how is it possible !!! Meet Nadine, a robot much capable of human emotions
NEW TECHNOLOGY
Watch: Meet Nadine,
the 'emotionally intelligent' companion robot
She's here to look after you.
What will robots look like in the future? Will
they retain obvious signs of their artificial nature, or will they seamlessly
blend in with people to such an extent that we might have difficulty telling
them apart from living, breathing humans?
If Nadine – a new social and 'emotionally
intelligent' robot from scientists in Singapore – is a sign of things to come,
realistic-looking humanoid machines might just have the edge over their
obviously artificial counterparts. How come? Because the physical resemblance
to ordinary people could help us interact with a machine in a more natural way,
whether at home, at work, or even if it were to look after us when we get old.
"Over the past four years, our team at
[Nanyang Technological University] have been fostering cross-disciplinary
research in social robotics technologies," said Nadia Thalmann, "to transform a
virtual human, from within a computer, into a physical being that is able to
observe and interact with other humans."
By employing linguistics and psychology in
addition to conventional robotics fields such as engineering and computer
science, the researchers have sought to blur the distinction between human and
machine. Nadine – which is designed to look like a physical doppelgänger of a
younger Thalmann – isn't exactly meant to fool us into thinking it's a real
woman, but it's supposed to help us relate to 'her' as if the robot were any
other ordinary person.
"This is somewhat like a real companion
that is always with you and conscious of what is happening," said Thalmann. "So in future, these
socially intelligent robots could be like C–3PO… with knowledge of language and
etiquette."
With soft skin and fairly convincing-looking
hair, Nadine is a pretty eerie emulation of an actual person, especially when
the face is moving, as you can see in the video above. Of course, those vacant
eyes could use a little work, and the robot's static, empty look in between
actions gives away that this isn't a real person.
Still, these are the kinds of things the
researchers are working on, and if some of Nadine's obvious 'tells' can be
eroded, it's possible that people interacting with the robot would be more at
ease, rather than less. Especially when it's programmed with a sense of
personality and 'emotions', and is designed to remember you and details of
previous conversations.
Nadine currently acts in the role of a
'receptionist' at Nanyang Technological University – a calling we've seen
other, somewhat more conspicuous robots fulfil. But
according to the researchers, this kind of technology could make the most sense
as domestic companions in the home, especially for those who need help in
caring for themselves.
"As countries worldwide face challenges
of an ageing population, social robots can be one solution to address the
shrinking workforce, become personal companions for children and the elderly at
home, and even serve as a platform for healthcare services in future,"
said Thalmann.
If you've seen the TV show Humans, you'll have an
idea of what that kind of system could look like. It might be a little while
before robots like Nadine are as convincing as Humans' 'synths',
but that day definitely looks like it's getting closer.
Scientists grow a 'person on a chip' - living human tissues on a mini 3D structure
NEW TECHNOLOGY
Scientists grow a
'person on a chip' - living human tissues on a mini 3D structure
This could be the future of drug testing.
Scientists in Canada have developed a new
method of growing human tissue outside the body, creating a miniature lattice
structure that's capable of providing an external matrix for living cells.
Called AngioChip, the researchers say their
'person on a chip' technology could be a new platform for testing the effects
of drugs on human tissue, with the mini 3D scaffold constituting a more
realistic environment for growing cells than the flat layout of a petri dish.
"It's a fully three-dimensional structure
complete with internal blood vessels,"said chemical engineer Milica Radisic from
the University of Toronto. "It behaves just like vasculature, and around it there is a lattice for other
cells to attach and grow."
Built from a biodegradable and biocompatible
polymer called POMaC, the miniature scaffold is constructed
from a series of thin layers that resemble microchips, each indented with a
pattern of tiny channels measuring between 50 to 100 micrometres wide (about
the same diameter as a human hair).
Once stacked and bonded together via UV light,
these layers become a 3D structure of synthetic blood vessels. The lattice
network is then bathed in a liquid containing living cells. The cells attach to
the structure, and begin growing inside and outside of the tiny channels
stamped in the polymer.
"Previously, people could only do this
using devices that squish the cells between sheets of silicone and glass," said Radisic. "You needed several pumps
and vacuum lines to run just one chip. Our system runs in a normal cell culture
dish, and there are no pumps; we use pressure heads to perfuse media through
the vasculature. The wells are open, so you can easily access the tissue."
Tyler Irving / Boyang Zhang / Kevin Soobrian
The engineers have so far used AngioChip to
build small-scale living models of heart and liver tissues that function just
like real organs. "Our liver actually produced urea and metabolised
drugs," said Radisic.
What's more, connecting the blood vessels of
two different artificial organs on AngioChips lets the researchers study the
interactions between them, providing a testbed at the organ level.
Such testing could more accurately detect
dangerous side effects of potential or existing medications, or safely study
related interactions between various human organ compartments.
"In the last few years, it has become
possible to order cultures of human cells for testing, but they're grown on a
plate, a two-dimensional environment," said Radisic. "They don't capture all the
functional hallmarks of a real heart muscle, for example."
The researchers' technology is reported in Nature Materials.
They are now seeking to commercialise the system, which could end up having
applications even beyond drug testing. They say it's possible the artificial
AngioChip organs could be grown into tissues for directly implanting into
patients' bodies to repair damaged organs.
So far, the researchers have only tested this
application in rats, but the advantage of the system is that the polymer
scaffold is itself biodegradable, so after time it safely dissipates within the
subject's body, leaving only the newly grown tissue.
