Yesterday, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang made an extensive series of announcements at the GTC conference, almost exclusively designed to bolster the capabilities of generative AI. Among these announcements was the introduction of the NVIDIA Blackwell platform, a computing system specifically developed to enhance the performance of generative AI, particularly in managing large language models with trillions of parameters.
Bots & Brains
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At ETH Zurich, researchers have enhanced the capabilities of ANYmal, a quadrupedal robot, enabling it to perform parkour and navigate through challenging terrains, such as those encountered in building sites and disaster zones. Previously competent in traversing the terrain of Swiss hiking trails, ANYmal has now been trained in parkour, an athletic activity that involves overcoming obstacles often found in urban settings.
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Earlier this month OpenAI was one of the main investors in humanoid robot maker Figure AI. Now Figure has released a video of the capabilities their robot has when combined with ChatGPT.
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A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new method for ensuring the safety of robot trajectories, offering a significant improvement over existing techniques. This advancement is particularly important in scenarios where robots operate in close proximity to humans or in confined spaces, such as domestic environments or commercial kitchens.
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A team of students from the Alta Scuola Politecnica, a joint two-year excellence program of the Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino, in collaboration with Wavision s.r.l., a Politecnico di Torino spin-off, are developing an innovative solution to address food contamination in packaged products. The project, known as Wavisionproject, employs microwave sensors and Machine Learning algorithms to detect contaminants that could compromise product quality and consumer health.
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Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a robotic hip exoskeleton, a new tool designed to aid in stroke rehabilitation and improve walking function in patients. This innovation, which has been detailed in a study published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, stands out for its potential to enhance gait rehabilitation methods, making them more effective and accessible.
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The challenge of human and robot interaction
As robots become more ubiquitous and more intelligent, more people will interact with them. But how do you design these complex systems in such a way that humans can comfortably interact with those machines? Preceding a workshop on this theme at ERF 2024, Rocking Robots discussed human-robot interaction with Valeria Villani, a researcher at the University of Modena.
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Humanoid robot maker Figure AI announced the completion of a $675 million Series B funding round, resulting in a valuation of $2.6 billion. This funding round included investments from a range of entities including Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos through Bezos Expeditions, Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest.
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Virtual Incision Corporation, a Nebraska-based medical device company, announced that its MIRA Surgical System (MIRA) has been authorized for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This authorization marks the introduction of the first miniaturized robotic-assisted surgery (miniRAS) device into the medical field. The MIRA system is specifically approved for adult colectomy procedures, a type of surgery that involves the removal of part or all of the colon.
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USC researchers have created a low-cost, accessible learning kit to help college and high school students build their own “robot friend.” Students can personalize the robot’s “body,” program the robot to mimic their head posture, and learn about AI ethics and fairness in an engaging, accessible way.