‘We can learn a lot more using sound than we can with some of the other tools,’ says one researcher.
Category: space – Page 311
Human-like reasoning for an AI
Posted in robotics/AI, space
In June 2022, Amazon re: MARS, the company’s in-person event that explores advancements and practical applications within machine learning, automation, robotics, and space (MARS), took place in Las Vegas. The event brought together thought leaders and technical experts building the future of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and included keynote talks, innovation spotlights, and a series of breakout-session talks.
Now, in our re: MARS revisited series, Amazon Science is taking a look back at some of the keynotes, and breakout session talks from the conference. We’ve asked presenters three questions about their talks, and provide the full video of their presentation.
On June 24, Alexa AI-Natural Understanding employees Craig Saunders, director of machine learning, and Devesh Pandey, principal product manager, presented their talk, “Human-like reasoning for an AI”. Their presentation focused on how Amazon is developing human-like reasoning for Alexa, including how Alexa can automatically recover from errors such as recognizing “turn on lights” in a noisy environment (instead of “turn off lights”) when the lights are already on.
Al Rihla in Arabic means “a journey,” and perhaps this was one of the epic journeys of the technologically loaded football.
The FIFA World Cup official match ball, Al Rihla, has been launched into space and back in a football frenzy to garner attraction to the ongoing World Cup in Qatar.
From space to the football pitch. We brought the official football for FIFA World Cup Qatar, becoming part of this historical out-of-the-world journey together with.
Starlink.
A new study finds that Earth’s “stabilizing feedback” keeps global temperatures in check.
Researchers find Earth has a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism. The mechanism of “silicate weather” helps regulate the planet’s carbon cycle.
The planet balances out extreme climate shifts, according to the new study.
Our planet’s climate is a hot topic for discussion, and with good reason — Earth is the cradle of all our lives. What happens to it affects us and our children directly. But while we’re worried we may be changing its climate now, the history of the planet is rife with major climate cataclysms. It went through periods of boiling heat and ice ages, it was pummeled by radiation and asteroids… More.
Deep in the Constellation of Centarus lies a star 50 light-years away from the Earth. This star is so…unique that astronomers nicknamed it “Lucy.” Lucy, also known as V886 Centauri and BPM 37093, is (at first glance) an ordinary white dwarf star. But it seems to hide something rather special.
As many of you may know, a white dwarf is the hot cinder left behind when a star uses up its nuclear fuel and, in essence, dies. It is made mostly of carbon and oxygen and surrounded by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.
In 1992 it was discovered that Lucy pulsates as a result of its core temperature dropping below 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit (6,600 Celsius). And in 1995 scientists decided to use Lucy for an experiment. They wanted to see what she was made of. The experiment was to use the pulsation of the star to see if the crystallization theory was true.
Light-weight and flying robots the size of small insects could have highly valuable real-world applications, for instance supporting search & rescue missions, inspections of hazardous sites, and even space exploration.
Despite their potential, the realization of these robots has so far proved difficult, particularly due to technical issues encountered when trying to stabilize their flight and artificially replicate the innate hovering capabilities of insects.
Researchers at University of Washington have recently developed a flight control and wind sensing system that could help to tackle this challenging robotics problem, finally enabling the stable flight of robots even as small as a gnat. This system, introduced in Science Robotics, is based on the use of accelerometers, a sensor that can measure the acceleration of any moving device, object or body.
Kindly see my latest FORBES article:
In the piece I explore some of the emerging tech that will impact our coming year. Thank you for reading and sharing!
2022 was a transformative year for technological innovation and digital transformation. The trend will continue as the pace of innovation and development of potentially disruptive emerging technologies exponentially increases every year. The question arises, what lies ahead for tech for us to learn and experience in 2023?
While there are many impactful tech topics such as the Internet of Things, 5G, Space, Genomics, Synthetic Biology, Automation, Augmented Reality, and others, there are four tech areas to keep a keen watch on this coming year as they have promising and near-term capabilities to transform lives. They include: 1) artificial intelligence, 2) computing technologies, 3) robotics, and 4) materials science.
“ESA is ready to invest in defining the necessary adaptations of space hardware in an effort to enable these otherwise excellently qualified professionals to serve as professional crew members on a safe and useful space mission,” said the agency in a press release in February 2021, when it first issued the call for people with disabilities to apply for what ESA calls the “Parastronaut Feasibility Project.”
McFall’s selection is a huge step forward, but it’s not happening in a vacuum.
On December 14, twelve people with different disabilities will take off on a zero-gravity flight with AstroAccess, aboard Zero Gravity Corporation’s “G-Force One.” They’ll perform experiments to help answer some key questions for astronauts with disabilities — things like how quickly a person with mobility issues can get in and out of a flight seat in microgravity, how a blind person can use textured handholds to orient themselves and navigate the cabin without gravity, and whether sign language is understandable when one person is floating upside down.
Year 2017 face_with_colon_three
While theories of holographic universes have been around since the 1990s, the latest study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, contains the first proof, the researchers say.
To find the ‘evidence’, the researchers developed models of the holographic Universe that can be tested by peering back in time as far as 13 billion years, at the furthest reaches of the observable Universe. These models depend on the theory of quantum gravity, a theory that challenges the accepted version of classical gravity. The holographic principle says gravity comes from thin, vibrating strings which are all holograms of a flat, 2D Universe.
Recent advances in telescopes and sensing equipment have allowed scientists to detect a vast amount of data hidden in the ‘white noise’ or microwaves left over from the moment the Universe was created. Using this information, the team was able to make comparisons between networks of features in the data and quantum field theory. They found some of the simplest quantum field theories could explain nearly all cosmological observations of the early Universe.
The Kardashev Scale has become a standardized way of classifying (hypothetical) advanced civilizations. The lowest rank, Type 1, is still way ahead of us — but by how much? When will we achieve Type 1 status and exactly how could we plausibly do so? In this video, we go through some estimates of when humanity might become Type 1, and in particular what kind of energy sources we could harness to achieve this feat.
You can now support our research program and the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University: https://www.coolworldslab.com/support.
► Kardashev (1964), “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations”, Soviet Astronomy, 8217: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1964SvA…
► Michio Kaku video clip from BigThink: https://youtu.be/7NPC47qMJVg.
► Wind map movie credit to Rufinoman and earth.nullschool.net: https://youtu.be/cj2JHsQUoRs.
► Wind energy calculation based off Smil (2004), “Inherent limits of renewable energies“
► References for the 3.7TW figure for tidal energy dissipation are: Cartwright 1993 (Theory of ocean tides with application to altimetry, in Satellite Altimetry in Geodesy and Oceanography, edites by R. Rummel and F. Sanso, pp. 99–141, Springer-Verlag, New York), Ray 1994 (Tidal energy dissipation: Observations from astronomy, geodesy, and oceanography, in, The Oceans, edited by S. Majumdaret al., pp. 171–185, Pa. Acad. of Sci., Easton, Pa.), Kagan & Sundermann 1996 (Kagan Dissipation of tidal energy paleotides, and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, Adv. Geophys., 38, pp. 179–266)
► Solar video comes from NASA SDO and GSFC: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12706
► Learn more about the Carno cycle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle.
► Learn more about the planetary equilibrium calculation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_equilibrium_temperature.
► Tidal power map comes from Gunn & Stock-Williams (2012): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148112001310
► Outro music by Thomas Bergersen “Final Frontier”: http://www.thomasbergersen.com.
► Columbia University Department of Astronomy: http://www.astro.columbia.edu.
► Cool Worlds Lab website: http://coolworlds.astro.columbia.edu.
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