Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110125/03205712814/dailydirt-better-robots-keep-coming.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110125/03205712814/dailydirt-better-robots-keep-coming.shtml

DARPA's robotics programs have been developing cool and useful robots for decades, and one of its latest demonstrations is a set of robotic hands (and arms) that can change a tire (almost). This bot won't be replacing F1 pit crews any time soon, since it hasn't quite mastered putting the tire back on (and it's painfully slow), but it shows that robot hands are almost ready to do some everyday tasks without human supervision. [url]

Mechanical computers aren't too common nowadays, but they could make a comeback in artificial muscles. Robot muscles that can respond reflexively to stimuli might lead to better robots that can navigate dynamic environments. [url]

Boston Dynamics' BigDog robot is almost creepy in how it moves like an animal -- hitting that Uncanny Valley of robotic movement. Recently, BigDog has been given a head/neck appendage that can hold and throw heavy things, adding to its Frankenstein-look of a cobbled together collection of robot body parts. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110125/03205712814 Thu, 4 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110105/20125212539/dailydirt-fighting-next-pandemic.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110105/20125212539/dailydirt-fighting-next-pandemic.shtml H7N9 strain that has no vaccine (yet!) and is starting to infect and kill people (instead of sticking to birds). We're just about coming to the tenth anniversary of SARS, and we're still creating over 100 million flu vaccines every year using egg embryos -- a process that takes months, time that we might not have if a really serious flu strain spreads quickly across the globe. Here are a few projects that are making vaccines more quickly.

• Tobacco plants can be made transgenic in order to grow vaccines for us, and they've been shown to be able to produce over a million doses of vaccine in a few weeks. DARPA has a challenge out to anyone who can produce vaccines at a rate of 10 million doses in a month. [url]
• Genetically modified tobacco plants can be grown and harvested by robots -- producing vaccine proteins very quickly and efficiently -- without the need for human labor. These robots can grow tens of thousands of tobacco plants in a batch, and it's likely only a matter of time before researchers can get these plant factories to produce other kinds of pharmaceuticals. [url]
• Flublok relies on insects to grow flu vaccines for us -- a process that has been used for other kinds of vaccines, but has only started to be used for the flu. Flublok has already been FDA approved, so it will be available to patients for the 2013-2014 flu season. [url]
• Bananas could potentially be grown with edible vaccines, but the regulatory hurdles for development have caused researchers to focus on non-edible vaccines grown in other plants (like tobacco). Bananas grown for edible vaccines might still be viable for treating fish or other animals. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110105/20125212539 Mon, 2 Jul 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101230/02532612467/dailydirt-whos-going-to-clean-up-all-space-junk.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101230/02532612467/dailydirt-whos-going-to-clean-up-all-space-junk.shtml

DARPA is working on a project called Phoenix which aims to create new satellites that can cannibalize older satellites in orbit for parts. DARPA wants to demonstrate robotic satellites that can salvage reusable parts such as antennas from obsolete satellites in geosynchronous orbit, but there are quite a few technological and logistical hurdles to overcome. [url]

China's space program has achieved several significant milestones, but its anti-satellite capabilities could turn low earth orbit into an unusable space junkyard. In 2007, China shot down one of its own weather satellites and created a cloud of space debris. [url]

One proposal to reduce space debris in low earth orbit involves deploying tons of micron-scale tungsten dust in space -- which would collide with other debris and slow down the space junk so that it burns up in the upper atmosphere. About 100 tons of cosmic dust from micrometeorites gets captured by Earth's gravity on a daily basis, but it's too spread out to have a significant effect on man-made space junk. Unfortunately, deploying 40 tons of man-made tungsten dust, at about $1000 per pound, is a fairly expensive mission... [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101230/02532612467 Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100505/1758359314/dailydirt-creating-virtual-artificial-brains.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100505/1758359314/dailydirt-creating-virtual-artificial-brains.shtml

One *million* [/Dr. Evil voice] ARM processor cores are being hooked together to create a parallel computer called SpiNNaker that will try to simulate the human brain. Given that the human brain has about 100 billion neurons with 1,000 trillion connections between them all, this project is less than 1% of the way towards a full brain simulation. [url]

Growing a brain in a petri dish from rat neurons might be an interesting approach to building a brain de novo. So far, researchers have created a network of about 60 rat neurons which seem to be able to sustain activity for about 12 seconds. [url]

Folks from IBM are working on cognitive computing like the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project with some DARPA funding to re-create a billion artificial neurons. Trying to beat the power efficiency of the human brain isn't an easy task. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100505/1758359314 Mon, 5 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100323/1032368677/dailydirt-crack-puzzle-score-some-cash-cool-job.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100323/1032368677/dailydirt-crack-puzzle-score-some-cash-cool-job.shtml

DARPA's Shredder Challenge has been solved, and the winner is the team "All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S." Now the companies that make shredders will have to create a challenge that'll make reconstructing shredded documents even harder... [url]

If you have a good idea about how to augment a camera to capture more than a picture, submit it here. The deadline is December 8th, so hurry up! [url]

