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Robotics

Robot chef will do the cooking so you don’t have to

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A robot chef that can cook all your meals sounds like a delicious idea, especially for those of us who are often too lazy to do it ourselves. For the most part machines have already eliminated the need for humans to be working in the agriculture and industry sectors, and now it looks like the service sector is next. More than a few people are pretty bummed out because of this and I can’t say that I blame them. However, it’s hard to argue that machines are much more efficient than humans at most tasks and the robot chef is no exception. This mechanical cook is being developed by Moley Robotics and is set to launch sometime during 2017.

The robot chef consists of two robotic hands that perfectly mimic the movements of a human chef. Moley Robotics actually refers to their latest product as a “robotic kitchen” rather than a robot chef, but they should really consider a catchier name if you ask me. Although perfectly mimicking human hands is not exactly an easy task, Moley achieved the desired result by using a special 3D camera which recorded a professional chef while he was cooking up a number of meals. All the movements of the human chef were then translated into a language that the machine can understand and successfully replicate. The company says that the robot chef will be able to create up to 2,000 different dishes when it comes out in 2017, which is definitely an impressive number given that most of us can probably only come up with a few dozen at best.

Since we’re living in the digital age now, forget about just walking up to the robot chef with the intention of placing an order, although you might be able to do that I suppose. However, ideally what you will do is install a special app on your smartphone and use it to select a dish that the machine will then cook for you. This means that if you have a robotic kitchen of your own you can just tell it what to cook while you’re at work and it will be ready by the time you get home. Pretty neat, right? I can also see the robot chef working beautifully alongside a robot waiter in a restaurant. You know, like the ones they have in Singapore.

Engineering

Ukrainian officials view ground robots as a significant development in warfare

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Milan — The Ukrainian government is currently witnessing a rise in the number of applications submitted by robotics manufacturers seeking to assess the effectiveness of their combat systems. This trend indicates the growing significance of unmanned ground capabilities, particularly in light of the current deadlock on the front lines with Russia.

Brave1, a government defense-technology hub responsible for the development of field-ready capabilities, has recently announced the submission of over 50 ground robotic systems and more than 140 unmanned ground vehicles for evaluation.

In order to improve the Ukrainian army’s capabilities on the battlefield, Brave1 announced on March 12 that it would acquire a sizable number of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) through United24. These UGVs are expected to have a transformative impact on the ongoing conflict, similar to the existing role of drones. The Ukrainian government runs a website called United24 that seeks to raise money for the country’s ongoing internal conflicts.

Over the past year, there has been a notable rise in the proliferation of such platforms in military operations, with their utilization and evaluation expanding to encompass a broader range of objectives. Ukrainian social media platforms have lately disseminated video content purportedly showcasing an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) with the capacity to deploy six anti-tank mines simultaneously.

The online images shared by Brave1 depict a diverse array of compact tracked and wheeled ground robots in motion, armed with firearms, engaged in the evacuation of injured dummies, and seemingly outfitted with technology designed for mine detection.

A prevailing pattern observed in Ukrainian unmanned robots is their tendency to be somewhat light and less weighty compared to their numerous counterparts available on the global market.

According to Nataliia Kushnerska, the project lead at Brave1, Ukraine gains a strategic advantage on the battlefield by employing advanced technological solutions that outperform their adversaries in terms of efficiency, innovation, and cost. These hardware and software products serve as asymmetric responses, capable of altering the configuration during confrontations against the formidable resources of the enemy. This information was conveyed in an email statement to Defense News.

“Ukraine has emerged as a prominent international center for defense technology, and the expansion of this industry will have a crucial impact on Ukrainian defense strategy for many years to come,” she stated.

A considerable quantity of weapons and explosives employed by Russian and Ukrainian military forces persist without detonation, presenting a potential hazard to both military personnel and non-combatants. As of April 2023, it is anticipated that almost 174,000 square kilometers of Ukraine were polluted with landmines.

