﻿USA Just Released Fully Functioning Female Robots
As the world grasps for the new age of rampant technological advancements and robotics,
USA is constantly coming up with new and newer technologies to maintain it’s
forerunner position in the world. Let’s take a look at the latest robotic happenings in
the great American sphere! * Uber Eats BUT Without Humans
Uber is set to roll out two pilot programs in Los
Angeles where Uber Eats deliveries will be completed without a human driver.
One program features sidewalk robots capable of deliveries of short distances;
another program will leverage self-driving vehicles to make Uber Eats deliveries.
So, next time you want to buy some peanuts and Cracker Jack at the old ball game,
you can get it through Uber Eats. The ride-hailing company announced Monday that it would offer Uber
Eats at Stadiums so fans can order food without having to wait in lines at concession stands.
A GIF highlighting the feature shows the app displaying a prompt that allows users to enter
their seat location. Fans can then view the closest concession stands and wait times.
Once an order is ready, users can just walk up to the concession stand and pick it up.
* Dyson Secretly Building Robots?! You probably know Dyson for their vacuums, or
maybe that too-powerful dryer you’ve tentatively stuck your hands in while waiting for a flight.
Maybe you’ve seen their hair dryers or fans. Dyson is a company that develops
premium products that move air around. Basically, if they don’t suck, they blow.
Recently, the firm expanded with a very strange face-mounted air purifier. While showcasing the
product, Dyson took pains to highlight some of the research behind it. It offered a peek into
their labs, providing some insight into a future of products that expand well beyond premium vacuum
cleaners. Turns out that includes robots. Recently at the International Conference on Robotics
and Automation in Philadelphia, Dyson revealed “secret robot prototypes” that are part of broader
research it’s managed to keep a tight lid on thus far. The reveal included some shots of a robot arm
that looks fairly similar to smaller industrial models from companies like ABB. On the face of it,
the big difference here is the attachments. This includes a hand with soft graspers that look an
awful lot like a human hand and, naturally, a vacuum attachment. As the firm notes, the
robotic stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere, exactly — a surprising amount of vision processing, AI and
autonomy go into something like a robot vacuum. But from a purely investment standpoint, this
could be much more than simple baby steps. * Antartica Penguin Colony Robot
Thousands of emperor penguins waddling around Antarctica have a stalker: A yellow rover tracking
their every move. ECHO is a remote-controlled ground robot that silently spies on the emperor
penguin colony in Atka Bay. The robot is being monitored by the Single Penguin Observation and
Tracking observatory. Both the SPOT observatory, which is also remote-operated through a satellite
link, and the ECHO robot capture photographs and videos of animal population in the Arctic.
The research is part of the Marine Animal Remote Sensing Lab (MARE), designed to measure the
health of the Antarctic marine ecosystem. The project, funded by the independent nonprofit
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, focuses on emperor penguins' place on the food chain.
In the Antarctic the food chain is relatively small and any change to a species that is
lower in the food chain could impact the health of the emperor penguin (a predator).
The team is hoping to learn more about how climate change might be impacting
the animals that live in the Antarctic. * Hyundai Plans $5B Investment into US Robotics
Hyundai Motor said recently that it plans to invest $5 billion in the U.S. by 2025
to further develop mobility technologies in areas like autonomous driving, robotics, and A.I. The
investment comes alongside the automaker’s announcement of a plan to spend $5.54 billion
to build its first dedicated electric vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities in the U.S.,
located outside of Savannah, Georgia. That facility is expected to open during the
first half of 2025 and is projected to have an annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles.
Some $10 billion of new investment will be used to further Hyundai’s “goal to provide
sustainable and smart mobility solutions,” the company said. Hyundai is aiming to be one of the
top three electric vehicle providers in the U.S. by 2026 and is one of several global automakers
establishing new supply chains and production facilities in America to take advantage of
what is expected to be a decade ahead of exponential growth for the category.
* Tiny Robot Crabs for Heart Surgery What walks like a crab, is as small as a flea
and can be remote-controlled? The latest gee-whiz wireless gizmo designed by robotics engineers.
The walking robot, created to look like a peekytoe crab, is the smallest-ever remote-controlled
walking robot, engineers at Northwestern University said. The millimeter-sized robot
is revealed in the May 25 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Science Robotics.
Research is experimental now, but the tiny crab robots can be made to crawl, twist, bend,
turn and jump, and could eventually lead to even smaller robots capable of repairs and other work.
“You might imagine micro-robots as agents to repair or assemble small structures or
machines in industry or as surgical assistants to clear clogged arteries,
to stop internal bleeding or to eliminate cancerous tumors – all in minimally
invasive procedures,” said John Rogers, a bioelectronics scientist who led the work,
in a press release about the development. * Helping Hand for Robotic Manipulator
MIT researchers have created an interactive design pipeline that streamlines and simplifies
the process of crafting a customized robotic hand with tactile sensors. Typically, a robotics expert
may spend months manually designing a custom manipulator, largely through trial-and-error.
Each iteration could require new parts that must be designed and tested from scratch. By contrast,
this new pipeline doesn’t require any manual assembly or specialized knowledge.
Akin to building with digital LEGOs, a designer uses the interface to construct a robotic
manipulator from a set of modular components that are guaranteed to be manufacturable.
The user can adjust the palm and fingers of the robotic hand,
tailoring it to a specific task, and then easily integrate tactile sensors into the final design.
Once the design is finished, the software automatically generates 3D printing and
machine knitting files for manufacturing the manipulator. Tactile sensors are incorporated
through a knitted glove that fits snugly over the robotic hand. These sensors enable
the manipulator to perform complex tasks, such as picking up delicate items or using tools.
“One of the most exciting things about this pipeline is that it makes design accessible
to a general audience. Rather than spending months or years working on a design, and putting a lot of
money into prototypes, you can have a working prototype in minutes,” says lead author Lara
Zlokapa, who will graduate this spring with her master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
* Cadets Should Be Ready for Robot, Drone-led Wars
A top U.S. military officer has challenged the next generation of Army soldiers on to prepare
America's military to fight future wars that may look little like the wars of today.
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, painted a grim picture of a
world that is becoming more unstable, with great powers intent on changing the global order.
And he told graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point that they will bear the
responsibility to make sure America is ready. "The potential for significant international
conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing," Milley said in prepared remarks.
"Whatever overmatch we enjoyed militarily for the last 70 years is closing quickly,
and the United States will be, in fact, we already are challenged in every domain of warfare, space,
cyber, maritime, air, and of course land." A The U.S. has already been rushing new, high-tech
drones and other weapons to the Ukrainian military — in some cases equipment that was just in the
early prototype phases. Weapons such as the shoulder-launched kamikaze Switchblade drones
are being used against the Russians, even as they are still evolving. And over the next
25 to 30 years, the fundamental character of war and its weapons will continue to change.
The U.S. military, Milley said, can't cling to concepts and weapons of old, but must urgently
modernize and develop the force and equipment that can deter or, if needed, win in a global conflict.
And the graduating officers, he said, will have to change the way U.S. forces think,
train and fight. As the Army's leaders of tomorrow, Milley said, the newly minted 2nd
lieutenants will be fighting with robotic tanks, ships and airplanes, and relying
on artificial intelligence, synthetic fuels, 3-D manufacturing and human engineering.
That’s all for this video, folks! See you another time!