Lifeboat Foundation

Of all the holy grails in robotics, learning may well be the holiest. In an era when the term “general purpose” is tossed around with great abandon, however, it can be difficult for non-roboticists to understand what today’s systems can — and can’t — do. The truth of it is that most robots these days are built to do one (or a couple, if you’re lucky) thing really well.

It’s a truth that spans the industry, from the lowliest robot vacuum to the most advanced industrial system. So, how do we make the transition from single to general purpose robotics? Certainly, there are going to be a lot of stops in multipurpose land along the way.

The answer is, of course, robot learning. Walk into nearly any robotics research lab these days and you will find teams working on tackling the issue. The same applies to startups and corporations, as well. Look at companies Viam and Intrinsic, which are working to lower the bar of entry for robot programming.

The latest research on quantum materials and electron curves could revamp our energy-efficient electronics.

The Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo was known for claiming that he deserved little credit for his beautiful works: they were already there inside the rock, he merely cut them out. ‘Every block of stone,’ he said, ‘has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.’

The final product already existed within Michelangelo’s ideals. But it took years of trial and error, practice, and failure to reach the point of being able to give form to it. In a similar sense, Nietzsche would say the ‘you’ that you must become is already there. It’s already inscribed in your values. That which you admire – the preponderance of all your latent virtues – reflects who you are in the truest sense.

The act of becoming who you are is the act of carving your ideal self out of the hard stone of your psyche – of bringing greater and greater refinement to the crude shapes of character that exist in you now. Simultaneously an act of discovery and creation, to become who you are is to bring your virtues to life and synthesise them into a unified whole. Nietzsche proclaims:

Without full fault tolerance in quantum computers we will never practically get past 100 qubits but full fault tolerance will eventually open up the possibility of billions of qubits and beyond. In a Wright Brothers Kittyhawk moment for Quantum Computing, a fully fault-tolerant algorithm was executed on real qubits. They were only three qubits but this was never done on real qubits before.

This is the start of the fully fault tolerant age of quantum computers. For quantum computers to be the real deal of unlimited computing disruption then we needed full fault tolerance on real qubits.

Scientists have made a significant breakthrough in understanding and overcoming the challenges associated with Ni-rich cathode materials used in lithium-ion batteries.

While these materials can reach high voltages and capacities, their real-world usage has been limited by structural issues and oxygen depletion.

Their study revealed that ‘oxygen hole’ formation – where an oxygen ion loses an electron — plays a crucial role in the degradation of LiNiO₂ cathodes accelerating the release of oxygen which can then further degrade the cathode material.

Combining two cutting-edge technologies, researchers revealed the impact of a multitude of genes that are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, but whose effects on human brain development were previously unknown.

The image generator inside the AI-powered Bing Chat is getting a big upgrade today: Microsoft announced that OpenAI’s latest DALL-E 3 model is now available to all Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator users. It has been rolling out over the last week or so, first to Bing Enterprise users and then to Bing Image Creator, but now it’s open to everyone.

Bing is getting DALL-E 3 access even before OpenAI’s own ChatGPT does — that’s scheduled to happen this month, but only for paying users. Microsoft is likely to be the most popular image generating tool for a while.

“Microsoft is planning to use DALL-E tech in more than just Bing, too. It’s working on an AI image creation tool in the Paint app called Paint Cocreator, for instance, which will bring the DALL-E model right into Windows.”

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Architecture studio KKAA YTAA has completed a home with a central courtyard named House in Front of a School in Nara, Japan.

Located in the densely populated capital of Japan’s Nara Prefecture, the house was split into two parts that are connected by a bridge across a central courtyard.

The unusual arrangement was created as the client wanted a space that supported their work-from-home lifestyle and gave them access to the outdoors.

Northwestern University.

Like Flubber, the robot can’t bolt and strike against walls at lightning speeds – but it can walk. The mechanism of the robot, written by the AI system, works when air is pumped into its body. The rubbery robot’s legs contract, and continually pumping air into the robot causes it to slowly but steadily locomote.