Lifeboat Foundation

Alterra Property and Embark are forming an alliance to create autonomous-trucking hubs across the U.S.

If there is no doctor in the house, Amazon’s Alexa will soon be able to summon one.

Amazon and telemedicine provider Teladoc Health are starting a voice-activated virtual care program that lets customers get medical help without picking up their phones.

The service, for health issues that aren’t emergencies, will be available around the clock on Amazon’s Echo devices. Customers can tell the voice assistant Alexa that they want to talk to a doctor, and that will prompt a call back on the device from a Teladoc physician.

𝙈𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙡𝙜𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙢𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨’ 𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙝𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙙𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙪𝙢𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙮, 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙮 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙨.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙊𝙑𝙄𝘿-19 𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙝 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜. 𝙍𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙝𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙡𝙙𝙨.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙮 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 (𝘼𝙄) 𝙩𝙪𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞… See more.

Continue reading “AI Teaches Brain Tumor Surgery Better Than Human Experts” »

Interfacing technology and electronics with the real world is often fairly tricky. Complexity and edge cases work their way in to every corner of a project like this; just ask anyone who has ever tried to operate a rover on Mars, make a hydroponics garden, or build almost any robotics project. Even those of us who simply own a consumer-grade printer are flummoxed by the ways in which they can fail when manipulating single sheets of paper. This robotic lawnmower is no exception, driving its creator [TK] to extremes to get it to mow his lawn.

[TK] actually had a platform for his autonomous mower ready to go thanks to a previous build using this solar-powered robot to explore the Australian outback. Adding another motor to handle the grass trimming seemed simple at first and he set about wiring it all up and interfacing it to the robot. After the first iteration he found the robot was moving too fast to effectively cut the grass, so he added a more powerful cutting motor and a gearbox to help the mower crawl more slowly over the lawn. Disaster struck when his 3D printed mount for the steel cutting blades shattered, but with [TK] uninjured he pushed on with more improvements.

Continue reading “Autonomous Mower Hits Snag” »

Brain organization differs between boys and girls with autism, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The differences, identified by analyzing hundreds of brain scans with artificial intelligence techniques, were unique to autism and not found in typically developing boys and girls. The research helps explain why autism symptoms differ between the sexes and may pave the way for better diagnostics for girls, according to the scientists.

Autism is a developmental disorder with a spectrum of severity. Affected children have social and communication deficits, show restricted interests and display repetitive behaviors. The original description of autism, published in 1943 by Leo Kanner, MD, was biased toward male patients. The disorder is diagnosed in four times as many boys as girls, and most autism research has focused on males.

Engineers build a lower-energy chip that can prevent hackers from extracting hidden information from a smart device.

A heart attack patient, recently discharged from the hospital, is using a smartwatch to help monitor his electrocardiogram signals. The smartwatch may seem secure, but the neural network processing that health information is using private data that could still be stolen by a malicious agent through a side-channel attack.

A side-channel attack seeks to gather secret information by indirectly exploiting a system or its hardware. In one type of side-channel attack, a savvy hacker could monitor fluctuations in the device’s power consumption while the neural network is operating to extract protected information that “leaks” out of the device.

Mark Zuckerberg may still be explaining exactly what the metaverse is, but the Meta CEO just showed off another technology he says will be crucial to the company’s vision of creating immersive environments. Meta’s AI researchers are working on a voice-powered bot that allows users to change their virtual surroundings with voice commands.

Zuckerberg demoed an early version of the concept, called Builder Bot, at a virtual event detailing the company’s latest AI research.

“It enables you to describe a world and then it will generate aspects of that world for you,” Zuckerberg said. In his demo, he and another Meta employee used voice commands to create a very basic beach scene with a picnic table, clouds, and, yes, Zuckerberg’s signature hydrofoil. They also added some sound effects of seagulls and ocean waves.

Topic: James Hughes — The Future of Work (Future Day Talk) Time: Mar 1, 2022 08:00 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81306102463?pwd=eDBldno3cUdZZGcxVHoxNEJ1RkgrUT09 Meeting ID: 813 0610 2,463 Passcode: Q6VzpF

As part of the annual Future Day celebration, James Hughes will join us that may concern you — ‘The Future of Work’. Zoom details coming soon!

Abstract: The pandemic has launched a debate about the future of work around the world. Those who can work remotely have often found they prefer remote or flexible, hybrid options. The Great Resignation has put upward pressure on wages and benefits in the service sector, encouraging the implementation of automation. Climate change mitigation is encouraging a shift towards “green jobs.” Rapid changes in the labor market have made the payoffs of higher education uncertain for young people, while many societies are entering an old-age dependency crisis with too few workers paying taxes for growing numbers of pensioners. Before the pandemic proposals for universal basic income (UBI) were seen as necessary adaptations to imminent technological unemployment, and the during the pandemic many countries provided temporary UBI to keep people safe. We are now poised for a global discussion about whether we need to work at all, and what kinds of jobs are desirable.

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

I’m doing an abbreviated newsletter this week as I want to spend most of my energy amplifying the brave journalists on the ground reporting about this scary time. As so many have said — far more eloquently than me — the invasion of Ukraine is a story that impacts all of us, whether we’re on the ground there or not. And it’s hard to celebrate a funding round when scary times are the moment.

My brilliant colleagues put together a story on how the tech industry is responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; I urge you to read it. While the situation is still ongoing, it’s clear that it’s already a tech story. And startups such as Grammarly, Ajax, People AI and Preply, backed by some of the world’s biggest VCs, are scrambling to support employees and operations amid the invasion.