Taking inspiration from the animal kingdom, Flinders University researchers are developing affordable, flexible and highly responsive ‘whiskers’ to attach to robots. Their article, “Optimising electromechanical whisker design for contact localisation,” has been published in the journal Sensors and Actuators A: Physical.

While lasers and camera vision is used to instruct robot movement, the additional support of light-weight, cheap and flexible whiskers would give workplace and domestic robots additional tactile abilities in confined or cluttered spaces.

Like a rat’s whiskers, these sensors can be used to overcome a robot’s range-finder or camera blind spots which may not ‘see’ or register an object close by, says Flinders College of Science and Engineering Ph.D. candidate Simon Pegoli. Additionally, whiskers uncover properties of objects, such as moveability, not possible with camera or regular range-finder sensors.

I used Adobe products for years, and even went to Adobe Seminars in Austin Texas.

Oh, you thought the possibilities of generative AI were already terrifying enough? Well, we’ve got some bad news for you. Adobe has just released a video showcasing its Adobe Firefly video model, and it comes with a whole host of unnerving generative AI tricks.

“Adobe is using the power of generative AI to deliver the most advanced and precise editing tools ever in Premiere Pro,” says the cheerful over-the-top narration, before showcasing how AI will soon be used to generate objects that weren’t there before, delete unwanted objects, extend scenes and create generated backdrops.

The video stresses that “content credentials” will “always make transparent whether AI was used”, but obviously that only goes so far as the Adobe programme itself. With streamers and movies already coming under fire for sneaking AI into their final products, it seems inevitable that advancing technology like this is only going to make it harder and harder to tell what’s real on our screens.

Here’s another story on Adobe’s new AI tools.

Those third-party integrations aren’t guaranteed, though.

West Japan Railways (West JR), one of six companies that make up Japan Railways Group, has unveiled a giant “humanoid robot” to work on heavy machinery on its lines.

The as yet unnamed tool is described as “multifunctional railway heavy machinery for railway equipment maintenance” and is based off a prototype used by West JR to prove the concept of the odd-looking machine.

AI training costs are growing exponentially year after year.