Lifeboat Foundation

Robin Murphy, a roboticist at Texas A&M University has published a Focus piece in the journal Science Robotics outlining her views on the robots portrayed in “Star Wars,” most particularly those featured in “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett.” In her article, she says she believes that the portrayals of robots in both movies are quite creative, but suggests they are not wild enough to compete with robots that are made and used in the real world today.

Murphy begins by noting that one robot in particular, IG-11 in the Mandalorian, makes for good viewing with a rotating head that allows for shooting at targets in any direction, but she also notes that such a robot would very likely be overly susceptible to joint failure and would be saddled with huge computational demands. She suggests a more practical design would involve the use of fixed-array sensors.

Murphy also notes that robots in “Star Wars” movies do fail on occasion, generally during suspenseful scenes, which she further notes might explain why the empire met with its demise. As just one example, she wonders why the stormtroopers so often miss their targets. She also notes that in some ways, droids in “Star Wars” movies tend to be far more advanced than droids in the real world, allowing them to hold human-like jobs such as bartending, teaching or translating. In so doing, she points out, producers of the movies have shied away from showing them doing more mundane work, like mining.

As transportation becomes autonomous, maritime navigation is also set for a major change. Systems like Orca AI will help in rapid transitions.

French manufacturer used 100% recycled material, green energy.

Adriano V. Autino presents his book “A greater world is possible!”

Mon, May 16 at 2 PM CDT.

Interested.

With drone-in-a-box (DiaB) solutions emerging as a growth segment within the drone industry, Norway-based Nordic Unmanned has entered into an acquisition agreement with DiaB specialist DroneMatrix.

This partnership will enable both companies to scale their commercial offerings through new services and solutions.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is considering a visit to Indonesia to explore investment opportunities in the resource-rich Southeast Asia country.

The chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the rocket manufacturer’s site in Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday, during which Widodo extended an invite. “Hopefully in November, thank you for the invitation,” Musk said, according to a statement released by Widodo’s office.

Physicists sometimes come up with bizarre stories that sound like science fiction. Yet some turn out to be true, like how the curvature of space and time described by Einstein was eventually confirmed by astronomical measurements. Others linger on as mere possibilities or mathematical curiosities.

A new study is revealing that a reversal in the Earth’s magnetic poles 42,000 to 41,000 years ago may have led to environmental crises that resulted in mass extinctions. The period is called the Laschamps excursion and the research used precise carbon dating obtained from ancient tree fossils to study its effects.

The team details how they created a precise radiocarbon record around the time of the “Laschamps geomagnetic reversal about 41,000 years ago from the rings of New Zealand swamp kauri trees.”

“This record reveals a substantial increase in the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere culminating during the period of weakening magnetic field strength preceding the polarity switch.” The team concluded that the “geomagnetic field minimum caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration that drove synchronous global climate and environmental” with their model investigating the consequences of this event.

The steering wheel, gas, and brakes that safety drivers will use if they need to take over are separate from the system the buses use to navigate autonomously. During the initial two-week testing period, buses will run without passengers, but the companies involved are aiming to have riders on board by summer.

The self-driving software made by Fusion Processing, called CAVstar for “connected and autonomous vehicles,” isn’t limited to radar, lidar, or cameras, but rather integrates all three. The buses are clearly marked as autonomous so nearby drivers are aware that a computer’s running the show. The question is, how much will this impact drivers’ behavior and relevant driving decisions? Would you feel less rude cutting off a driverless bus? More obliged to let it pass you? Or just sort of confused by the whole situation?

Each bus can carry 36 passengers, and the number of planned trips per day mean the autonomous buses could move up to 10,000 passengers a week. The project’s leaders anticipate the self-driving buses reducing average trip time and improving schedule reliability of the route. This sounds like it’ll mostly be a good thing, but what will happen when, say, an elderly or disabled passenger needs some extra time to get on or off the bus?