Meet Aida, The In-Car Robot Who Will Take The Stress Out Of Driving

Aida is embedded into the car's dashboard. The technology is being developed by MIT and Volkswagen

From The Daily Mail:

Driving could soon be a far more pleasant experience thanks to a personal in-car robot being developed by researchers.

The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA) will be able to tell you the best route home based on traffic reports, remind you to pick up petrol and suggest places you may like to visit.

The robot, which sits on the dashboard, is being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in collaboration with Volkswagen.

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Robots That Care

Image: With extroverts, robots can speak forcefully; with introverts, they are more soothing.

From The New Yorker:

Advances in technological therapy.

Born in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia, Maja Matarić originally wanted to study languages and art. After she and her mother moved to the United States, in 1981, her uncle, who had immigrated some years earlier, pressed her to concentrate on computers. As a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matarić wrote software that helped robots to independently navigate around obstacles placed randomly in a room. For her doctoral dissertation, she developed a robotic shepherd capable of corralling a herd of twenty robots.

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ANIMAL ROBOTS: Marine Machines Made in Nature's Image

From National Geographic:

October 26, 2009--If it looks like a fish and swims like a fish, it could be a robot--such as the University of Bath's Gymnobot (pictured), inspired by an Amazonian knifefish.

Researchers worldwide are developing robots that look and act like aquatic creatures. That's because biomimetic gadgets--bots that take inspiration from nature--are often more efficient than their clunkier counterparts.

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Robot Army Could Explore Space, Researchers Say

From Discover Magazine:

Instead of spending time and money planning a manned mission to Mars, why not send an army of robots into space to do all the work? A fleet of robots could be deployed to explore far-away planets, according to researchers at Caltech’s Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory.

From the Telegraph:

Robotic airships and satellites will fly above the surface of the distant world, commanding squadrons of wheeled rovers and floating robot boats…The systems will transform planetary exploration, says [Wolfgang] Fink, who envisages the cybernetic adventurers mapping the land and seascapes of Saturn’s moon, Titan—believed to have lakes of standing liquid—as well as closer planetary neighbors like Mars.

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Fastest Supercomputer in the World Models Dark Matter, HIV Family Tree Simultaneously

Los Alamos' Road Runner Super Computer Meep meep. courtesy of the Department of Energy

From Popular Science:

Petaflop power in action.

In November of last year, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory switched on Roadrunner, the world's fastest computer. IBM and the Department of Energy built the machine to model nuclear explosions, but two new studies, both released today, are proof that the computer's massive power has been at least as devoted to peaceful science as to simulating thermonuclear weapons.

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Industrial Robot Hones Virtual Autopsies

Getting under the skin, virtually (Image: University of Bern)

From New Scientist:

THE small industrial robot that dominates the room is in many ways much like any other. A robotic arm smoothly wields grippers and probes - always accurate and never tired. But rather than working on cars or computers, this robot is processing human corpses.

A team of forensic pathologists at the University of Bern in Switzerland reckon it could make autopsies more accurate and also less distressing for families.

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Quantum Computers Could Tackle Enormous Linear Equations

From Science News:

Trillions of variables may prove no match for envisioned systems.

A new algorithm may give quantum computers a new, practical job: quickly solving monster linear equations. Such problems are at the heart of complex processes such as image and video processing, genetic analyses and even Internet traffic control. The new work, published October 7 in Physical Review Letters, may dramatically expand the range of potential uses for quantum computers.

The new quantum algorithm is “head-smackingly good,” says computer scientist Daniel Spielman of Yale University. “It is both very powerful, and very natural. I read the abstract and said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”

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