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Should of gone to an American defense contractor, but at least it gets out from under the mismanagement of the silicon valley lunatics.


Here’s a surprise turn of events: Softbank — maker of the friendly Pepper robot and a major M&A player in the tech world — has just announced that it is acquiring two more robotics companies from Google owner Alphabet as part of its own deeper move into the field: it is buying Big Dog developer Boston Dynamics and the secretive bipedal robotics firm Schaft.

A spokesperson for Softbank has confirmed to us that the terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but we will try to find out.

“Today, there are many issues we still cannot solve by ourselves with human capabilities,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., in a statement. “Smart robotics are going to be a key driver of the next stage of the Information Revolution, and Marc and his team at Boston Dynamics are the clear technology leaders in advanced dynamic robots. I am thrilled to welcome them to the SoftBank family and look forward to supporting them as they continue to advance the field of robotics and explore applications that can help make life easier, safer and more fulfilling.”

Arlan Robotics is developing a robot just for adults, and yes, you know what that means.

The Service Droid (now a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo) started life as a personal project by Arlan Robotics, created out of curiosity given the complete lack of quality male ‘toys’ on the market. What the company claim to have created is an incredibly realistic droid that when assembled looks, smells, feels and moves like a real human.

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What is the ultimate goal of Artificial General Intelligence?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

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B rain surgery is one of the most delicate, invasive procedures in medicine. Many times, anesthesia is not involved; sometimes, an electrode is inserted into the brain for deep brain stimulation.

Research published Thursday in the journal Cell promises a safer alternative to these otherwise intrusive ways to get in your head: stimulating neurons deep in the brain without any invasive procedures. The procedure, called temporal interference stimulation, is the latest invention of MIT neuroscientist and engineer Edward Boyden.

“Brief stimulation of the brain can actually cause the brain to clean up the amyloid plaques that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s Disease,” Boyden tells Inverse. He feels that his new technology can help with a number of neurological conditions without many of the hazards inherent to invasive techniques.

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Could AI soon diagnose cancer? New system that ‘doctors can rely on’ is 93% accurate in identifying tumours.

  • US firm IBM says its Watson system is capable of accurately identify tumours
  • The computer crunches through medical images and patient records quickly
  • It compares them to past cases and medical journals to come to a conclusion
  • Doctors at 55 hospitals around the world have been using the AI to help them

By Richard Gray for MailOnline

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