Lifeboat Foundation

The system combines trajectory optimization and enhanced reinforcement learning to improve how ANYmal chooses its leg positions and footholds.

In the field of robotics, the development of legged robots stands as a formidable challenge. The dynamic and agile movements observed in animals prove difficult to replicate through conventional human-made methods.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have now used an innovative control framework that has helped an autonomous robot, ANYmal, to traverse challenging terrains seamlessly.

Continue reading “ANYmal: Robot tackles tricky terrains powered by ETH Zurich’s new system” »

The autonomous setup constructs and links hollow lattice blocks, adeptly disassembling and repurposing them as needed for efficient functionality.

The researchers envision their new system as revolutionizing material life cycles, fostering sustainability, and furthering space exploration.

The Galaxy S24 will also have a new feature called Circle to Search, which will let users search anything on their screen using Google. Users can press the bottom edge of the screen, where the Google logo and a search bar will pop up, and draw a circle around anything they want to search. The feature will work on most content, except for those protected by DRM or screenshots, such as banking apps. Once the selection is made, a panel will slide up showing the selection and the results from Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), similar to image search via Google or Lens, but without needing to open another app or take screenshots. Users will be able to circle items in YouTube videos, Instagram Stories, and more.

The Galaxy S24 will also benefit from Google’s Imagen 2, a text-to-image model that can generate realistic images from text descriptions. Imagen 2 will power the photo editing features in the Galaxy S24 Gallery app, such as the Generative Edit feature which also debuted on the Pixel 8 series. It can automatically fill in missing parts of images based on the surrounding context. Imagen 2 was unveiled at Google I/O last year and recently launched in preview on the web.

An intrepid DIY Tesla Model Y owner has done what many dream of doing — directly powered his Tesla with solar panels. That’s right, not happy with simply powering his car with house rooftop solar panels, he’s doing it with a solar panel array on the roof of his crossover.

This Tesla Model Y Performance owner created a folding solar array capable of charging 20-60mi per day via a 2000W-4000W system.

Across mammalian species, brain waves are slower in deep cortical layers, while superficial layers generate faster rhythms.

A new attack targets Docker servers and uses a combo of cryptocurrency mining and website traffic generation for profit. It could leave a backdoor for attackers to exploit later. Patch your systems and monitor for suspicious activity:

10 Centimeter Diameter metalens for astronomy.

A newly-developed “metalens” has showcased promise in capturing high-resolution images of celestial bodies like our Sun, Moon, and even some distant objects.

The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) created the first all-glass metalens, which has a diameter of only 10 cm.

Continue reading “First 10-cm glass metalens promises stunning views of Sun, Moon, cosmos” »

Understanding why we overeat unhealthy foods has been a long-standing mystery. While we know food’s strong power influences our choices, the precise circuitry in our brains behind this is unclear. The vagus nerve sends internal sensory information from the gut to the brain about the nutritional value of food. But, the molecular basis of the reward in the brain associated with what we eat has been incompletely understood.

A study published in Cell Metabolism, by a team from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, unravels the internal neural wiring, revealing separate fat and sugar craving pathways, as well as a concerning result: Combining these pathways overly triggers our desire to eat more than usual.

“Food is nature’s ultimate reinforcer,” said Monell scientist Guillaume de Lartigue, Ph.D., lead author of the study. “But why fats and sugars are particularly appealing has been a puzzle. We’ve now identified nerve cells in the gut rather than taste cells in the mouth are a key driver. We found that distinct gut–brain pathways are recruited by fats and sugars, explaining why that donut can be so irresistible.”

Join the discussion on this paper page.