Robot acquires chef skills via YouTube instructional vids
College Park, Md. (UPI) Jan 30, 2015 -
The Internet is filled with useless info, but buried in the rubble are nuggets of information - whole instructional videos, in fact. Building off of previous artificial intelligence work, scientists have engineered a robot capable of acquiring and demonstrating cooking skills learned by watching YouTube videos.
Computer engineers have previously constructed processing systems capable o ...
more
NASA planning Europa mission, Jupiter's potentially life-hosting moon
Pasadena, Calif. (UPI) Feb 3, 2015 -
The big ticket items - the Space Launch System, the Orion capsule, the Commercial Crew program - grabbed the big bucks and the headlines, as NASA unveiled the White House's 2015 budget proposal. But some astronomers and science fans are most excited about the inclusion of a new mission: a trip to Europa, Jupiter's fourth largest moon.
While the capturing of an asteroid, a return to th ...
more
Safe production in Industry 4.0
Munich, Germany (SPX) Feb 05, 2015 -
Beautiful new production world: For value-creation chains that span multiple locations, equipment, robotics, systems components, minicomputers in components and sensors are all networked with each other in Industry 4.0. They exchange data, retrieve the status of equipment and components, calculate the optimal sequence of work processes, schedule equipment usage and much more.
Yet with the ...
more
U.S. Navy unveils firefighting robot SAFFiR
Washington (UPI) Feb 5, 2015 -
At the Naval Future Force Science & Technology Expo, held Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, D.C., military engineers showed off their latest invention - a firefighting robot.
Researchers at the expo shared details of latest testing milestones reached by the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR). The successes were achieved during trial runs aboard the ex-USS Shadwell, a ...
more
International partnership will develop first market ready sweet pepper harvesting robot
Paris (SPX) Feb 06, 2015 -
12 February 2015 will be the start of SWEEPER, an innovation driven international research programme for the development of the first generation market ready sweet pepper harvesting robot. The research is being supported by the Horizon 2020 programme of European Union.
Wageningen University and Research Centre will coordinate the international network in which partners from Sweden, Israel, ...
more
Researchers determine how the brain controls robotic grasping tools
Columbia MO (SPX) Feb 09, 2015 -
Grasping an object involves a complex network of brain functions. First, visual cues are processed in specialized areas of the brain. Then, other areas of the brain use these signals to control the hands to reach for and manipulate the desired object.
New findings from researchers at the University of Missouri suggest that the cerebellum, a region of the brain that has changed very little ...
more
Human insights inspire solutions for household robots
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 10, 2015 -
People typically consider doing the laundry to be a boring chore. But laundry is far from boring for artificial intelligence (AI) researchers like Siddharth Srivastava, a scientist at the United Technologies Research Center, Berkeley.
To AI experts, programming a robot to do the laundry represents a challenging planning problem because current sensing and manipulation technology is not goo ...
more
Tiny robotic 'hands' could improve cancer diagnostics, drug delivery
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 10, 2015 -
Many people imagine robots today as clunky, metal versions of humans, but scientists are forging new territory in the field of 'soft robotics.' One of the latest advances is a flexible, microscopic hand-like gripper.
The development could help doctors perform remotely guided surgical procedures or perform biopsies. The materials also could someday deliver therapeutic drugs to hard-to-reach ...
more
Octopus robot makes waves with ultra-fast propulsion
Southampton, UK (SPX) Feb 10, 2015 -
Scientists have developed an octopus-like robot, which can zoom through water with ultra-fast propulsion and acceleration never before seen in man-made underwater vehicles.
Most fast aquatic animals are sleek and slender to help them move easily through the water but cephalopods, such as the octopus, are capable of high-speed escapes by filling their bodies with water and then quickly expe ...
more
IBM brings Watson supercomputer to Japan via SoftBank
New York (AFP) Feb 10, 2015 -
IBM announced plans Tuesday to bring its Watson supercomputer to Japan with mobile telecom group SoftBank, in a deal aimed at developing new applications for robotics and other services.
"IBM is teaching Watson to speak, and think, in Japanese, one of most difficult languages for a computer to navigate because of its reliance on the complex diagrammatical alphabet known as kanji," a statemen ...
more
SpaceX cargo craft returns to Earth
Miami (AFP) Feb 11, 2015 -
SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo ship returned to Earth on Tuesday, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after a month-long stay at the International Space Station.
The Dragon spacecraft was released from the ISS's robotic arm at 2:10 pm (1910 GMT) and came down in the waters southwest of Long Beach, California about five and a half hours later.
"Dragon splashdown confirmed!" the California ...
more
Europe tests space plane in step to strategic goal
Paris (AFP) Feb 11, 2015 -
Europe on Wednesday said it successfully launched and brought back to Earth a prototype space plane in a strategy to join an elite club of space powers.
In a 100-minute operation, the European Space Agency (ESA) took a wedge-shaped wingless robot craft on a sub-orbital flight to test re-entry technologies.
It marks the first step in an effort to emulate the United States, Russia and Chin ...
more
Talking Japanese space robot back on Earth
Tokyo (AFP) Feb 12, 2015 -
A pint-sized Japanese robot that became the first android to converse with an astronaut in space has returned to Earth after 18 months in orbit, project organisers said Thursday.
"Kirobo" - roughly the size of a chihuahua - hitched a ride back from the International Space Station (ISS) on a cargo supply spacecraft that splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, sponsors including Toyota Motor and ...
more
HAPTIX Starts Work to Provide Prosthetic Hands with Sense of Touch
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 10, 2015 -
Despite recent advances in technology for upper-limb prostheses, artificial arms and hands are still unable to provide users with sensory feedback, such as the "feel" of things being touched or awareness of limb position and movement. Without this feedback, even the most advanced prosthetic limbs remain numb to users, a factor that impairs the limbs' effectiveness and their wearers' willingness ...
more
Europe destroys last space truck to ISS
Paris (AFP) Feb 15, 2015 -
The European Space Agency (ESA) on Sunday said it had destroyed its last supply ship to the International Space Station, bringing a seven-year venture to a successful close.
The last of five robot delivery vessels that ESA pledged for the US-led ISS project, the Georges Lemaitre, burned up in a suicide plunge into Earth's atmosphere, the agency said.
At the control centre in Toulouse, th ...
more
NASA wants to send a submarine to Saturn's moon Titan
Washington (UPI) Feb 16, 2015 -
The seas of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, are no place for astronauts. The frigid bodies of liquified natural gas are a study in inhabitability. But scientists suggest its possible some strange forms of life exist under the of icy surface of Kraken Mare, Titan's largest sea.
To learn more about this unique world - and to probe Titan's liquid environs for signs of life - engineers at N ...
more
Japan's Robear: Strength of a robot, face of a bear
Tokyo (AFP) Feb 24, 2015 -
Forget the frightening androids of dystopian sci-fi, the future of robots is cute polar bears that can lift elderly people into and out of bed.
The "Robear" has a cub-like face with big doey eyes, but packs enough power to transfer frail patients from a wheelchair to a bed or a bath, Japan's Riken institute said Tuesday.
"The polar cub-like look is aimed at radiating an atmosphere of str ...
more
Rise of the Machines: video gamers beware
Paris (AFP) Feb 25, 2015 -
Researchers unveiled a software system Wednesday which had taught itself to play 49 different video games and proceeded to defeat human professionals - a major step in the fast-developing Artificial Intelligence realm.
Not only did the system give flesh-and-blood gamers a run for their money, it discovered tricks its own programmers didn't even know existed, a team from Google-owned researc ...
more
