Necessity truly can be the mother of invention. A new university president explains how the pandemic forced massive changes at his institution — and why smart use of technology was invaluable.
During the pandemic, the National Museum of Mathematics found new ways to build human connections.
Satellite delivery isn’t exactly cutting-edge tech these days. Lately it feels like SpaceX is doing that every week. Liftoff usually starts with a ground-based rocket, which is expensive and time-consuming to launch. Aevum believes its massive Ravn X drone can do it better, for less money.
At 80 feet long and 18 feet tall, the Ravn X is the world’s biggest drone, says Aevum. Driven by Aevum’s proprietary software, the drone would fly itself to a specified altitude, where it would launch a rocket to deliver a payload of small satellites to low Earth orbit. Click the video above for more on the delivery process.
The launch system is 70% reusable, Aevum said. CEO Jay Skylus hopes to get that close to 100%.
A team of researchers at the University of Georgia has created a backpack equipped with AI gear aimed at replacing guide dogs and canes for the blind. Intel has published a News Byte describing the new technology on their Newsroom page.
Technology to help blind people get around in public has been improving in recent years, thanks mostly to smartphone apps. But such apps, the team notes, are not sufficient given the technology available. To make a better assistance system, the group designed an AI system that could be placed in a backpack and worn by a blind person to give them much better clues about their environment.
The backpack holds a smart AI system running on a laptop, and is fitted with OAK-D cameras (which, in addition to providing obstacle information, can also provide depth information) hidden in a vest and also in a waist pack. The cameras run Intel’s Movidius VPU and are programmed using the OpenVINO toolkit. The waist pack also holds batteries for the system. The AI system was trained to recognize objects a sighted pedestrian would see when walking around in a town or city, such as cars, bicycles, other pedestrians or even overhanging tree limbs.
Nitinol, a “memory” metal that can remember its original shape when heated, is an industrial gem that will play a key role in NASA’s next mission to Mars.
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AI makes edge and IoT smarter
Posted in robotics/AI, security
Implementing artificial intelligence at the edge can not only reduce latency and networking costs but also improve security and unlock the power of distributed intelligence.
(From left) Expedition 65 crew members Pyotr Dubrov, Oleg Novitskiy and Mark Vande Hei, pose for a photo during Soyuz qualification exams in Moscow.
The Expedition 64 crew continued researching how microgravity affects biology aboard the International Space Station today. The orbital residents also conducted vein and eye checks and prepared for three new crew members due in early April.
NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker joined Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov for vein and eye scans on Thursday. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi led the effort scanning veins in the trio’s neck, clavicle and shoulder areas using the Ultrasound 2 device in the morning. In the afternoon, Noguchi examined Walker’s eyes using the orbiting lab’s optical coherence tomography gear.
Walker also assisted fellow Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA setting up samples of tiny worms for viewing in a microscope. Rubins captured video of the microscopic worms wriggling around to learn how microgravity affects genetic expression and muscle function. Insights from the Micro-16 study may benefit human health on and off the Earth.
Actor William Shatner celebrates his 90th birthday by preserving his memories in an AI video file that will be made publicly available in May.
The mayor of Oakland, California, on Tuesday announced a privately funded program that will give low-income families of color in the city $500 per month with no rules on how they can spend it.
The program is the latest experiment with a “guaranteed income,” the idea that giving low-income individuals a regular, monthly stipend helps ease the stresses of poverty and results in better health and upward economic mobility.”
Alan DeRossett.
After two years successfully testing Oakland, California now will expand its basic income to low income residents.
After winning a state science fair and becoming a finalist in a national competition, Dasia Taylor now has her sights set on a patent.