as small hoof-like feet and flat, round feet with cleats for more stability.

As much of the research on Mars revolves around craters — Mars Perseverance landed on the Jezero crater due to the belief that it may have once been a habitable river valley — the team behind SpaceBok trained their robot on a large tilted sandbox full of rocks to simulate Mars.

Historical Perspectives, Science & Technology News

The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago – what it takes for technologies to go from breakthrough to big time

June 19, 2021

An engineer demonstrates a car phone five months before the historic first call on a competing company’s commercial mobile telephone service in 1946.

By Daniel Bliss, Arizona State University

I have a cellphone built into my watch. People now take this type of technology for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of science fiction. The transition from fantasy to reality was far from the flip of a switch. The amount of time, money, talent and effort required to put a telephone on my wrist spanned far beyond any one product development cycle.

The people who crossed a wristwatch with a cellphone worked hard for several years to make it happen, but technology development really occurs on a timescale of decades. While the last steps of technological development capture headlines, it takes thousands of scientists and engineers working for decades on myriad technologies to get to the point where blockbuster products begin to capture the public’s imagination.

The first mobile phone service, for 80-pound telephones installed in cars, was demonstrated on June 17, 1946, 75 years ago. The service was only available in major cities and highway corridors and was aimed at companies rather than individuals. The equipment filled much of a car’s trunk, and subscribers made calls by picking up the handset and speaking to a switchboard operator. By 1948, the service had 5,000 customers.

Coding, Science & Technology News

80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

June 18, 2021

By Sage Lazzaro

It looks like no-code and low-code toolsare here to stay. Today, Gartner released new predictions about technology products and services, specifically who will build them and the impact of AI and the pandemic. The research firm found that by 2024, 80% of tech products and services will be built by people who are not technology professionals. Gartner also expects to see more high-profile announcements of technology launches from nontech companies over the next year.

“The barrier to become a technology producer is falling due to low-code and no-code development tools,” Gartner VP Rajesh Kandaswamy told VentureBeat. When asked what kinds of tech products and services these findings apply to, he said “all of them.” Overall, Kandaswamy sees enterprises increasingly treating digital business as a team sport, rather than the sole domain of the IT department.

For this research, Gartner defined technology professionals as those whose primary job function is to help build technology products and services, using specific skills like software development testing and infrastructure management. This includes IT professionals and workers with specialized expertise such as CRM, AI, blockchain, and DevOps.

But instead of tech professionals driving what’s next, Gartner predicts a democratization of technology development that includes citizen developers, data scientists, and “business technologists,” a term that encompasses a wide range of employees who modify, customize, or configure their own analytics, process automation, or solutions as part of their day-to-day work. Aside from non-IT humans, AI systems that generate software will also play a significant role, according to Gartner.