After having made a fortune with the Russian web company Mail.ru, you could forgive Dmitry Grishin for taking it easy. But the 33-year-old has something else in mind — becoming the man who kickstarts a revolution in robotics.
On Friday, Grishin is launching a new $25 million investment fund, Grishin Robotics, with the intention of funding a new … Read More → "This Russian mogul wants to be the Elon Musk of robots"
With the help of human instructors, a robot has learned to talk like a human infant, learning the names of simple shapes and colors.
“Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms,” wrote computer scientists led by Caroline Lyon of the University of Hertfordshire in a June 13 Public Library of Science One study.
Named DeeChee, the robot is an iCub, a three-foot-tall open source humanoid machine designed to resemble … Read More → "Humanoid robot learns language like a baby"
Quantum cryptography has had a bad couple of years. For a decade or so, we were promised the capability to send messages with absolute secrecy guaranteed by the laws of physics. At least in theory.
In practice, however, things turned out a little differently. In 2010, a team at the University of Toronto in Canada announced that they had successfully hacked a commercial quantum cryptography system. The problem was not the theory … Read More → "Quantum cryptography outperformed by classical technique"
In the dark, chilly tropics of Saturn’s moon Titan, the Cassini probe has spotted what appears to be a lake of liquid methane, fueling speculation that caverns below might harbor life.\
Titan has a rocky, icy surface coated by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane. It’s a geologically-young moon, but below its dense atmosphere the surface is dotted by mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes, which are thought to erupt methane … Read More → "Methane lakes raise hopes of life on Titan"
Robotic lawn mowers are nothing new, but most just kind of wander aimlessly around the yard like a drunken Roomba until their sensors figure out that they’ve hit everything. This new model is smarter, and will cut the grass in more efficient stripes to give your lawn that fancy pro gardener look.
via DVICE
Read More → "This smarter robotic lawnmower cuts your grass in straight lines"
We’ve seen fuel cells used in a variety of gadgets — from cars to portable chargers — and while medical devices aren’t exactly at the top of the list, they’re yet another application for these mini power sources. MIT engineers are turning to sugar to make fuel cells for powering brain implants.
via Read More → "MIT engineers develop glucose-based fuel cell to be used in neural implants"
Jonah Lehrer takes to The New Yorker to discuss Thinking, Fast and Slow, the latest book from Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who’s won the Nobel prize in economics. Lehrer discusses Kahneman’s contention that smart people are no less prone to cognitive bias than anyone else, but are prone to believing that they are immune to error. Kahneman … Read More → "Smart people are especially prone to stupid mistakes"
Japanese boffins have unveiled their latest engineering masterpiece, a six speed sushi-making robot that can churn out 2,500 pieces of the stuff in just an hour.
Sushi is big business in Japan and around the world, but the art of handmade rolls is sadly dying as the delicacy becomes ever more commoditised.
Ensuring that supply always meets demand is Suzumo Machinery, a … Read More → "Super sushi-bot churns out 2,500 rolls an hour"
Researchers from the Laboratory for Intelligent Systems at Switzerland’s EPFL federal research institute were inspired by the resilience of flying insects, and set out to replicate it in a miniature unmanned aerial vehicle. They succeeded, creating a UAV that can crash into things, fall down, then right itself and get back in the air.
All of the aircraft’s propellers, electronics and other flight surfaces are contained within an open, … Read More → "Flying robot picks itself up and relaunches after crashing"
The U.S. Department of Energy wants normal Americans to start using solar energy in their everyday lives. To that end, it’s just granted $2 million to Solar Mosaic, a sort of Kickstarter for solar projects.
Solar Mosaic is still in a quiet pre-launch period, but its projects have so far collected more than $350,000 in interest-free investments from 400 individuals, and the first five projects have together generated 73kW of clean solar … Read More → "Dept. of Energy throws millions at a startup trying to make solar energy mainstream"