The impetus to expedite the advancement of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) stems from the want to deploy robots for the perilous task of extracting live munitions that remain on the battlefield.

 

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Artificial Intelligence

A futurist predicts human immortality by 2030

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Ray Kurzweil, a computer scientist and futurist, has set specific timelines for humanity’s immortality and AI’s singularity. If his predictions are correct, you can live forever by surviving the next seven years.

Kurzweil correctly predicted in 1990 that a computer would beat human world chess champions by 2000, the rise of portable computers and smartphones, the shift to wireless technology, and the Internet’s explosion before it was obvious.

He even checked his 20-year-old predictions in 2010. He claims that of his 147 1990 predictions for the years leading up to 2010, 115 were “entirely correct” 12 were essentially correct, and 3 were entirely wrong.

Of course, he miscalculates, predicting self-driving cars by 2009.

Though bold (and probably wrong), immortality claims shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Kurzweil has made bold predictions like this for years, sticking to his initial dates.

“2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence,” Kurzweil said in 2017. “I have set the date 2045 for the ‘Singularity’ which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created.”

Kurzweil predicts we will “advance human life expectancy” by “more than a year every year” by 2030. Part of this progress toward the singularity 15 years later will involve nanobots in our bloodstream repairing and connecting our brain to the cloud. When this happens, we can send videos (or emails if you want to think about the duller aspects of being a freaking cyborg) from our brains and backup our memories.

Kurzweil believes the singularity will make humans “godlike” rather than a threat.

We’ll be funnier. Our sexiness will increase. We’ll express love better,” he said in 2015.

“If I want to access 10,000 computers for two seconds, I can do that wirelessly,” he said, “and my cloud computing power multiplies ten thousandfold. We’ll use our neocortex.”

“I’m walking along and Larry Page comes, and I need a clever response, but 300 million modules in my neocortex won’t work. One billion for two seconds. Just like I can multiply my smartphone’s intelligence thousands-fold today, I can access that in the cloud.”

Nanobots can deliver drug payloads into brain tumors, but without significant advances in the next few years, it’s unlikely we’ll get there in seven years. Paralyzed patients can now spell sentences and monkeys can finally play Pong with brain-computer interfaces.

Kurzweil says we’re far from the future, with human-AI interactions mostly the old way. His accuracy will be determined by time. Fortunately, his predictions predict plenty of time.

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Bionics

Redwire Space produces human knee cartilage in space for the first time

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Redwire Space has “bioprinted” a human knee meniscus on the International Space Station, which could treat Earthlings with meniscus issues.

The meniscus cartilage was manufactured on Redwire’s ISS BioFabrication Facility (BFF). The BFF printed the meniscus using living human cells and transmitted it to Redwire’s Advanced Space Experiment Processor for a 14-day enculturation process for BFF-Meniscus-2.

SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission returned the tissue to Earth after culturing. UAE astronaut Sultan Al-Neyadi and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Warren Hoburg, and Stephen Bowen investigated.

Redwire collaborated with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center for Biotechnology, which studies warfighter remedies, for the trial. Meniscus injuries are the most prevalent orthopedic injuries in U.S. service members.

In recent months, Redwire Space has advanced biotechnology. The subsidiary of Redwire Corporation launched a 30,000-square-foot biotech and microgravity research park in Indiana this summer.

Redwire EVP John Vellinger called the printing “groundbreaking milestone.”

He stated, “Demonstrating the ability to print complex tissue such as this meniscus is a major leap forward toward the development of a repeatable microgravity manufacturing process for reliable bioprinting at scale.”

The company has long-term bioprinting and space microgravity research goals. Redwire will fly microgravity pharmaceutical drug development and cardiac tissue bioprinting payloads on a November SpaceX Commercial Resupply trip to the ISS.

Sierra Space agreed to integrate Redwire’s biotech and in-space manufacturing technology into its Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) space station module. Orbital Reef, a private space station designed by Blue Origin, Boeing, and others, will include LIFE.

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