realcleverscience: Robots! Some interesting robotics news: 1. The makers of the roomba are making an
realcleverscience: Robots! Some interesting robotics news: 1. The makers of the roomba are making an automated lawnmower - though radio astronomers are afraid its wireless signals are gonna mess with their research. 2. Scientists have made fish-shaped microbots that may one day swim through our blood to clean up toxins and help deliver medicine. (Yes, this is real.) 3. New study finds that autonomous trucks could help lower grocery bills: “trucks without humans at the wheel could deliver savings to the haulage industry of between £19.5bn and £47.5bn over a decade, which if passed on to consumers could cut their bills by the equvialent of one and a half week’s grocery shopping every year.” 4. Hospitals have already started experimenting with robotic “nurses” to do things like deliver meals and medication, now it seems this is starting in the service industry as well, with some hotels experimenting with similarly functioning robots. 5. This robot’s doing a pretty decent job bartending (and helping around the house), while these robots are learning to bartend dynamically as a team (with applications beyond pouring spirits as well). 6. Speaking of smart robots, RoboHow is a sort of wikipedia for robots, providing step by step instructions on how to perform a task. The idea is that robots can be programmed to learn from this system, so one needn’t program each task (e.g. how to make waffles); instead, the robot can teach itself from the RoboHow instructions. Or, if the robot is experimenting to learn, it can share its findings on RoboHow, providing the basis for a new skill for another robot to learn from those notes. We are seriously on the precipice of a robotics revolution. -- source link
#science#robots