Hasta La Gadget!

MIT has developed an algorithm that can measure a person’s heart rate just from an ordinary video.

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When you’re flying anywhere you can pretty much turn the whole day into a black hole. The airport/in-flight wifi wasn’t working. We sat at the gate for an hour. We were in a holding pattern. It’s great. But sometimes, sometimes you actually want to get where you’re going. More »

We like to tell ourselves that learning by doing is the best strategy for improving our skills, but we seldom apply that philosophy to our robots; with certain exceptions, they’re just supposed to know what to do from the start. Researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt disagree and have developed algorithms proving that robot arms just need practice, practice, practice to learn complex activities. After some literal hand-holding with a human to understand the basics of a ping-pong swing, a TUD robot can gradually abstract those motions and return the ball in situations beyond the initial example. The technique is effective enough that the test arm took a mere hour of practice to successfully bounce back 88 percent of shots and compete with a human. That’s certainly better than most of us fared after our first game. If all goes well, the science could lead to robots of all kinds that need only a small foundation of code to accomplish a lot. Just hope that the inevitable struggle between humans and robots isn’t settled with a ping-pong match… it might end badly.

Filed under: Robots, Alt

German robot arm learns ping-pong as it plays humans, might rival its masters originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Oct 2012 07:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure if Georgia Koukiou and Vassilis Anastassopoulos of the University of Patras in Greece like a tipple or not, but the pair have developed two algorithms that, when used with thermal imaging, could pick out drunk people in crowds. What is it that betrays your best intentions to look sober? As always, your face. Booze causes the blood-vessels in your visage to dilate, and the researchers used this principle to compare facial scans against a database of tipple-free mug shots. Likewise the duo found that when under the influence, the nose gets warmer, while the forehead cools — another visual check that the infrared can help identify. The hope is that using this technology, law-enforcement can make a judgement call based on more than just your wonky walk. But in our experience, the troublemakers are pretty good at outing themselves.

Filed under: Science, Alt

Scientists develop pair of algorithms that could enable thermal cameras to pick out drunk people originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Brain Corporation has developed a system that can individually identify all kinds of baked goods on a tray, in just one second. A trial has started at a Tokyo bakery store.
This technology was co-developed with the University of Hyogo. This is the world’s first trial of such a system in actual work at a cash register.
“Part-time staff sometimes can’t remember the names of baked goods. But with this system, the names of the goods appear on screen, so staff can work at the cash …