The next James Bond is apparently supposed to apply online and solve a puzzle for the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Just don't break any laws to crack the code, or else you're disqualified (or worse?). [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100323/1032368677 Tue, 8 Nov 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100601/0426459641/dailydirt-look-up-look-down-all-around-hey-satellite.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100601/0426459641/dailydirt-look-up-look-down-all-around-hey-satellite.shtml

DARPA’s Phoenix program wants to turn orbiting space debris into usable satellites. Great! A step towards creating a Nomad satellite that will have to be talked into a logic trap for self-destruction... [url]

There's a pollution problem caused by putting satellites into space, and the space junk is building up without many good ways to clean it up. Outer space is unimaginably vast, but the amount of it that is useful for geosynchronous orbit is finite (and becoming harder to use now). [url]

Autonomous satellites and spacecraft are learning to control themselves in a solar system simulator. The project actually sounds like a really expensive version of Logo and Turtle. [url]

To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100601/0426459641 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110902/04473715792/dailydirt-more-manned-spaceflight.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110902/04473715792/dailydirt-more-manned-spaceflight.shtml are still a lot of plans and desire for manned space exploration to resume again. Here are just a few projects that might get off the ground.

• DARPA has $500,000 in seed money to get folks thinking about interstellar space travel. The 100-Year Starship Study will encourage discussion about what it would take to make a trip to another star system, and a lot of the proposals will be science fiction for a very long time. [url]
• The US Air Force has a "secret" mini space shuttle that might be able to take astronauts into space, and return them just like the retired space shuttle used to. The X-37B space plane could spawn a larger X-37C model that is twice a long, but the budget for producing these vehicles isn't exactly guaranteed. [url]
• The concept of using nuclear reactions isn't a particularly new idea for space propulsion, but NASA engineers are designing aneutronic fusion reactor schemes that could be useful for shooting satellites across our solar system more efficiently. Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe... [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110902/04473715792 Tue, 4 Oct 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110908/23440015860/dailydirt-games-arent-just-fun-anymore.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110908/23440015860/dailydirt-games-arent-just-fun-anymore.shtml genius who can unlock the ninth chevron. Here are a few more examples.

• The game Foldit gets players to predict the structure of protein molecules, and it actually helped solve the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme in about 3 weeks. The cheat codes for the game probably helped... [url]
• DARPA has a game that lets players track down submarines -- essentially teaching software for autonomous anti-submarine robots while they play. Sounds a bit like The Last Starfighter, but for submarines. [url]
• From some of the same folks who brought you reCAPTCHAs, there's a game that helps you learn another language, and at the same time, help translate websites into almost any other common language. "I am a jelly donut" -- for everyone! [url]
• To find some cool online games, check out what StumbleUpon has found to play. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110908/23440015860 Tue, 2 Aug 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110712/15303615068/dailydirt-bespoke-cars.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110712/15303615068/dailydirt-bespoke-cars.shtml

Converting a classic VW bug into an all-electric vehicle sounds a bit pricey at $25,000. But the battery pack could outlast the vehicle and also serve as a backup power supply for your house? [url]

What do you get when you combine the front end of a 1957 Chevrolet, the mid-section of a 1958 Impala, and the bold tail fins of a 1959 Chevy? A pretty funky-looking car, apparently. [url]

Local Motors has built the first crowd-sourced military vehicle, the XC2V, in just a few weeks. DARPA sponsored this "proof of principle project" to demonstrate how quickly a new military vehicle could be prototyped. [url]

If you want to re-paint your car on a really tight budget, you could actually do it for about $50. Rustoleum, FTW! [url]

To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110712/15303615068 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110524/13572414416/dailydirt-computers-are-getting-to-know-you-getting-to-know-all-about-you.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110524/13572414416/dailydirt-computers-are-getting-to-know-you-getting-to-know-all-about-you.shtml

Google is sponsoring an AI project to develop an algorithm for minimizing regret in decision-making. So basically, it'll spit out advice like: "the only way to win is not to play" and "liquor before beer." [url]

Researchers from New Jersey have a gender-analysis algorithm that tries to determine an author's gender (male/female/neuter) from just 50 words of text he/she writes. And the researchers are preparing to set this algorithm loose on Twitter and Facebook updates. [url]

DARPA is looking to create a C3PO-like robot to translate various languages for soldiers. It won't actually walk around, but it will be annoying and cowardly... [url]

To discover more interesting AI-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110524/13572414416 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110112/10400112640/dailydirt-more-robots-inspired-animals.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110112/10400112640/dailydirt-more-robots-inspired-animals.shtml bio-inspired robots that could fly around. But walking can be even more challenging if the terrain is rough enough. Here are a few more robots that have been designed to run around on the ground.

• Some researchers are looking at invertebrates as a model for robot locomotion. Worms, crabs, lobsters, insects and arachnids are all being studied to re-create the rhythmic nerve impulses that could produce autonomous robots that can explore unfamiliar terrain autonomously. [url]
• Another hexapod robot named HECTOR mimics the body of a stick insect. Yikes. More creepy spider-like robots are on the way. [url]
• Boston Dynamics is working on a robot called Cheetah that will eventually be able to run as fast (or faster) than the actual animal. DARPA is funding this project to create bots that can outrun humans. [url]
• To discover more interesting robot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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