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Should of gone to an American defense contractor, but at least it gets out from under the mismanagement of the silicon valley lunatics.


Here’s a surprise turn of events: Softbank — maker of the friendly Pepper robot and a major M&A player in the tech world — has just announced that it is acquiring two more robotics companies from Google owner Alphabet as part of its own deeper move into the field: it is buying Big Dog developer Boston Dynamics and the secretive bipedal robotics firm Schaft.

A spokesperson for Softbank has confirmed to us that the terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but we will try to find out.

“Today, there are many issues we still cannot solve by ourselves with human capabilities,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., in a statement. “Smart robotics are going to be a key driver of the next stage of the Information Revolution, and Marc and his team at Boston Dynamics are the clear technology leaders in advanced dynamic robots. I am thrilled to welcome them to the SoftBank family and look forward to supporting them as they continue to advance the field of robotics and explore applications that can help make life easier, safer and more fulfilling.”

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Arlan Robotics is developing a robot just for adults, and yes, you know what that means.

The Service Droid (now a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo) started life as a personal project by Arlan Robotics, created out of curiosity given the complete lack of quality male ‘toys’ on the market. What the company claim to have created is an incredibly realistic droid that when assembled looks, smells, feels and moves like a real human.

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What is the ultimate goal of Artificial General Intelligence?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

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Could AI soon diagnose cancer? New system that ‘doctors can rely on’ is 93% accurate in identifying tumours.

  • US firm IBM says its Watson system is capable of accurately identify tumours
  • The computer crunches through medical images and patient records quickly
  • It compares them to past cases and medical journals to come to a conclusion
  • Doctors at 55 hospitals around the world have been using the AI to help them

By Richard Gray for MailOnline

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DARPA has unveiled a system that transforms its unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into warfare machines capable of conducting different missions without human intervention.

Prior to the announcement, the compact drones were only able to carry a single-function payload, which limited their abilities to one specific task in the field.

Now, a new effort, called Converged Collaborative Elements for RF Task Operations (CONCERTO), has provided the UAS with a flexible RF architecture that uses shared hardware – allowing the devices to swap missions mid-flight.

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WASHINGTON — Approximately a dozen police, fire and emergency agencies surrounding Washington, D.C. are using drones to capture criminal suspects and fight fires, but the unmanned aircraft systems also are sparking privacy concerns and legislation.

At least 347 state and local police, sheriff, fire and emergency units in the United States have acquired drones, according to an April report by Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College.

“More and more departments in the public safety space, particularly in law enforcement, are acquiring drones for a range of operations,” says Dan Gettinger, co-director of the research group.

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The Poás Volcano in Costa Rica is home to two crater lakes, and they could not be more different. The first fills an inactive crater, its water is clear blue and its rim lush with vegetation. The other could be accurately described as a hell hole.

Laguna Caliente—literally hot lagoon in Spanish—derives its hellish qualities from the churning of magma underneath the active crater. Sulfur-rich vapor rises out of the lake, gagging anyone unlucky enough to get a whiff and poisoning anyone unlucky enough to get too many whiffs. The water itself is three times as acidic as battery acid. And every once in awhile, a rumbling below shoots a jet of hot, acidic water into the sky. It’s not the kind of place where you want to paddle a boat.

So Guy van Rentergem decided to build a drone boat. Van Rentergem visited Laguna Caliente in 2015 with friends and volcanologists, but he is not a volcanologist himself. However he is a chemist, a constant tinkerer, and a long-time caver who’s worked with geologists in the past. Next year, he told his colleagues, he’s coming back with an autonomous boat so they can map the bottom of the lake.

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