Google Artificial Intelligence

Google's artificial intelligence, DeepMind, has figured out how to play and master a handful of Atari video games. Partnered with Oxford University, Google developed an AI unit capable of learning and bettering itself over time. ”with its algorithm can not only learn how to play computer games from scratch - but go on to ace them after a few hours of practice.” This self taught AI not is not only capable of learning from past mistakes, it also has the capability to develop new tactics based on them.  At first, the algorithm struggles to return the ball but, after a few hundred plays, it eventually learns the best strategy to beat the game: break a tunnel into the side of the brick wall and then aim the ball behind the wall.” This is one step forward for science as it shows that we can create more delicate robots implemented with artificial intelligence, capable of distinguishing right from wrong and that are able to perform more delicate tasks.

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2015/02/26/24079545/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-deepmind-artificial-intelligence-aces-atari-gaming-challenge/

A Minute’s Charge

A tedious task most young adults face nowadays is having to charge their phones on the dial. In certain cases, this repeated charging session can happen more than once a day depending on the user. There is a plethora of different smart phone devices that have varying uses. Some of these uses can list from job-related tasks/quotas to daunting social media platforms (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat). While many devices have a battery interfaces that can last through the day, there are plenty of other devices that do not. Battery interfaces have become a hot issue for all smartphone makers alike. As communal productivity increases, the need for technology increases too. These smartphone makers are amidst the different options they can go into in terms of steady performance and task endurance. It wasn’t until later last year where a unique Israeli company showed potential in finding the solution to smartphone battery interfaces once and for all.

The StoreDot is a by-product of presumably unrelated research made by the nanotechnology department at the Tel Aviv University. While looking into the Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers discovered a peculiar peptide molecule that has high capacitance (ability to hold an electric charge). Batteries utilizing the peptide molecule absorb electric charges faster than previous smartphone batteries. Another aspect to look into is the battery’s capacity. Interestingly enough, the overall capacity for these peptide batteries are smaller. The current state of the StoreDot cannot be used in existing smartphones and tablets due to its low capacity. However, that doesn’t stop the StoreDot's company leaders from further developing their much-needed battery. The need for modification of these battery interfaces has been identified as well. The company had already discussed the future of utilizing the StoreDot in future smartphone contenders with more than fifteen different smartphone makers. Of these makers, one of two companies hopes to use of this technology in future device by the Christmas of year 2016.

With the addition of the battery alone, the company needs to create a special charger and handset component that can easily sync into the fast-charging feature the peptide battery StoreDot has. The addition of these select pieces can cause the phone’s cost to increase. This increase would be approximately $50 USD. It was suggested, by the company, that many buyers would not mind paying the additional fees necessary for a strong battery charge. This poses a question: Who would not be willing to switch?

Read more at: http://tiny.cc/p35mux

Car and Vehicle Safety Programming

The partial control or autonomy of vehicles is pretty prevalent today and we know these features as co-piloting in planes or cruising in cars. Google, one of the leading search engines, is working on a prototype of a car that does not require a steering wheel. Their aim is to create a driverless car in which technology is in control. Safety programming is involved when we do hand over our control to technology. The company has to take into consideration the factors that apply such as human interaction. This is what the Professor Zilberstein from University of Massachusetts Amherst tries to do. He obtains the elements of human behavior and encodes them into computer programs that the technology can read. An experiment Professor Zilberstein conducted involved semi-autonomous cars with drivers with varying levels of fatigue. In this scenario he utilized an algorithm that he created which favored roads that let the vehicle drive autonomously when the control is transferred from the man to the car. His algorithm gave drivers a better sense of safety because the vehicle would avoid roads like highways as they were fatigued. Acting with the support of The National Science Foundation, Zilberstein along with several AI researchers hope to further advance the studies of smart technology as they already integrate themselves into our societies. Studies such as this put to use decades worth of efforts and labor making changes in the world more prominent.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150204111952.htm

3D Printed Concept Cars

3D printing is the seemingly magical process of making physical objects from three-dimensional computer models. You can design and produce almost anything through 3D printing and students at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have even built urban solar electric cars. They have designed a car with an innovative body shell consisting of 150 parts using a 3D printer called the NV(8) which will race in the Urban Concept category at this year’s Shell Eco-marathon Asia which focuses on creating a prototype that is both fuel-efficient and road-worthy. The competition challenges students to build a vehicle that can travel the furthest distance while using the least amount of energy. The students at NTU have also built the NV(9), a three-wheeled racer that can execute sharp turns with little speed loss due to its motorcycle racing inspired tilting ability.

