I Sing the Body Electric
Prosthetic technology is advancing rapidly, but not without sticking points.
Image Processing 101
Sher Minn Chong wrote a good introductory to image processing in Python:
In this article, I will go through some basic building blocks of image processing, and share some code and approaches to basic how-tos. All code written is in Python and uses OpenCV , a powerful image processing and computer vision library...
... When we’re trying to gather information about an image, we’ll first need to break it up into the features we are interested in. This is called segmentation. Image segmentation is the process representing an image in segments to make it more meaningful for easier to analyze3.
Thresholding
One of the simplest ways of segmenting an image isthresholding. The basic idea of thresholding is to replace each pixel in an image with a white pixel if a channel value of that pixel exceeds a certain threshold... ( full tutorial ) ( iPython Notebook )
User Case Study: MapleSim Used To Speed Up Development Of High-fidelity Robotic Manipulator Models
Using MapleSim, engineers created multiple models of robotic manipulator in time previously required to create just one model.
Postdoc's Trump Twitterbot Uses AI To Train Itself On Transcripts From Trump Speeches
From MIT:
This week a postdoc at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) developed a Trump Twitterbot that Tweets out remarkably Trump-like statements, such as “I’m what ISIS doesn’t need.” The bot is based on an artificial-intelligence algorithm that is trained on just a few hours of transcripts of Trump’s victory speeches and debate performances...
... ( MIT article ) ( twitter feed )
Using Drones for Aerial Photography
If you can envision a shot, the drone can probably help achieve the photograph or video.
How This New Drone Can Track Your Every Move
Lisa Eadicicco for Time: Drones can already follow professional snowboarders as they speed down a slope or keep up with mountain bikers racing through rocky terrain. But drone-equipped athletes are usually required to keep their phone nearby, since the aerial devices often rely on handheld devices’ GPS signal to track a person’s location.
DJI’s newest drone, the Phantom 4, claims to eliminate that hassle. The company says the Phantom 4’s new ActiveTrack feature uses the drone’s front-facing sensors to see and track a target.
“Being able to learn about the object, as it squats, as it rotates, as it turns, is really complicated,” says Michael Perry, DJI’s director of strategic partnerships. “When you’re flying toward something, you have to make a decision to fly around it, fly above it, or stop. And to train the system to learn those different functions is also a big challenge.” Cont'd...
Boomers at Work: Retirement vs. Working … It's Complicated
A lot of really smart people in technology took Confucius advice, "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life."
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
We believe that RPA will be a game changer and that automating repeatable, simple tasks will free up employees to do higher-value work.
Roving robot 'ground drones' take to streets for deliveries
MARK BLUNDEN for Evening Standard: A delivery robot tested among the crowds of central London is set to start being deployed in the capital.
The self-driving, battery-powered box on wheels is poised to undertake local delivery trials in Greenwich following 3,000 hours of testing.
The robots by Starship Technologies have been described as “ground drones” and were created by former Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis.
Their invention is expected to be popular at smaller local businesses, such as bakeries and corner shops, that could send out the robot containing goods in its tub body costing only a pound or two. Cont'd...
Japanese Firm To Open World's First Robot-run Farm
Spread , a vegetable producer, said industrial robots would carry out all but one of the tasks needed to grow the tens of thousands of lettuces it produces each day at its vast indoor farm in Kameoka, Kyoto prefecture, starting from mid-2017.
The robots will do everything from re-planting young seedlings to watering, trimming and harvesting crops.
The innovation will boost production from 21,000 lettuces a day to 50,000 a day, the firm said, adding that it planned to raise that figure to half a million lettuces daily within five years.
“The seeds will still be planted by humans, but every other step, from the transplanting of young seedlings to larger spaces as they grow to harvesting the lettuces, will be done automatically,” said JJ Price, Spread’s global marketing manager.
The new farm – an extension of its existing Kameoka farm – will improve efficiency and reduce labour costs by about half. The use of LED lighting means energy costs will be slashed by almost a third, and about 98% of the water needed to grow the crops will be recycled.
The farm, measuring about 4,400 sq metres, will have floor-to-ceiling shelves where the produce is grown... ( cont'd )
DARPA - FLA Program Takes Flight
They may not have zoomed flawlessly around obstacles like the Millennium Falcon did as it careened through the hull of a crashed Star Destroyer in Star Wars VII. But the sensor-loaded quadcopters that recently got tested in a cluttered hangar in Massachusetts did manage to edge their way around obstacles and achieve their target speeds of 20 meters per second. Moreover, the quadcopters were unmanned … and real. Thus was the initial phase of data collection for DARPA's Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program recently deemed an encouraging success.
DARPA’s FLA program aims to develop and test algorithms that could reduce the amount of processing power, communications, and human intervention needed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to accomplish low-level tasks, such as navigation around obstacles in a cluttered environment. If successful, FLA would reduce operator workload and stress and allow humans to focus on higher-level supervision of multiple formations of manned and unmanned platforms as part of a single system. Cont'd...
Getting Started with Collaborative Robots - Part 5 - Get Management On Board with Robots
Even if you are part of management yourself, you will need to justify the integration of the robot with solid arguments. We suggest the "Scotty maneuver": under-promise, over-deliver!
Robots That Help Keep A Winning Smile
Nanodentistry could be the future of dentistry.
SkyTech 2016 Post-Event Report
With SkyTech wrapped up again for another year take a look at the highlights from this years conference.
"It's quite large:" Exact Automation showcases world's largest robot
JULIE COLLINS for Fox 6 Now: The world's largest robot is here in Milwaukee. But folks looking to get a glimpse of the giant piece of technology better act fast.With precision and ease, this robot can pick up an 800-pound motorcycle!
"Well you can't help but be astounded by it, quite frankly. It's quite large," said James Schneberger with New Berlin Plastics, Inc.
And it's right here in Milwaukee at Exact Automation. The company purchased the machine from FANUC -- a Japanese company. It arrived in November, but Exact Automation had work to do before it got here.
"We had to pour new concrete in the building. We had to put 100,000 pound of concrete to prepare as a base for this robot because it weighs so much," said Exact Automation Owner Jim Mevis.
Schneberger works around robots -- but nothing this large. Weighing in at 26,000 pounds, Schneberger is astonished at its size. Cont'd...
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