Hugging Face has acquired the open source robot startup Pollen Robotics to help “democratize” robotics.
Category: robotics/AI – Page 142
SpaceX Engineers Are Racing To Build a Smarter Stronger Energy Future
🏭 Q: What upgrades are needed for the grid to handle increased energy demand by 2050? A: The grid needs to be upgraded to handle tripled energy throughput by 2050, requiring more power plants, wires, transformers, and substations to support increased demand from EVs, heat pumps, and AI. Innovative Charging Solutions.
🔋 Q: How do Electric Era’s charging stations reduce grid capacity requirements? A: Electric Era’s charging stations with batteries buffer the load, reducing grid capacity requirements by 70% and allowing for faster deployment in better locations like retail amenities and gas station parking lots.
⏱️ Q: What capabilities do Electric Era’s charging stations offer for energy management? A: Electric Era’s stations offer time of use charging and virtual power plant capabilities, storing energy upstream and providing the best time of use pricing to customers, making them more efficient and cost-effective. Energy Storage and Distribution.
☀️ Q: How can the “duck curve” phenomenon be addressed? A: The duck curve can be solved by building extra energy storage to store excess electrons, such as Tesla’s 10–12 GWh deployed last quarter and Electric Era’s smaller storage at more localized locations.
🔌 Q: What is the transformer scarcity problem and how can it be addressed? A: Transformers are being hoarded due to scarcity and strategic importance, exacerbating grid infrastructure issues. A strategic transformer reserve is needed to address this problem, according to Quincy from Electric Era. ## ## Key Insights ## Grid Infrastructure Challenges.
🔌 The 130-year-old grid infrastructure is antiquated and breaking apart, making it expensive and challenging to upgrade for increased energy demand.
Google Just Took Over AI
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Meet NEO, Your Robot Butler in Training | Bernt Børnich | TED
What if doing your chores were as easy as flipping a switch? In this talk and live demo, roboticist and founder of 1X Bernt Børnich introduces NEO, a humanoid robot designed to help you out around the house. Watch as NEO shows off its ability to vacuum, water plants and keep you company, while Børnich tells the story of its development — and shares a vision for robot helpers that could free up your time to focus on what truly matters. (Recorded at TED2025 on April 8, 2025)
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DNA Circuits Come Alive: Scientists Build Molecular Robots Inside Living Cells
Since most cells naturally repel DNA, delivering these nanodevices into cells requires specialized techniques, such as transfection methods and transformation protocols. Once inside, cellular factors such as salt concentration, molecular crowding, and heterogeneous environments influence strand displacement reactions. To overcome the limitations of direct delivery, researchers are also developing transcribable RNA nanodevices encoded into plasmids or chromosomes, allowing cells to express these circuits.
Toward Smart DNA Machines and Biocomputers
DNA strand displacement has been applied to the innovation of computational models. By integrating computational principles with DNA strand displacement, the structured algorithms of traditional computing can be combined with random biochemical processes and chemical reactions in biological systems, enabling biocompatible models of computation. In the future, DNA strand displacement may enable autonomously acting DNA nanomachines to precisely manipulate biological processes, leading to quantum leaps in healthcare and life science research.
