This method of flying drones is one of the easiest we’ve ever pointed our eyeballs at Despite the ubiquity of drones nowadays, it seems to be generally accepted that learning how to control them properly is just too much work. Consumer drones are increasingly being stuffed full of obstacle-avoidance systems, based on the (likely accurate) assumption that most human pilots are to some degree incompetent. It’s not that humans are entirely to blame, because controlling a drone isn’t the most […]

New tactile sensor could enable people with prostheses feel subtle touch Could you perceive the touch of an ant’s antenna on your fingertip? This new tactile sensor can, and its inventors report that it could one day be integrated into prostheses to give wearers a super-human sense of touch. The sensor converts pressure from touch to electric signals that, theoretically, could be perceived by the brain. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Ningbo, Zhenhai described their invention yesterday in the journal Science Robotics.  […]

When we open our eyes in the morning and take in that first scene of the day, we don’t give much thought to the fact that our brain is processing the objects within our field of view with great efficiency and that it is compensating for a lack of information about our surroundings — all in order to allow us to go about our daily functions. The glass of water you left on the nightstand when preparing for bed is now partially […]

Jehangir Amjad has done something few people can: He found a way to combine his favorite sport with his work. A longtime cricket enthusiast and player, he’s currently tackling an important statistical problem in the game — how to declare a winner when a match must end prematurely, due to weather or other circumstances. Given cricket’s global popularity, and the fact that matches can last for several hours, it’s a problem of great interest to fans and players alike. For […]

Grapes must be picked at the exact point of maturation, and its plant must have the appropriate intake of water during development so that the wine ends up with desired properties. Controlling those parameters is complicated and expensive, and few can afford to use pressure chambers that measure water potential. Source: Phys Org – Robotics

There are numerous approaches to robot guidance using machine vision techniques, such as stereo vision and photogrammetry, time of flight, structured light, light coding, and laser triangulation. Source: Robotics Tomorrow

Q&A: Kai-Fu Lee talks about AI, jobs, and the human heart When the former president of Google China talks about artificial intelligence and its potential to cause global upheaval, people listen. His hope is that enough people will listen to avert catastrophic disruption on three different scales: to the global balance of power, to national economies, and to human beings’ delicate souls. Kai-Fu Lee has been fascinated by AI since he was an eager computer science student applying to Carnegie […]