Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 2857

The chief technology officer of a robotics startup told me earlier this year, “We thought we’d have to do a lot of work to build ‘ChatGPT for robotics.’ Instead, it turns out that, in a lot of cases, ChatGPT is ChatGPT for robotics.”

Until recently, AI models were specialized tools. Using AI in a particular area, like robotics, meant spending time and money creating AI models specifically and only for that area. For example, Google’s AlphaFold, an AI model for predicting protein folding, was trained using protein structure data and is only useful for working with protein structures.

So this founder thought that to benefit from generative AI, the robotics company would need to create its own specialized generative AI models for robotics. Instead, the team discovered that for many cases, they could use off-the-shelf ChatGPT for controlling their robots without the AI having ever been specifically trained for it.

Read more | >

New images from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed intricate details of a dying star’s final stages, NASA said Monday. The Ring Nebula images, featuring a glowing halo and vibrant colors, also led to a surprising discovery, one astronomer said.

Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument provided the clearest view yet of the faint molecular halo, the space agency said. It captured up to 10 concentric “arcs” in the halo, which scientists believe formed about every 280 years as the central star shed its outer layers.

Roger Wesson, a research associate at Cardiff University who reviewed the Webb telescope’s observations, called the discovery of the arcs a “surprising revelation.”

Read more | >

Following the Flight Readiness Review (FRR), NASA and SpaceX gave the go for Crew 7. The launch is scheduled for August 25th at 3:49 a.m. ET (07:49 UTC).

This mission will bring three astronauts and one cosmonaut to the International Space Station for a stay of around six months to perform experiments and conduct maintenance aboard the orbiting outpost.

After the FRR was complete, a full launch day rehearsal was carried out in which the crew was fully suited and driven to Launch Complex 39A, where they boarded Crew Dragon Endurance. The crew and mission control simulated a full countdown in order to familiarize themselves one last time before launch day.

Read more | >

(NewsNation) — Eye scans could be able to detect Parkinson’s disease several years before the presentation of other symptoms, according to a new study.

The findings, published in the journal Neurology, add to growing evidence that eye scans could help detect neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Researchers at University College Hospital and the Moorfields Eye Hospital used a type of 3D scan known as optical coherence tomography (OCT) which detected Parkinson’s disease markers an average of seven years before clinical symptoms.

Read more | >

Meyers Manx, the original maker of the Volkswagen Beetle-based, fiberglass-bodied beach buggy from the 1960s, just published the starting price for its all-new, all-electric Manx 2.0 electric buggy, and it’s not exactly cheap.

Revealed last year at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, the company’s first all-new vehicle in nearly 20 years starts at $74,000 for the base variant with the 20-kilowatt-hour battery pack and yet-to-be-released performance figures. That’s almost as expensive as the recently introduced Tesla Model S Standard Range, which starts at $78,490 and offers a 320-mile range.

The base MSRP came with no extra information and was casually thrown in a sentence at the end of the press release for the company’s new Resorter Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), which debuted last week at The Quail, so we still don’t know how much the top-of-the-line model will set prospective customers back.

Read more | >

Through a series of innovative experiments, he and his team found that a sheet of glass crystal just a few atoms thick could trap and carry light. Not only that, but it was surprisingly efficient and could travel relatively long distances—up to a centimeter, which is very far in the world of light-based computing.

The research, published Aug. 10 in Science, demonstrates what are essentially 2D photonic circuits, and could open paths to new technology.

2D optical waveguides could point way to new technology.

Read more | >