At least they aren’t going to Sauron it. Willow, the Disney+ series that’s the long-awaited follow-up to the 1988 George Lucas/Ron Howard film, is finally here and during the first episode, a mystery emerged. One fans have been thinking about for decades. What happened to Elora Danon?
OnePlus? More like plus one more Android update! Beginning next year, OnePlus says it will offer an additional year of OxygenOS updates to its smartphones, which beats out Google’s current offering of only three years for its Pixel phones.
The Vatican shut down its official website on Wednesday in the aftermath of an apparent cyberattck disabled the site and returned a 404 error message to online supplicants. The Holy See said it suspects hackers are to blame.
Three Native American communities are receiving millions of dollars from the federal government to relocate due to climate change-related risks to their homes, the U.S. Department of the Interior said in an announcement today.
The cards of Magic: The Gathering have spent decades bringing horrifying monsters, incredible vistas, and mystical spells to vivid life, earning the game a veritable gallery rich with fantasy art. But now, the legendary card game is going to celebrate another equally legendary body of artwork.
So much for giggling at robots falling down. Researchers at the University of Lorraine have developed a “Damage Reflex” system (aka D-Reflex) that has a humanoid TALOS robot prop itself against a wall when one of its legs is broken, much like a human who just lost their balance. The neural network-based system uses its experience (in this case, 882,000 training simulations) to quickly find a point on the wall most likely to provide stability. The robot doesn’t need to know how it was damaged, and can reach out roughly as quickly as a person.
The result, as IEEE Spectrumnotes, is the anti-comedy you’d expect. Instead of a tumble to the ground, the robot braces itself against the wall like someone who just sprained their ankle. It’s not particularly graceful and requires that the robot stops its hand the moment it makes contact, but it’s effective in three out of four tests.
D-Reflex isn’t guaranteed to prevent a fall, if partly because it can’t account for every possible position or surface. It also doesn’t help the robot recover once it averts catastrophe — you won’t see the automaton limping along a wall until it finds help. The current approach is also based around a stationary bot, and won’t help if an actuator fails mid-stride.
Researchers hope to make a system that’s useful on the move, however, and envision robots that can grab chairs and other complex objects when a fall is imminent. This could save the cost of replacing worker robots that would otherwise plunge to their doom, and might lead to more ‘natural’ bots that learn to use their environments to their advantage. One thing’s for sure: if the robopocalypse happens, tripping the machines won’t stop them for long.
Xiaomi has suddenly delayed the December 1 launch event for its latest flagship, likely out of respect for the passing of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.
As the new year rolls around, Samsung is expected to reveal its next lineup of Galaxy S smartphones, complete with new processors and camera updates.
Flex Mode is a one-of-a-kind feature found only on Samsung’s flagship Galaxy Z Fold 4 phone. Fold the hinge halfway and suddenly your phone is a mini laptop.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
