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A pair of engineers at Delft University of Technology, working with a colleague at Aix-Marseille University, reports that applying ultrasound to the surface of a glass plate can mimic the feel of pressed button. Laurence Willemet, Michaël Wiertlewski and Jocelyn Monnoyer have published a paper in Journal of The Royal Society Interface describing the device they built to test the idea of using ultrasound as a haptic screen enhancer.

Currently, users pressing buttons on their smart phone screens do not receive much in the way of physical feedback—phone engineers would like to change that. In this new effort, the researchers looked into the idea of using on a plate to mimic the sensations of pushing a physical button.

The researchers created the device by merging two modules. One used blue and red lights to optically track the movement of an approaching finger. The other monitored and responded to contact. Together, the modules controlled piezo actuators that generated ultrasound at a frequency of 28.85 kHz. The device was affixed to a glass plate, which in turn was held in place by an aluminum frame. When in use, the actuators were driven by a ±200 V carrier signal.

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Deepfake technology has been around for some time, and it’s currently causing controversies for the potential threats it may bring when fallen into the wrong hands. Even India’s business tycoon Anand Mahindra sparked alarm over hyper-realistic synthetic videos.

But some personalities are redefining the way viewers perceive deepfakes. For instance, David Guetta recently synthesized Eminem’s voice to hype up an event. And it’s only one of the many examples of people using artificial intelligence (AI) for entertainment. In fact, it already came to different social media websites like Twitch that take streaming to the next level.

Bachir Boumaaza is a Youtuber who once made a name for his record-breaking games, which he used to help numerous charities. But he became inactive, with most of his fans wondering where he went, thinking it might’ve been the end of his career.

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From creator Brad Wright, who honed his expertise writing on three Stargate shows for 14 years, Travelers is a departure from traditional sci-fi tropes. It’s the kind of modern, grounded sci-fi that funnels its wriggling ball of time travel strands through the lenses of empathetic, endearing characters.

This team of time-traveling agents, called “travelers,” inhabit the bodies of people who are close to death. With the help of GPS coordinates, historical records and social media, the consciousnesses of the future travelers are inserted into the bodies of 21st century civilians. It’s the cleanest way for the travelers to go back in time and complete their mission, utilizing the lives of those who were going to die anyway.

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When it comes to DNA, one pesky mosquito turns out to be a rebel among species.

Researchers at Rice University’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) are among the pioneers of a new approach to studying DNA. Instead of focusing on as linear sequences of genetic code, they’re looking for clues on how their folded 3D shapes might determine gene expression and regulation.

For most living things, their threadlike chromosomes fold to fit inside the nuclei of cells in one of two ways. But the chromosomes of the Aedes aegypti mosquito—which is responsible for the transmission of such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika, mayaro and yellow fever—defy this dichotomy, taking researchers at the CTBP by surprise.

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Nanoscale defects and mechanical stress cause the failure of solid electrolytes.

A group of researchers has claimed to have found the cause of the recurring short-circuiting issues of lithium metal batteries with solid electrolytes. The team, which consists of members from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, aims to further the battery technology, which is lightweight, inflammable, energy-dense, and offers quick-charge capabilities. Such a long-lasting solution can help to overcome the barriers when it comes to the adoption of electric vehicles around the world.

A study published on January 30 in the journal Nature Energy details different experiments on how nanoscale defects and mechanical stress cause solid electrolytes to fail.

According to the team, the issue was down to mechanical stress, which was induced while recharging the batteries. “Just modest indentation, bending or twisting of the batteries can cause nanoscopic issues in the materials to open and lithium to intrude into the solid electrolyte causing it to short circuit,” explained William Chueh, senior study author and an associate professor at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

The possibility of dust or other impurities present at the manufacturing stage could also cause the batteries to malfunction.

Continue reading “New Lithium Metal Battery Lets Drones Fly 70 Percent Longer” | >

The first time a language model was used to synthesize human proteins.

Of late, AI models are really flexing their muscles. We have recently seen how ChatGPT has become a poster child for platforms that comprehend human languages. Now a team of researchers has tested a language model to create amino acid sequences, showcasing abilities to replicate human biology and evolution.

The language model, which is named ProGen, is capable of generating protein sequences with a certain degree of control. The result was achieved by training the model to learn the composition of proteins. The experiment marks the first time a language model was used to synthesize human proteins.

A study regarding the research was published in the journal *Nature Biotechnology Thursday. *The project was a combined effort from researchers at the University of California-San Francisco and the University of California-Berkeley and Salesforce Research, which is a science arm of a software company based in San Fransisco.

## The significance of using a language model

Continue reading “Scientists Use AI to Create Music through Proteins” | >

Google worked to reassure investors and analysts on Thursday during its quarterly earnings call that it’s still a leader in developing AI. The company’s Q4 2022 results were highly anticipated as investors and the tech industry awaited Google’s response to the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has the potential to threaten its core business.

During the call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai talked about the company’s plans to make AI-based large language models (LLMs) like LaMDA available in the coming weeks and months. Pichai said users will soon be able to use large language models as a companion to search. An LLM, like ChatGPT, is a deep learning algorithm that can recognize, summarize and generate text and other content based on knowledge from enormous amounts of text data. Pichai said the models that users will soon be able to use are particularly good for composing, constructing and summarizing.

“Now that we can integrate more direct LLM-type experiences in Search, I think it will help us expand and serve new types of use cases, generative use cases,” Pichai said. “And so, I think I see this as a chance to rethink and reimagine and drive Search to solve more use cases for our users as well. It’s early days, but you will see us be bold, put things out, get feedback and iterate and make things better.”

Pichai’s comments about the possible ChatGPT rival come as a report revealed this week that Microsoft is working to incorporate a faster version of ChatGPT, known as GPT-4, into Bing, in a move that would make its search engine, which today has only a sliver of search market share, more competitive with Google. The popularity of ChatGPT has seen Google reportedly turning to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for help in combating the potential threat. The New York Times recently reported that Page and Brin had several meetings with executives to strategize about the company’s AI plans.

During the call, Pichai warned investors and analysts that the technology will need to scale slowly and that he sees large language usage as still being in its “early days.” He also said that the company is developing AI with a deep sense of responsibility and that it’s going to be careful when launching AI-based products, as the company plans to initially launch beta features and then slowly scale up from there.

Continue reading “ChatGPT is about to get even better and Microsoft’s Bing could win big” | >