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Category: robotics/AI – Page 918

Microsoft to launch its new AI chip ‘Athena’ next month

Microsoft’s annual event will take place from November 14 to 17.

Microsoft has been developing a computer chip under a project codenamed ‘Athena’ for some time. Now, as per a recent report, it is believed that the company is ready to unveil the AI chip at its annual event ‘Ignite’ next month.

This is a significant development because it would mean that Microsoft would be able to reduce its reliance on GPUs produced by NVIDIA, the uncrowned king of the semiconductor industry, reported Interesting Engineering in April. Athena has been designed to power Microsoft’s data center servers that are used to train and run large language models.

Emotion-infused robots: Disney’s breakthrough

Disney’s latest robot combines art and technology to convey emotions through dynamic movements, showcased at IROS 2023.

In a captivating evening keynote address at the 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

A legacy of emotion-driven robotics

Disney’s history in the realm of animatronics and robotics traces back to 1971, with the introduction of the animatronic Hall of Presidents at Disney World. Over the years, Disney has continuously strived to imbue its robots with emotions and expressions, creating immersive experiences for visitors. Yet, as robotic technology evolved, it posed new challenges—designing robots that evoke emotions and seamlessly integrate with real-world constraints.

Morphogenesis of self-assembling microelectronic modules could yield sustainable living technology

It is now apparent that the mass-produced artifacts of technology in our increasingly densely populated world—whether electronic devices, cars, batteries, phones, household appliances, or industrial robots—are increasingly at odds with the sustainable bounded ecosystems achieved by living organisms based on cells over millions of years.

Cells provide organisms with soft and sustainable environmental interactions with complete recycling of material components, except in a few notable cases like the creation of oxygen in the atmosphere, and of the fossil fuel reserves of oil and coal (as a result of missing biocatalysts).

However, the fantastic information content of biological cells (gigabits of information in DNA alone) and the complexities of protein biochemistry for metabolism seem to place a cellular approach well beyond the current capabilities of technology, and prevent the development of intrinsically sustainable technology.

AI Was Asked to Design a Walking Robot. It Came Up With This

When a group of researchers asked an AI to design a robot that could walk, it created a “small, squishy and misshapen” thing that walks by spasming when filled with air.

The researchers — affiliated with Northwestern University, MIT, and the University of Vermont — published their findings in an article for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 3.

“We told the AI that we wanted a robot that could walk across land. Then we simply pressed a button and presto!” Sam Kriegman, an assistant professor at Northwestern University and the lead researcher behind the study, wrote in a separate blog post.

A human-inspired robotic hand based on a modular structure

In recent years, roboticists have developed increasingly sophisticated robotic systems designed to mimic both the structure and function of the human body. This work includes robotic hands, grippers that allow robots to grasp objects and manipulate them like humans do while completing everyday tasks.

Ideally, robotic hands should be able to perform highly precise movements, while also being relatively affordable and easy to fabricate. However, most bio-inspired skeleton structures for robotic hands introduced so far have highly intricate designs containing numerous advanced components, which makes them difficult to fabricate on a large scale.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently created a new highly precise that could be easier to upscale, as its components can be crafted using commonly employed techniques, such as 3D printing and laser cutting. Their robotic hand, introduced in a paper published in the journal 2023 IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), is based on a so-called modular structure, meaning that it comprises multiple that can be rearranged to achieve different movements.

Badbox Operation Targets Android Devices in Fraud Schemes

After a researcher discovered that an Android TV streaming box, known as T95, was infected with preloaded malware, researchers at Human Security released information regarding the extent of infected devices and how malicious schemes are connected to these corrupted products.

Daniel Milisic, a systems security consultant, created a script alongside instructions to help other users mitigate the threat after first coming across the issue. Now, Human Security’s threat intelligence and research team has dubbed the operation “Bandbox,” which it characterizes as a complex, interconnected series of ad fraud schemes on a massive scale.

Human Security describes the operation as “a global network of consumer products with firmware backdoors installed and sold through a normal hardware supply chain.” Once activated, the malware on the devices connect to a command-and-control (C2) server for further instructions. In tandem, a botnet known as Peachpit is integrated with Badbox, and engages in ad fraud, residential proxy services, fake email/messaging accounts, and unauthorized remote code installation.

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