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Category: robotics/AI – Page 223

Robots In Space: MESSENGER at Mercury

Diamonds on Mercury!

Join aerospace engineer Mike DiVerde as he takes you on a fascinating journey exploring NASA’s groundbreaking MESSENGER mission to Mercury. Discover how this remarkable spacecraft mapped our solar system’s innermost planet and uncovered extraordinary findings, including evidence of a potential diamond layer deep within Mercury’s core. Learn about the sophisticated instruments that revealed Mercury’s mysterious surface features, unique geology, and core composition. This comprehensive exploration combines cutting-edge space technology with planetary science to unravel Mercury’s secrets, from its graphite-rich surface to its intriguing magma ocean past. Whether you’re a space enthusiast or simply curious about our cosmic neighborhood, this video offers an expert’s perspective on one of NASA’s most successful deep space missions.

DeepSeek Ends Week-Long Marathon To Disclose AI Model Details

In today’s AI news, Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek wrapped up a week of revealing technical details about its development of a ChatGPT competitor, which was achieved at a fraction of the typical costs, in a move that is poised to accelerate global advances in the field. Over the past few days, DeepSeek published eight open-source projects on GitHub, the world’s largest open-source community.

In other advances, TikTok is preparing to sunset its creator marketplace in favor of a new, more expanded experience, the company has informed businesses and creators via email. The online platform, which connects brands with creators for collaborating on ads and other sponsorships, will stop allowing creator invitations or the creation of new campaigns as of Saturday the company says.

Ll need a Mac with an M1 chip or higher, which means Intel-based Macs are out of the loop. + And, Hume AI has unveiled Octave, an innovative text-to-speech (TTS) system that leverages large language model (LLM) technology to generate contextually aware and emotionally nuanced speech. The incredibly human-like voice tool competitively positions Octave as a leader in AI-driven voice synthesis. Traditional TTS systems often produce context-insensitive speech, which leads to monotonous output.

In videos, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, returns to the Hard Fork podcast for a candid, wide-ranging interview. We discuss Anthropic’s brand-new Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, the A.I. arms race against China, and his hopes and fears for this technology over the next two years. Then, we gather up recent tech stories, put them into a hat and close out the week with a round of HatGPT.

And, at the 2025 MIT Bangkok Symposium, Startups and VC Lightning Talks session, the early-entrants include Yunus Sevimli (Almond Fintech), Abhi Yadav (iCustomer), Anuj Bhalla (serviceMob), and Korawad Chearavanont (Amity Solutions). Editors note: I met serviceMob at an Imagination In Action event organized by John Werner of Link Ventures at the MIT-CSAIL Stata Center.

Then, Sam Witteveen looks at olmOCR, the OpenOCR system from Allen AI. There is some additional links for more context of this open OCR project. The collaboration, the blog post about the project, and the macOS version of the product.

Continue reading “DeepSeek Ends Week-Long Marathon To Disclose AI Model Details” | >

Scientists Just Created Shape-Shifting Robots That Flow Like Liquid and Harden Like Steel

Researchers have designed a robotic material that transforms like a living organism.

Inspired by embryos, these disk-shaped robots use magnets, motors, and light to shift between rigid and fluid states. The result? A self-healing, shape-shifting system that could change how we build and interact with materials.

Robots That Behave Like Materials

Palm-sized robot cuts 80% energy use by riding on ocean currents

Researchers are investigating fluid-robot interactions at these scales, motivated by fish that use vortices to save energy. Onboard sensing, computation, and actuation are essential for effective navigation. Despite their potential, data-driven algorithms frequently lack practical validation.

Using inertial measurements to infer background flows is a new approach that was motivated by fish’s vestibular systems’ ability to sense acceleration. This method provides an affordable substitute for intricate flow sensors in self-driving cars.

In this regard, the Caltech team developed an underwater robot that uses these flows to reduce energy consumption by “surfing” vortices to reach its destination.

Fusion plasma prediction gets 1,000x boost with deep learning model

The advancement can enable turbulent analysis of entire nuclear fusion reactors.

“By utilizing deep learning on GPUs, we have reduced computation time by a factor of 1,000 compared to traditional CPU-based codes,” said the joint research team.

“This advancement represents a cornerstone for digital twin technologies, enabling turbulent analysis of entire nuclear fusion reactors or replicating real Tokamaks in a virtual computing environment.”

Researchers underlined that the proposed FPL-net can solve the FPL equation in a single step, achieving results 1,000 times faster than previous methods with an error margin of just one-hundred-thousandth, demonstrating exceptional accuracy.

A privately built spacecraft is about to attempt a moon landing

A privately built spacecraft is hours from attempting to land on the moon, a feat that only one other company has accomplished in spaceflight history.

The robotic lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, has been in orbit around the moon for roughly two weeks, preparing for its daring descent. Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace developed the spacecraft, which aims to touch down on the lunar surface early Sunday at around 3:34 a.m. ET.

If all goes according to plan, Blue Ghost will become the second privately built vehicle to land on the moon successfully. In February 2024, another Texas-based company, Intuitive Machines, made history when its Odysseus lander pulled off a nail-biting touchdown near the moon’s south pole.

Figure sets humanoid robot home trials after shunning OpenAI brain

Figure fast-tracks home testing for Figure 2 humanoid robot, powered by Helix AI.

Figure plans to start testing its humanoid robots in homes much sooner than expected.

The California-based startup’s CEO, Brett Adcock, revealed that it will begin alpha testing its Figure 2 robot in residential settings in late 2025.

This faster timeline is due to its advanced Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model, Helix, which enhances the robot’s adaptability and functionality.

The Hidden Material Breakthrough That Could Supercharge AI and Save Energy

Researchers have discovered that incipient ferroelectricity can revolutionize computer memory, enabling ultra-low power devices.

These unique transistors shift behavior based on temperature, making them suitable for both traditional memory and neuromorphic computing, which mimics the brain’s energy efficiency. The use of strontium titanate thin films reveals unexpected ferroelectric-like properties, hinting at new possibilities in advanced electronics.

Harnessing gravity to create a low-cost microfluidic device for rapid cell analysis

A team of researchers at the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing at Rice University has developed an innovative artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled, low-cost device that will make flow cytometry—a technique used to analyze cells or particles in a fluid using a laser beam—affordable and accessible.

The prototype identifies and counts cells from unpurified blood samples with similar accuracy as the more expensive and bulky conventional flow cytometers, provides results within minutes and is significantly cheaper and compact, making it highly attractive for point-of-care clinical applications, particularly in low-resource and rural areas.

Peter Lillehoj, the Leonard and Mary Elizabeth Shankle Associate Professor of Bioengineering, and Kevin McHugh, assistant professor of bioengineering and chemistry, led the development of this new device. The study was published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering.

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