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This new soft robotic gripper can gently pick up objects of practically any shape

Robots aren’t exactly known for their delicate touch, but soon, the stereotype of the non-gentle machine may change. Scientists say they have managed to develop a robot with “a new soft gripper” that makes use of a phenomenon known as electroadhesion — which is essentially the next best thing to giving robots opposable thumbs. According to EPFL scientists, these next-gen grippers can handle fragile objects no matter what their shape — everything from an egg to a water balloon to a piece of paper is fair game.

This latest advance in robotics, funded by NCCR Robotics, may allow machines to take on unprecedented roles. “This is the first time that electroadhesion and soft robotics have been combined together to grasp objects,” said Jun Shintake, a doctoral student at EPFL. Potential applications include handling food, capturing debris (both in space and at home), or even being integrated into prosthetic limbs.

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Ourobotics takes home Silicon Valley Google Award with 10 material bioprinter

Bioprinting companies can be successful at start-up investment conferences, although they are sometimes outshone by more immediately accessible products. Bioprinters have the potential to drastically change life expectancy and quality in the long term, but can “only” help out with scientific research in the short term and that, often, is not exciting enough for start-up awards.

That was not the case at the recent SVOD (Silicon Valley Open Doors) Europe, an investment conference that began in 2005 and went global in 2015. The event then came to Europe for the first time in an effort to connect the Eastern European tech community with more established ecosystems. This year, the event took place in Ireland and “local” startupper Jemma Redmond took home the top prize with the Ourobotics 10 material 3D bioprinter.

I have been following Jemma and her team’s progress, from the pre-conference preparation all the way up to her presentation, via Facebook feed and other updates. The event took place at Google’s Dublin HQ and the winning team received, among other things, $5,000 in Google Adwords credits. Clearly happy about this success, Jemma told me they faced off against 25 other teams.

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Perspectives on the Cyber Physical Human World

The 6th annual European Smart Grid Cyber Security conference (7th – 8th March 2016)

Boy! I wish I could attend this meeting. I can imagine all of the conversations now “Quantum” & “Cyber Attacks” with some good old AI thrown in the mix. I am also guess that the 2 articles this week on the NSA maybe brought up too.


SMi Group reports: The MITRE Corporation will be presenting at the SMi’s 6th annual European Smart Grid Cyber Security conference (7th – 8th March 2016)

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Humans get frozen out of frontline security

Not sure how I missed this article from late Jan. If you haven’t read my article on Linkedin Pulse called “AI holding your information hostage — food for thought”; you may wish to read it. It parallels beautifully with this report/ article:


A new report from application delivery and cyber security specialist Radware suggests that the human element will increasingly be excluded from security as 2016 brings a ‘battle of the bots’.

It finds that throughout 2015, no industry was immune to cyber attacks, and few were prepared for them. In 2016, attacks are predicted to become even more aggressive with the arrival of Advanced Persistent Denial of Service (APDoS) attacks and an increase in volume and scope of sophisticated bot-generated assaults against web application infrastructure.

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Robot Voice Designed To Annoy Telemarketers

Finally, the solution that I been looking for to combat Telemarketers.


TEXAS (CBSNEWS.COM) – We’ve all been there — usually right at dinner time, the phone rings and you pick up only to find out that you have now been roped into an unwanted conversation with a telemarketer. Have you ever wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine? Well, now, a developer is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to turn the tables and annoy those pesky callers.

The Jolly Roger Telephone Co., from developer Roger Anderson, is a robot voice that answers with “hello?” and keeps the conversation going. When you get a telemarketing call, you manually conference in the robot and then go on about your life. It stays on the line and any time it senses a moment of silence in the conversation, the robot voice jumps in and fills the gap with generic responses like “yes” or “right” or “hang on.”

On his blog, Anderson has posted recordings of robot vs. telemarketer phone calls. Some of the humans catch on quicker than others.

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The Last Generation to Die — Trailer

These types of movies always come out when society is about to make a huge change in it’s technology that will reshape everything. In the 1950’s we saw movies about alien invasions and run away computers. 60’s & 70’s it was the robots taking over or Dystopia such as West World, Omega Man, Clockwork Orange, then 80’s MadMax and so on. Here we are again with more end of human existance movies because of AI and Quantum. Here is the latest dystopian movie.


This is “The Last Generation to Die — Trailer” by timmaupin on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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