Category: Robots
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Touching with light…
In a lab at Columbia University, engineers have developed a strange yet clever way for robots to feel: Let’s call it the finger of light. It’s got a 3D-printed skeleton embedded with 32 photodiodes and 30 adjacent LEDs, over which is laid a squishy skin of reflective silicone, which keeps the device’s own light in…
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Algorithms. Jail. Peoples’ lives.
An algorithm takes decisions about peoples’ live and decides whether and how they will potentially go to jail again. The algorithm is one of many making decisions about people’s lives in the United States and Europe. Local authorities use so-called predictive algorithms to set police patrols, prison sentences and probation rules. In the Netherlands, an…
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Finding your way…
A team at Facebook AI has created a reinforcement learning algorithm that lets a robot find its way in an unfamiliar environment without using a map. (1) Finding your way without a map. Is there any other way? With a map, you will always return at home. But what is home? Were you not born…
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The front door… Mind the front door…
Engineers have developed a navigation method that doesn’t require mapping an area in advance. Instead, their approach enables a robot to use clues in its environment to plan out a route to its destination, which can be described in general semantic terms, such as ‘front door’ or ‘garage,’ rather than as coordinates on a map.…
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Counting. Playing music.
Bees can solve seemingly clever counting tasks with very small numbers of nerve cells in their brains, according to researchers. (1) Scientists have developed a 3D-printed robotic hand which can play simple musical phrases on the piano by just moving its wrist. (2) Everyone feeling so important when counting. But every animal can do it.…
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