Lifeboat Foundation

Yiran Sherry’s waters broke while the family was stuck in traffic. With contractions increasing rapidly and traffic barely moving, the couple realized they were not going to make it in time.

Keating Sherry placed the vehicle on autopilot after setting the navigation system to the hospital, 20 minutes away in the western suburb of Paoli.

He said he laid one hand gently on the car’s steering wheel as he attended to his wife.

An AI pioneer reflects on how companies can use machine learning to transform their operations and solve critical problems.

It may have seemed like an obscure United Nations conclave, but a meeting this week in Geneva was followed intently by experts in artificial intelligence, military strategy, disarmament and humanitarian law.

The reason for the interest? Killer robots — drones, guns and bombs that decide on their own, with artificial brains, whether to attack and kill — and what should be done, if anything, to regulate or ban them.

Once the domain of science fiction films like the “Terminator” series and “RoboCop,” killer robots, more technically known as Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, have been invented and tested at an accelerated pace with little oversight. Some prototypes have even been used in actual conflicts.

Researchers at Toyota Central R&D Labs have recently created an insect-scale aerial robot with flapping wings, powered using wireless radiofrequency technology. This robot, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, is based on a radiofrequency power receiver with a remarkable power-to-weight density of 4,900 W kg-1.

“Small drones typically have a very limited operating time due to their power source,” Takashi Ozaki, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “The purpose of our recent research was to overcome this limitation. Currently, no-contact power supply using electromagnetic waves has been put to practical use in various products, but it was unknown how far it could be applied to small flying robots.”

The main objective of the recent study by Ozaki and his colleagues was to power an insect-size flying robot using no-contact, wireless charging technology. The robot created by the researchers is essentially comprised of a flapping, piezoelectric actuator that is powered through a 5 GHz dipole antenna.

MIT Media Lab researchers offer positive use cases of AI-generated synthetic characters for education and well-being. A new paper provides an open-source, easy-to-use pipeline that combines AI-generated models to create synthetic characters with facial gestures, voice, and motion.

With an end goal of turning deserts into lush green landscapes, A’seedbot drives around autonomously using solar energy, and planting seeds in the sand.

Lightelligence, a Boston-based photonics company, revealed the world’s first small form-factor, photonics-based computing device, meaning it uses light to perform compute operations. The company claims the unit is “hundreds of times faster than a typical computing unit, such as NVIDIA RTX 3080.” 350 times faster, to be exact, but that only applies to certain types of applications.

However, the PACE achieves that coveted specialization through an added field of computing — which not only makes the system faster, it makes it incredibly more efficient. While traditional semiconductor systems have the issue of excess heat that results from running current through nanometre-level features at sometimes ludicrous frequencies, the photonic system processes its workloads with zero Ohmic heating — there’s no heat produced from current resistance. Instead, it’s all about light.

Continue reading “Optical Chip Promises 350x Speedup Over RTX 3080 in Some Algorithms” »

Nio’s soon-to-arrive ET7 is practically tailor-made to challenge Tesla’s Model S, and now the company appears to have a (partial) answer to the Model 3. Electrek says Nio has introduced the ET5, a more affordable “mid-size” electric sedan. It starts at RMB 328,000 (about $51,450), or well under the roughly $70,000 of the ET7, but offers similarly grandiose range figures. Nio claims the base 75kWh battery offers over 341 miles of range using China’s test cycle, while the highest-end 150kWh “Ultralong Range” pack is supposedly good for more than 620 miles. You’ll likely pay significantly more for the privilege and may not see that range in real life, but the numbers could still tempt you away from higher-end Model 3s if long-distance driving is crucial.

You can expect the usual heapings of technology. The ET5 will have built-in support for autonomous driving features as they’re approved, and drivers get a “digital cockpit” thanks to Nreal-developed augmented reality glasses that can project a virtual screen equivalent to 201 inches at a 20-foot viewing distance. Nio has teamed with Nolo to make VR glasses, too, although it’s safe to say you won’t wear those while you’re driving.

Deliveries are expected to start September 2022. That’s a long way off, but Nio appears to be on track with its EV plans as it expects to deliver the ET7 on time (if only just) starting March 28th.

In this short video, filmed at ASTRO 2021, Siemens Healthineers’ Gabriel Haras introduces the company’s portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI)-based products. Such technologies support the entire care pathway for cancer patients, from screening and diagnostics to treatment and follow-up, including innovations such as AI-based autocontouring and generation of synthetic CT from an MRI scan for radiotherapy planning.

Next, Varian’s Kevin O’Reilly comments on the combining of Varian and Siemens Healthineers into one united company. He notes that the integration of AI capabilities has increased Varian’s ability to innovate, and will help accelerate its intelligent cancer care strategy: accelerating the path to treatment, increasing global access to care, exploiting data-driven insight and improving personalization.