In this age of technology, where everything connects to the cloud or needs an app, it takes a simple bit of engineering to stand out. A seatbelt for bags while you drive around like there’s no tomorrow, as reported by Gizmodo, clearly fits into this category.
The best place to put a bag of groceries or even take-out food when you are driving alone is the passenger seat, right next to you. Not only can you keep an eye on it while you drive, but it is also unlikely that you will forget it in the car and have to make a trip back to retrieve it later.
However, bags that tend to get greasy or leak out some liquid do not deserve a seat of honor and are put where they belong, on the floor. If you are with me so far, then you surely wouldn’t mind shelling out 22 dollars to get your hands on BAGO, a harness that secures the bag there.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, in collaboration with TCS Research and Wageningen University, recently devised a new strategy that could improve coordination among different robots tackling complex missions as a team. This strategy, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, is based on a split-architecture that addresses communication and computations separately, while periodically coordinating the two to achieve optimal results.
The researchers’ paper was recently presented at the IEEE RoboCom 2022 conference, held in conjunction with IEEE CCNC 2022, a top tier conference in the field of networking and distributed computing. At IEEE RoboCom 2022, it received the Best Paper Award.
“Swarm-robotics is on the path to becoming a key tool for human civilization,” Dr. Sudipta Saha, the lead researcher of the team that carried out the study, told TechXplore. “For instance, in medical science, it will be necessary to use numerous nano-bots to boost immune-therapy, targeted and effective drug transfer, etc.; while in the army it will be necessary for exploring unknown terrains that are hard for humans to enter, enabling agile supervision of borders and similar activities. In construction, it can enable technologies such as large-scale 3D printing and in agriculture it can help to monitor crop health and intervene to improve yields.”
Japanese are increasingly turning to “social robots”, John Deere’s latest self-driving tractor will enable autonomous farming, a new South Australian craft beer has been designed entirely by AI.
Improving people’s lives globally from the world’s largest financial endowment — dr. mads krogsgaard thomsen, CEO, novo nordisk fonden, novo nordisk.
Dr. Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, DVM, DSc., Ph.D., is the CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation (https://novonordiskfonden.dk/), an international foundation with a dual objective: to provide a stable basis for the commercial and research activities conducted by the companies within the Novo Group (of which Novo Nordisk A/S is the largest holdings) and to support scientific, humanitarian and social purposes. In 2020, the Novo Nordisk Foundation had a net worth of US$73.1 billion, making it the largest financial endowment in the world. Novo Nordisk Foundation owns Novo Holdings A/S, a holding company and majority shareholder of Novo Nordisk, as well as Novozymes, a global biotechnology company focused on the research, development and production of industrial enzymes, microorganisms, and biopharmaceutical ingredients. The foundation is also a major shareholder in more than 75 other companies.
Originally, trained as a veterinarian / DVM at The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (now part of the University of Copenhagen), where he also holds a DSc. in this domain, Dr. Thomsen started his career as a PhD pharmacology student at the University of Copenhagen, after which he worked three years as a researcher at LEO Pharma. Thirty years ago, he joined Novo Nordisk, initially as Head of Growth Hormone Research and subsequently as Senior Vice President of Diabetes R&D. In 1995, he was appointed Senior Vice President of Discovery and in 2000, he became Executive Vice President of Research & Development/Chief Scientific Officer. Over the years, he has headed the development of 20 medical drugs, especially within diabetes treatment and the groundbreaking development of GLP-1 technologies.
This article was contributed by Valerias Bangert, strategy and innovation consultant, founder of three media outlets, and published author.
AI job automation: The debate
The debate around whether AI will automate jobs away is heating up. AI critics claim that these statistical models lack the creativity and intuition of human workers and that they are thus doomed to specific, repetitive tasks. However, this pessimism fundamentally underestimates the power of AI. While AI job automation has already replaced around 400,000 factory jobs in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007, with another 2 million on the way, AI today is automating the economy in a much more subtle way.
R.Power Group companies have signed contracts with Nomad Electric and Onde for the implementation of 135 photovoltaic farms worth PLN 334 million (EUR 73 million).
With 5G, apps and services that we can’t even imagine will be possible.
What good is a smart toaster if it can’t connect to the network?
CES 2022 is packed with tech that needs lightning-fast connection to the internet. That’s one reason why so many people at the trade show in Las Vegas are laser-focused on 5G. A handful of industry leaders got together at the conference to discuss the opportunities and challenges of making tech that works with the new global wireless standard.
J. David Grossman, VP Regulatory Affairs Consumer Technology Association, led the discussion. He was joined by John Godfrey, senior VP of Public Policy at Samsung Electronics, Inc; Asad Ramzanali, Legislative Director at the Office of Congresswoman Annna Eshoo; Emily Hebein, Legislative Assistant for Representative Bob Latta; and Deanna Kovar VP, Production & Precision Ag Production Systems at John Deere.
The panel discussedhow 5G is expected to transform tech innovation — and how federal, state, and local policy can create the right conditions for success.
Kiwi scientists have helped discover a new gene described as a potential game-changer for cloning in global agriculture.
The gene allows natural reproduction by cloning in plants, enabling highly desirable traits to be carried through to the next generation rather than lost when the plants reproduce through pollination.
Named PAR, the new gene has been found to control parthenogenesis, a process whereby plant egg cells spontaneously grow into embryos without fertilisation.
NZ scientists help discover a new gene described as a game-changer for agriculture.