It sounds like it'll be a while before we see this kind of
technique used for human patients, but even so, we can't wait to see where this
research might lead.
This new code makes websites load 34% faster in any browser
NEW TECHNOLOGY
This new code makes
websites load 34% faster in any browser
Just what we’ve always wanted.
If website loading times can’t keep up with
your browsing speed like your typing can’t keep up with your thoughts, hope is
on the horizon, thanks to a new code called Polaris that reportedly makes
websites load 34 percent faster in any browser.
How, I hear you ask? Developed by a team at
MIT, the code has been programmed to gather up and evaluate all the background
files of a particular website, including image files, HTML files, and
Javascript source code, way more efficiently than current systems.
"As pages increase in complexity, they
often require multiple trips that create delays that really add up," says one
of the team, Ravi Netravali. "Our approach minimises the number
of round trips so that we can substantially speed up a page’s load-time."
You’re not the only one who gets frustrated by
a site that doesn’t instantly load - pretty much everyone feels your pain, and
are quite happy to drop a page like a sack of oranges if it’s going to keep
them waiting. According to Amazon, every 100-millisecond
delay in website loading time cuts their profits by 1 percent.
If you’re not familiar with the nuts and bolts
of getting a website to display on a browser, it goes like this. To load a
page, your browser has to connect to the network and fetch 'objects' such as
HTML files, image files, and JavaScript source code. Each object has to be
evaluated before it can be added to the display.
The problem is that each of these objects is
likely to be dependent on another object - called
dependencies - so every time the browser wants to evaluate one
object, it has to go and fetch its dependencies, which will also have their own
dependencies, and so on. "As an example, a browser might have to execute a
file’s JavaScript code in order to discover more images to fetch and
render," the team explains.
That’s not so bad, but where things get slowed
down is when browsers can’t actually see all the dependencies, so end up making
multiple trips through the network to fetch and evaluate everything.
What the Polaris code does to address this
problem is automatically track every single interaction between objects and
their dependencies on a particular site, to creates a 'dependency graph' that
allows the browser to make more efficient trips through the network.
While this isn’t the first dependency-tracker
to be developed, the team says this is the only one that’s able to capture the
most subtle dependencies that exist on a page, which allows it to achieve such
impressive speeds. Another benefit is that it can be written in JavaScript,
which means it can work with any website.
The team hopes that the system will be
integrated with browsers in the future, so every page you load on a particular
browser will appear that much faster.
According to Jamie Condliffe at Gizmodo,
Polaris has so far been tested on 200 different websites, including ESPN,
Weather.com, and Wikipedia, and was able to load web pages 34 percent faster,
on average.
Their research has not yet been published or
peer-reviewed, so keep that in mind, but the results of their work will be
presented later this week at the USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design
and Implementation in California, which means they’re ready for
it to be scrutinised for publication.
"Tracking fine-grained dependencies has
the potential to greatly reduce page-load times, especially for low-bandwidth
or high-latency connections," Mark Marron, a senior research software
development engineer at Microsoft, who was not involved in the research, told Gizmodo.
"On top of that, the availability of
detailed dependence information has a wide range of possible applications, such
as tracking the source statement of an unexpected value that led to a crash at
runtime."
We are so ready for this. And if they can figure out how to
speed up gif loading times on mobile, our lives would be complete.
Here's why you should never throw out those annoying silica sachets again
EVERYDAY SCIENCE
Here's why you should
never throw out those annoying silica sachets again
Anyone who's ever bought a new electronic
device or pair of shoes will be all too familiar with those little "DO NOT
EAT" sachets that come in the box. Most of us have a vague idea that
they're somehow keeping our products fresh, but toss them as soon as the box is
open without a second thought.
But it turns out that just might be one of the
worst ideas ever because, as Eames Yates reports for Business Insider,
these free sachets can be used for a whole range of life hacks that can save
you time, energy, and money. And we're never throwing one out again.
As the video below explains, the sachets are
called silica gel bags, and they're filled with little balls of silicon
dioxide, which will quickly dry out anything around them.
Despite the warnings on the packet, they're
actually not toxic or poisonous, and are only really dangerous because they
pose a choking hazard (so, yep, keep them away from kids).
But they're actually also incredibly useful,
not only when it comes to keeping your new purchases dry and fresh in the box,
but also for soaking up moisture in other unexpected ways. Here are some of
their life-changing uses:
1. Save your wet phone
Dropped your iPhone in the toilet again?
Forget rice, according to Business Insider, these sachets
are far more efficient at sucking up moisture. Just leave your phone switched
off in a jar full of them overnight, and they should dry the device out
thoroughly.
2. Defog your windshield
Never wait for your windshield to clear up in
the mornings again - instead, simply place a few of these bags under your
windshield on the inside and they'll keep it dry and clear regardless of the
weather.
3. Extend the life of your razor blades
Any shaving aficionado will know that moisture
is your razor's worst enemy, with damp blunting your blades before their time. Business Insider recommendskeeping your razor
in a tupperware container with a few of these silica gel bags to keep them
sharp for longer.
4. Keep your gym bag fresh
You can avoid mould and bacteria colonising
your sweaty gym gear by adding a couple of these sachets to your gym bag. They
should also help with the odour.
5. Protect your old photos
Many of us store our old photos in attics,
cellars, or other equally damp places, which can lead to the pictures sticking
together and deteriorating over time. Keep them in a box with a few silica
sachets and it should keep them dry and in tact for longer.
Seriously, we had no idea, and we'll never take these free
goldmines for granted again. Check out the Business Insider video below to find
out more. The regret is real.
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