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Category: robotics/AI – Page 942

AI Can Now Make You Immortal — But Should It?

For as long as we’ve been around, human beings have fought against the inevitability of death. This struggle has given rise to religions that have dominated human culture for millennia and has been central to philosophies that have shaped our civilizations.

But might it be the case that a scientific solution to immortality is finally in sight? In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved to the stage where it looks set to revolutionize every aspect of our lives. It may just be possible that it’s going to change the way that we think about – and perhaps even experience – death, too.

Science fiction has given us several examples of situations – mostly horrific — where human minds can be uploaded to machines, effectively allowing us to outlast our mortal, fallible bodies.

Univ. of Washington researchers roll out tiny, battery-free, autonomous robot called ‘MilliMobile’

University of Washington researchers are rolling out another tiny robotic breakthrough, this time in the form of an autonomous device that relies on surrounding light or radio waves to move in short bursts.

The robot, dubbed MilliMobile, is about the size of a penny and weighs as much as a raisin, and a typical power source, such as a battery, has been kicked to the curb in favor of more environmentally friendly approach.

MilliMobile has a solar panel-like energy harvester that sits above four tiny wheels, enabling the robot to roll — in incremental steps — about the 30 feet in an hour across surfaces such as concrete or packed soil.

Scientists develop 3D-printed epifluidic electronic skin

In a recent study published in Science Advances, researchers from the California Institute of Technology, led by Dr. Wei Gao, have developed a machine learning (ML)–powered 3D-printed epifluidic electronic skin for multimodal health surveillance. This wearable platform enables real-time physical and chemical monitoring of health status.

Wearable health devices have the potential to revolutionize the medical world, offering tracking, personalized treatments, and early diagnosis of diseases.

However, one of the main challenges with these devices is that they don’t track data at the molecular level, and their fabrication is challenging. Dr. Gao explained why this served as a motivation for their team.

Farm robots inspired by ant brains

With the rapid-paced rise of AI in everyday life, nothing, not even the traditional farmer, is untouched by the technology.

A survey of the latest generation of farm tools provides a taste of just how far modern farming has come.

The Ecorobotix, a seven-foot-wide GPS-assisted “table on wheels” as some have described it, is a solar battery-powered unit that roams crop fields and destroys weeds with pinpoint precision. It boasts a 95% efficiency rate, with virtually no waste.

Solar cell material can assist self-driving cars in the dark

Material used in organic solar cells can also be used as light sensors in electronics. This has been shown by researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, who have developed a type of sensor able to detect circularly polarized red light. Their study, published in Nature Photonics, paves the way for more reliable self-driving vehicles and other uses where night vision is important.

Some beetles with shiny wings, firefly larvae and colorful mantis shrimps reflect a particular kind of light known as circularly polarized light. This is due to in their shell that reflect the electromagnetic light waves in a particular way.

Circularly polarized light also has many technical uses, such as satellite communication, bioimaging and other sensing technologies. This is because circularly polarizing light carries a vast amount of information, due to the fact that the around the light beam spirals either to the right or to the left.

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