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Category: robotics/AI – Page 75

FINALLY! Starship’s Next Giant Leap

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SpaceX may have just dropped its biggest hint yet about what comes after Starship Flight 13. Indeed, FINALLY! Starship’s Next Giant Leap may be here as the new filings point toward an Orbital Return Demo that could mark the next major milestone on the road to full reusability. With that work continues at Starbase on Pads 1 and 2, the Gigabay, and future launch infrastructure. Elsewhere this week, we cover Falcon 9 launches carrying BlueBird satellites, Starlink, and another classified NRO mission, Cargo Dragon’s return from the International Space Station, Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander preparing for launch, Ariane 6’s impressive upgraded debut with its heaviest payload yet, and the dramatic demolition of historic structures at Space Launch Complex 6.

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You can support me on:
Patreon — / marcushouse.
Join my Discord — / discord.
Follow/Subscribe on Twitter — / marcushouse.

The production crew:
GameplayReviewUK, TiagoCruz, Mr Pleasant, Virtu, Orbitly, Shaun Gisler, Greg Scott, Niall Anderson, ChameleonCircuit.

Support from these incredible people and groups is massively appreciated: ❤

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AI-designed universal vaccine clears first human trial, targets future coronavirus threats with needle-free delivery

The first human clinical trial of a universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine, developed by the University of Cambridge and spin-out DIOSynVax (DVX) Ltd, has shown that the vaccine is safe and has no significant side effects.

The trial, involving 39 healthy volunteers, tested a vaccine designed to provide protection against multiple Sarbeco coronaviruses—the large group of viruses that occur in nature including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID pandemic.

The vaccine triggered immune responses in the volunteers not only to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS, but to related bat viruses that could potentially jump from animals to humans and cause future pandemics.

Memory, agency, and learning in biological and AI systems with Michael Levin and Katrina Schleisman

What if memory isn’t storage at all — but a message from your past self that has to be interpreted?

In this episode, biologist Michael Levin and cognitive neuroscientist Katrina Schleisman join me to take apart one of the most quietly broken ideas in science and AI: that memory works like a hard drive. It doesn’t. And once you see why, a lot of assumptions about minds, machines, and what it means to \.

Driverless cars are on the rise and now we may know why they crash

For the first time, new algorithms may be able to automatically explain why some self-driving cars crash—a question crucial to answer as more autonomous vehicles take to the roads. This new approach, developed by researchers at King’s College London, reviews past events to explain why specific instances of failure happened, in the hope that this can be used to make improvements in the future.

The research was presented at the 2026 IEEE International Conference of Robotics and Automation.

Self-driving vehicles are increasingly being rolled out across the globe, in cities like London and San Francisco, but collisions and serious breaches of road safety have put pressure on manufacturers to explain why they make the mistakes they do. This is often hard to do, and current methods only provide limited explanations for these.

Roman Yampolskiy: AI Can’t Be Controlled. We Need to Pause Now!

Roman Yampolskiy spent two decades trying to prove superintelligence can be controlled. He couldn’t — and now says the proof runs the other way: not difficult, mathematically impossible.

If he’s right, we’re building the one machine we can never switch off, and the people building it are racing to do it faster.

Roman is a professor of computer science at the University of Louisville and one of the earliest researchers in AI safety.
We cover: why you’re the squirrel in the human-AI intelligence gap, what the halting problem really says about predicting a smarter mind, why he calls all current AI safety \.

Bio-Computing: Making Computers with Human Neurons (Interview with FinalSpark)

Are human brain cells the computer chips of the future? Three companies are competing to make biocomputers out of human neurons, and using them to play Doom, detect explosive molecules, and more.

This is a conversation with Dr. Fred Jordan and Dr. Ewelina Kurtys of FinalSpark. We talk about the differences between AI’s \.

Brain-inspired phototransistor could cut AI energy use by sensing and storing data

Inspired by the human brain, Oregon State University researchers have developed a new light-sensitive device that combines sensing and memory while controlling how digital memories strengthen or fade over time. The research was published in Advanced Functional Materials.

Technology that functions more like the human brain could enable artificial intelligence systems to work faster while consuming less electricity, said Larry Cheng of the OSU College of Engineering.

The new device integrates light sensing, memory and signal processing in a single phototransistor. Current AI hardware, Cheng explains, typically spreads those functions among different components, requiring information to move between them and increasing energy demands while reducing efficiency.

David Brin: What’s Important Isn’t Me. And It Isn’t You. It’s Us!

David Brin warned us. In 1989.

Global warming. Cyberwarfare. The World Wide Web, named in a novel before most people had ever heard of it.

I recorded this conversation with him 14 years ago. Astrophysicist. Hugo and Nebula winner. The mind behind the Uplift novels and Existence.

We dug into the most powerful form of science fiction. Not the prophecy that comes true. The prophecy that prevents itself. Orwell’s 1984 is the classic case. The warning so loud the future course-corrects.

We also went straight at #transparency. His book asks a question that hits harder now than it did then: will technology force us to choose between #privacy and freedom? Fourteen years on, with AI watching everything, that question is no longer hypothetical.

And then there is the line from David that I have never been able to shake.

Continue reading “David Brin: What’s Important Isn’t Me. And It Isn’t You. It’s Us!” | >

Scientists develop wearable robotic system to restore hand function

Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, in collaboration with ETH Zurich, the Technical University of Munich and Medical Faculty Belgrade, have developed a wearable neurorobotic system that combines electrical neurostimulation with hand exoskeletons. In a clinical trial involving 14 patients with hand impairments caused by neurological injury, the technology supported finger mobility, tactile perception and grip control. The results demonstrate the potential of personalised assistive systems for people living with the consequences of spinal cord or brain injury. The study has recently been published in the journal Science Advances.

Hand movements and the sense of touch are essential for everyday activities such as grasping, eating, dressing or personal hygiene. However, after damage to the central nervous system, motor and sensory impairments of the hand often persist. Conventional rehabilitation can achieve improvements, but does not always lead to sufficient restoration of hand function. There is therefore a great need for assistive technologies suitable for everyday use.

A research team led by study director Stanisa Raspopovic from the Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at MedUni Vienna has developed the “SensoExo” system for assisting people with hand sensorimotor impairements. It combines a wearable hand exoskeleton with a custom-fitted neurostimulation sleeve. The sleeve stimulates specific nerves and muscles in the forearm through the skin. Sensors on the fingers detect touch and gripping forces and translate this information into electrical stimulation, providing users with tactile feedback. In addition, functional electrical stimulation can assist users open and close their fingers more easily.

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