Lifeboat Foundation

New research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute can help robots feel layers of cloth rather than relying on computer vision tools to only see it. The work could allow robots to assist people with household tasks like folding laundry.

Humans use their senses of sight and touch to grab a glass or pick up a piece of cloth. It is so routine that little thought goes into it. For robots, however, these tasks are extremely difficult. The amount of data gathered through touch is hard to quantify and the sense has been hard to simulate in robotics—until recently.

Continue reading “Robots that can feel cloth layers may one day help with laundry” »

After a short period of relative silence, the metaverse became a hot topic again in no small part thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s and Meta’s most recent buzz, which, unsurprisingly, split people into camps again. Some say or are hoping that the metaverse is already dead and, along with it, the more controversial NFTs. If that were the case, it seems that nobody told luxury luggage maker RIMOWA about it because it seems that the marque will be diving right into this mess when others seem to be silently stepping out. RIMOWA has partnered with Nike-owned digital fashion brand RTFKT to bring its iconic luggage brand to the metaverse via two NFT drops, but RIMOWA fans can rest assured that they can still get this upcoming limited edition luggage in physical form as well.

Designer: RIMOWA x RTFKT.

The Chinese government has been accused of establishing at least two undeclared “police stations” in the Netherlands.

Dutch media found evidence that the “overseas service stations”, which promise to provide diplomatic services, are being used to try to silence Chinese dissidents in Europe.

Continue reading “China accused of illegal police stations in the Netherlands — BBC News” »

A recent gamma-ray burst known as the BOAT — “brightest of all time” — appears to have produced a high-energy particle that shouldn’t exist. For some, dark matter provides the explanation.

Berkeley Lab scientists have developed new machine learning algorithms to accelerate the analysis of data collected decades ago by HERA, the world’s most powerful electron-proton collider that ran at the DESY national research center in Germany from 1992 to 2007.

Researchers claim to have built a “decoder” algorithm that can reconstruct what somebody is thinking just by monitoring their brain activity using MRI.

Mr. Musk, who runs Tesla and SpaceX, visited Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday and tweeted a nine-second video of himself smiling and carrying a porcelain sink into the building.

“Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” he wrote.

The world’s richest man arrived at Twitter’s San Francisco offices on Wednesday ahead of a Friday deadline to complete the acquisition of the social media service.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Visits Twitter as $44 Billion Deal Nears Completion” »

Researchers from Northwestern University have made a significant advance in the way they produce exotic open-framework superlattices made of hollow metal nanoparticles.

Using tiny hollow particles termed metallic nanoframes and modifying them with appropriate sequences of DNA, the team found they could synthesize open-channel superlattices with pores ranging from 10 to 1,000 nanometers in size—sizes that have been difficult to access until now. This newfound control over porosity will enable researchers to use these colloidal crystals in molecular absorption and storage, separations, chemical sensing, catalysis and many optical applications.

The new study identifies 12 unique porous nanoparticle superlattices with control over symmetry, geometry and pore connectivity to highlight the generalizability of new design rules as a route to making novel materials.

The newly-designed dish allows users to have a permanent high-performance Starlink installation on their vehicles.

SpaceX announced it is now accepting orders for its new “flat high-performance” Starlink dish for moving vehicles.

In a Tuesday tweet, the private space firm explained that the new offering allows customers to “enjoy high-speed, low-latency internet while on the move!”