A robot controlled by a neural network algorithm that was trained in a video game-like simulation is better able to navigate difficult terrain in real life.
Boston Dynamics has reportedly already sold more than 250 of its $75,000 Spot robots since starting commercial sales back in June. Interested and deep-pocketed parties can purchase one directly from the company’s website as well as a host of accessories, from $1,650 charging bricks to $34,570 lidar and camera kits. But one add-on which we’ve seen Spot with since some of its earliest demo videos was the prehensile arm sprouting from between its shoulder blades. But come next January, Spots around the world are going to get a whole lot more handsy.
“The next thing on the future Spot is that we’re going to make it available with a robot arm in a few months,” Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert told the virtual crowd at the Collision from Home conference in June. “We have prototypes working, but we don’t have them available as a product yet. Once you have an arm on a robot, it becomes a mobile manipulation system. It really opens up just vast horizons on things robots can do. I believe that the mobility of the robot will contribute to the dexterity of the robot in ways that we just don’t get with current fixed factory automation.”
Millions more jobs will be lost to robots with Covid accelerating the trend, says the World Economic Forum.
Despite COVID’s impact on the economy, many companies in the data ecosystem have not just survived but thrived. Here are some key areas to watch.
Global Manufacturing Companies Trust LandingLens to Enhance Their Existing Visual Inspection Systems with AI
PALO ALTO, Calif. – October 21, 2020 – Landing AI, a company that empowers customers to harness the business value of AI by providing enablement tools and transformation programs, today unveiled LandingLens, an end-to-end visual inspection platform specifically designed to help manufacturers build, deploy, and scale AI-powered visual inspection solutions.
Visual inspection is a widely used method in manufacturing for processes like defect identification and assembly verification. While this has generally been performed by human workers and traditional rule-based machine vision, more and more companies are turning to AI to automate and enhance their visual inspection operations given the accuracy, flexibility and low cost that the technology brings.
The Trump administration prefers what U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios has called a “light-touch” approach toward regulating AI, to avoid holding back U.S. leadership in the field.
A Madonna and Child painting with a history almost as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s smile has been identified as an authentic Raphael canvas by Czech company InsightART, which used a robotic X-ray scanner to investigate the artwork.
The 500-year-old painting had long been attributed to Raphael, a contemporary of Leonardo Di Vinci and Michelangelo, but doubts about its authenticity occurred during its recent history.
The Madonna and Child painting’s turbulent backstory encompasses some of Europe’s great historical figures, as well as violent fights and lucrative art deals. Commissioned by Pope Leo X, it has hung in the Vatican as well as passing through the hands of the French royal family and Napoleon. However at the end of the 19th century, the painting disappeared from the general consciousness. It is now part of a private collection.
MIT researchers have created a machine learning system that aims to help linguists decipher lost languages.
Genius.
Reese’s created a Robotic Halloween Door to safely deliver peanut butter cups to trick-or-treaters this year.
