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Category: robotics/AI – Page 1,709

Machine learning techniques have contributed to progress in science and technology fields ranging from health care to high-energy physics. Now, machine learning is poised to help accelerate the development of stronger alloys, particularly stainless steels, for America’s thermal power generation fleet. Stronger materials are key to producing energy efficiently, resulting in economic and decarbonization benefits.

“The use of ultra-high-strength steels in power plants dates back to the 1950s and has benefited from gradual improvements in the materials over time,” says Osman Mamun, a postdoctoral research associate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). “If we can find ways to speed up improvements or create new materials, we could see enhanced efficiency in plants that also reduces the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.”

Mamun is the lead author on two recent, related journal articles that reveal new strategies for machine learning’s application in the design of advanced alloys. The articles chronicle the research outcomes of a joint effort between PNNL and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). In addition to Mamun, the research team included PNNL’s Arun Sathanur and Ram Devanathan and NETL’s Madison Wenzlick and Jeff Hawk.

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Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday that it has officially completed its acquisition of robotics company Boston Dynamics. The deal was announced in December and valued Boston Dynamics at $1.1 billion. The purchase sees Hyundai pick up an 80 percent controlling stake in the company, with the previous owner, Softbank, retaining 20 percent ownership.

The deal will hopefully create a stable home for Boston Dynamics, which has continued to pump out the world’s most impressive robots despite continual ownership changes. The company was spun off from MIT in 1992 and survived for most of its life on DARPA research grants. Google acquired the independent Boston Dynamics in 2013 as part of a brief interest in robotics led by Android co-founder Andy Rubin. Google freed the company from surviving on military contracts, but when Rubin left Google a year later, the executive interest in robotics left with him.

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I think there is actually a company that makes something similar to this.

The self-balancing bike is a reminder of the incredibly creative projects that students and young recently graduated engineers can come up with — another recent example is an all-electric monowheel built by a group of Duke University students.

In principle, Zhi Jui Jun’s self-balancing bike should work with someone riding it as well, though no one is shown riding it in Jui Jun’s video — the bicycle steering and keeping balance with the added top-heavy weight of a person would be a sight to behold. Stay posted for updates on any “piloted” tests in the future.

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Clickbait headlines might not be as enticing to readers as once thought, according to a team of researchers. They added that artificial intelligence—AI—may also come up short when it comes to correctly determining whether a headline is clickbait.

In a series of studies, the researchers found that clickbait—headlines that often rely on linguistic gimmicks to tempt readers to read further—often did not perform any better and, in some cases, performed worse than traditional headlines.

Because fake news is a concern on , researchers have explored using AI to systematically identify and block clickbait. However, the studies also suggest that identifying fake news with may be even more complicated than anticipated, said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory.

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Chipmaker patches nine high-severity bugs in its Jetson SoC framework tied to the way it handles low-level cryptographic algorithms.

Flaws impacting millions of internet of things (IoT) devices running NVIDIA’s Jetson chips open the door for a variety of hacks, including denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or the siphoning of data.

NVIDIA released patches addressing nine high-severity vulnerabilities including eight additional bugs of less severity. The patches fix a wide swath of NVIDIA’s chipsets typically used for embedded computing systems, machine-learning applications and autonomous devices such as robots and drones.
Impacted products include Jetson chipset series; AGX Xavier, Xavier NX/TX1, Jetson TX2 (including Jetson TX2 NX), and Jetson Nano devices (including Jetson Nano 2GB) found in the NVIDIA JetPack software developers kit. The patches were delivered as part of NVIDIA’s June security bulletin, released Friday.

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It’s good that this could improve warehouse safety.

But what about people’s job security?

Cheddar news.

Amazon unveiled four new warehouse robots (Ernie, Bert, Scooter and Kermit) on Sunday. The group is currently undergoing testing and development to help reduce injuries and strenuous activities for their human colleagues.

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The U.S. Navy successfully conducted its first-ever aerial refueling between a manned aircraft and an unmanned tanker. The unmanned tanker was being flown from the ground control station.

The Illinois-based mission lasted about four and a half hours and validated that an unmanned tanker could successfully use the Navy’s standard probe-and-drogue aerial refueling method.

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