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Category: robotics/AI – Page 400

Google just announced that it has been riverline floods, up to seven days in advance in some cases. This isn’t just tech company hyperbole, as the findings were actually published Nature. Floods are the most common natural disaster throughout the world, so any early warning system is good news.

Floods have been notoriously tricky to predict, as most rivers don’t have streamflow gauges. Google got around this problem by with all kinds of relevant data, including historical events, river level readings, elevation and terrain readings and more. After that, the company generated localized maps and ran “hundreds of thousands” of simulations in each location. This combination of techniques allowed the models to accurately predict upcoming floods.

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Particles colliding in accelerators produce numerous cascades of secondary particles. The electronics processing the signals avalanching in from the detectors then have a fraction of a second in which to assess whether an event is of sufficient interest to save it for later analysis. In the near future, this demanding task may be carried out using algorithms based on AI, the development of which involves scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the PAS.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is remaining tight-lipped about the company’s secretive Q* project — even after admitting that his company is something of a leaky ship.

Even among those who followed along with OpenAI’s November massacre that saw Altman temporarily ousted, it’s easy to overlook the Q* (pronounced “queue-star”) of it all, particularly because nobody outside the company really knows what the heck it is.

The speculation-laden project was linked to the chaos at the firm in the aftermath of that failed coup, and at the end of 2023, OpenAI refused to answer any questions about it — a posture Altman continued in a new interview with tech podcaster Lex Fridman.

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After setting a new world speed record for humanoid robots earlier this month, China’s Unitree is now claiming another. Its latest H1 bipedal takes the title for first to perform a standing backflip without the use of hydraulics.

Yes, humanoids like Boston Dynamics’ Atlas have been nailing backflips for a few years now but they make use of heavy, potentially leaky hydraulics to launch into the air, somersault backwards and then land on both feet.

Impressively, Unitree’s H1 relies on in-house M107 electric joint motors only, each of which boasts 360 Nm (265.5 lb.ft) of peak torque and can also be found on the company’s B2 quadruped. Each leg has three degrees of freedom at the hip plus one at the knee and another at the ankle, and all cabling is routed internally for snag-free clean lines.

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