How A.I. Tools Could Change India’s Elections
Avatars are addressing voters by name, in whichever of India’s many languages they speak. Experts see potential for misuse in a country already rife with disinformation. More details
New computer vision tool wins prize for social impact
A team of computer scientists working on two different problems — how to quickly detect damaged buildings in crisis zones and how to accurately estimate the size of bird flocks — recently announced an AI framework that can do both. The framework, called DISCount, blends the speed and massive data-crunching power of artificial intelligence with the reliability of human analysis to quickly deliver reliable estimates that can quickly pinpoint and count specific features from very large collections of images. More details
U.S. Commercial Drone Delivery Comes Closer
Stephen Cass: Hello and welcome to Fixing the Future, an IEEE Spectrum podcast where we look at concrete solutions to tough problems. I’m your host, Stephen Cass, a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. And before I start, I just want to tell you that you can get the latest coverage of some of Spectrum’s most important beats, including AI, climate change, and robotics, by signing up for one of our free newsletters. Just go to spectrum.ieee.org/newsletters to subscribe. We’ve been covering the drone delivery company Zipline in Spectrum for several years, and I do encourage listeners to check out our great onsite reporting from Rwanda in 2019 when we visited one of Zipline’s dispatch centers for delivering vital medical supplies into rural areas. But now it’s 2024, and Zipline is expanding into commercial drone delivery in the United States, including into urban areas, and hitting some recent milestones. Here to Continue reading U.S. Commercial Drone Delivery Comes Closer
Boston Dynamics’ Robert Playter on the New Atlas
Boston Dynamics has just introduced a new Atlas humanoid robot, replacing the legendary hydraulic Atlas and intended to be a commercial product. This is huge news from the company that has spent the last decade building the most dynamic humanoids that the world has ever seen, and if you haven’t read our article about the announcement (and seen the video!), you should do that right now. We’ve had about a decade of pent-up questions about an all-electric productized version of Atlas, and we were lucky enough to speak with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter to learn more about where this robot came from and how it’s going to make commercial humanoid robots (finally) happen. Robert Playter was the Vice President of Engineering at Boston Dynamics starting in 1994, which I’m pretty sure was back when Boston Dynamics still intended to be a modeling and simulation company rather than a robotics Continue reading Boston Dynamics’ Robert Playter on the New Atlas
Hello, Electric Atlas
Yesterday, Boston Dynamics bid farewell to the iconic Atlas humanoid robot. Or, the hydraulically-powered version of Atlas, anyway—if you read between the lines of the video description (or even just read the actual lines of the video description), it was pretty clear that although hydraulic Atlas was retiring, it wasn’t the end of the Atlas humanoid program at Boston Dynamics. In fact, Atlas is already back, and better than ever. Today, Boston Dynamics is introducing a new version of Atlas that’s all-electric. It’s powered by batteries and electric actuators, no more messy hydraulics. It exceeds human performance in terms of both strength and flexibility. And for the first time, Boston Dynamics is calling this humanoid robot a product. We’ll take a look at everything that Boston Dynamics is announcing today, and have even more detail in this Q&A with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter. Boston Dynamics’ new electric humanoid has Continue reading Hello, Electric Atlas
Boston Dynamics Retires Its Legendary Humanoid Robot
In a new video posted today, Boston Dynamics is sending off its hydraulic Atlas humanoid robot. “For almost a decade,” the video description reads, “Atlas has sparked our imagination, inspired the next generations of roboticists, and leapt over technical barriers in the field. Now it’s time for our hydraulic Atlas robot to kick back and relax.” Hydraulic Atlas has certainly earned some relaxation; Boston Dynamics has been absolutely merciless with its humanoid research program. This isn’t a criticism—sometimes being merciless to your hardware is necessary to push the envelope of what’s possible. And as spectators, we just just get to enjoy it, and this highlight reel includes unseen footage of Atlas doing things well along with unseen footage of Atlas doing things not so well. Which, let’s be honest, is what we’re all really here for. There’s so much more to the history of Atlas than this video shows. Atlas Continue reading Boston Dynamics Retires Its Legendary Humanoid Robot
Microsoft Makes High-Stakes Play in Tech Cold War With Emirati A.I. Deal
Microsoft said it would invest $1.5 billion in G42, an Emirati company with ties to China, as Washington and Beijing maneuver to secure tech influence in the Gulf. More details
Ready for a Chatbot Version of Your Favorite Instagram Influencers?
Instagram is testing a program that offers its top influencers the ability to interact with their followers over direct messages using a chatbot. More details
A.I. Has a Measurement Problem
Which A.I. system writes the best computer code or generates the most realistic image? Right now, there’s no easy way to answer those questions. More details
Star Trek’s Holodeck recreated using ChatGPT and video game assets
Star Trek’s Holodeck is no longer just science fiction. Using AI, engineers have created a tool that can generate 3D environments, prompted by everyday language. More details