These two cars were built over the span of a year with the goal of highest fuel efficiency. The students built these cars from scratch and faced a couple of difficulties. One of which was the assembly of the cars. The shell of the car was produced in different pieces by a number of 3D printers at the university and other sponsor companies. Creations like this really put into perspective just how revolutionary 3D printing will be.

Link to original article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150203094149.htm

Gimball: Is it SUPPOSED to crash?

There has been astounding, technological progress in terms of vehicles and drones sensing, avoiding, and navigating around sects of obstacles. A new innovation has recently sprung up, which does the exact opposite: This mechanism intentionally collides with obstacles. Swiss company called ‘Flyability’ has recently proposed a novel-like product: The Gimball. The Gimball is a drone consisting of two rotors placed dead-center of a meshed, soft globe. The meshed, outer fractal interchanges in independent motions when compared to the nucleic drone in the center. Due to this independent rotation, the drone is able to bounce off a platitude of different obstacles, while maintaining it’s altitude. This independent rotation is quite unique, because the Gimball actually uses the collision between different materials as a navigating push. When the drone is given a specific endpoint location, it will roll along and steer way off of ceilings and walls in order to find a manageable path towards the endpoint.

In the words of Adrien Briod ( Flyability’s co-founder and CTO), “The goal of this flying robot is to reproduce the amazing capabilities of insects”. Utilizing the term of biomimicry (The design/production of materials modeled after the movements of biological entities), the company hopes to utilize the internal structure of insects that is able to collide into things naturally and continue to fly undamaged when descending.

The company envisions the drone “Gimball” for dangerous indoor situations that need third-party assistance. Some of these situations could be fire, chemical leaks, or nuclear meltdowns. In case of high-danger emergencies, a “Gimball” mechanism can be deployed in order to search and locate any potential survivors, or to determine whether or not going into a particular environment is too dangerous for a human to intervene. I have to say, this little drone can end up making a huge difference for safety precautions in the near future.

Read More At: http://tiny.cc/a1m4tx

The Blind's Insight on the Brain

Can the blind see? From years before the 21st Century it would've been a ridiculous statement to even ponder upon. However, the technology today permits the unbelievable to happen. Just as the bionic eye allows a man to see through the conversion of images into electrical pulses, the Sensory Substitution Device (SSD), used in the Amedi Lab in the Hebrew University, does the same by converting other senses, such as the sense of feelings and hearings into images that the blind can view.

With practice, the blind would have the opportunity to read words. The discovery led to a question of whether the sudden implementation of sight via a foreign source such as the SSD, would stimulate the same areas in the brain reserved for reading texts for a blind as it does for a normal person. Scientists immediately got to uncovering the problem by using fMRIs to study the brains of the blind people as they utilize the SSD to identify objects through other means like hearing. Scientists discovered that instead of vision identifying the letters, it is actually the responsibility of specialized compartments in the brain that interprets  the recognition of letters.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150123081713.htm

The Apple Watch

The multi-billion dollars company, Apple, managed to surprise us once more. The creators of the IPhone introduced their latest technology, said to be released sometimes this year, the Apple Watch. They worked on keeping the retro usage of a watch, with the crown which in old watches were meant to set the time and date,  while focusing on making the device as technologically advanced as possible. “Every new product we’ve introduced has been defined by a unique input device. With Apple Watch, it’s the Digital Crown.”  They worked on keeping a mechanical use for retro lovers, while implementing new usage for it. Instead of the Crown adjusting the date and time, the Crown now scroll up and down to select different functions with the watch itself, zooming in and out, or going straight to the home screen.

Next, because it is connected to your IPhone, the Apple Watch can be used to keep up with schedule, Emails, messages, notifications, and more. It makes the need for checking your phone every 5 seconds futile. It also has a very convenient and updated  new and improved Siri on the go, Siri is now closer than ever. Simply raise your hand and greet Siri or press and hold the Digital Crown and you can get step by step directions. The Apple watch is set to keep the company’s legacy; better technology in a smaller device.

 

http://www.apple.com/watch/technology/