H+ Weekly - Issue #67
View this email in your browser
Inside - a bionic woman wearing an exoskeleton completes a half marathon, tech giants team up to self-regulate AI, a terrifying drone with arms, "augmented" girl in The White House, adding new senses, robots, drones and more!
MORE THAN A HUMAN
'Bionic' woman Claire Lomas completes Great North Run
Claire deserves the highest of fives! She is paralysed from the chest down, but thanks to an exoskeleton she was able to finish a half marathon while being pregnant. It took her fives days to complete the run, but she did it.
A bionic girl in The White House
Tilly, a 10-year old girl, shows her Deus Ex inspired prosthetic arm made by Open Bionics at The White House fashion show.
Can we create new senses for humans?
Asks David Eagleman. And then he answers the question by building devices that give a completely new set of senses.
The Man Who Designs Soft Robotic Suits For Superhuman Stamina
Meet Conor Walsh, who got enough of hard metal exoskeletons and decided that soft robotic suits are the way to go.
The neural lace is closer than you think
Pardo Walter documents his journey of building a real-life neural lace to control a drone and other devices by using just his thoughts.
Man builds 'Lego leg' while waiting for prosthetic
There aren't any motors or anything futuristic with the Lego leg, but I found it cool.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Tech Giants Are Uniting to Develop A Set of Ethics for AI
AI still looks like Wild West. Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM started to unite and discuss the ethics of AI and self-organize before the government steps in, which might not be pleasant.
Three Laws of Robotics: Germany Made a Set of Ethics For Autonomous Cars
In response to this year’s accidents, three key rules regarding autonomous driving have been laid out by Germany’s transport minister as a starting point for the country’s future laws in preventing A. from making any decisions that could harm humans, or humanity as a whole.
Self-Driving Cars Can Learn a Lot by Playing Grand Theft Auto
The plan is that AI for self-driving cars can learn how to drive using realistic games, like Grand Theft Auto. I hope the AI will learn only how to drive in GTA without exploring other things you can do in Los Santos.
ROBOTICS
The Drone with Arms
This drone looks terrifying. It has two arms, can grab things and then fly away with them.
Watch This Drone Slip Through A Narrow Window
And here are some drones that can fly through a narrow window on their own.
Atlas Balancing on Line
Here's a video of Atlas, the humanoid robot, balancing on a line contact (plywood edge approx. 2cm thick). The video was recorded during a lucky run. The team behind the robot said that usually the robot is not able to maintain balance for this long.
No Waves? No Problem, If You're Dronesurfing
You wanted to surf, but there is no wind or waves? Don't worry! Someone created a drone for you.
Meet the Creepiest Android NASA Ever Built
In the 60s, NASA built a robot designed to test spacesuits. Its name was Power Driven Articulated Dummy and its job was to be inside of a spacesuit and act like a human.
Football’s Newest MVP is a Robot
A robotic tackling dummy created by Dartmouth College engineering students could turn out to be the most valuable player on the field this football season. Short for Mobile Virtual Player, the MVP robot is designed to take a beating during football drills, sparing players from an accumulation of the kinds of impacts known to result in concussions and long-term brain damage.
This Robotic Tank Wants To Kill Mosquitoes With A Laser
I'm sold.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
The Next Trillion Dollar Industry Is Inside You — Literally
"The world’s last trillion dollar industry was created out of computer code. The world’s next trillion dollar industry is going to be created out of a genetic code", says Alex Ross. It's hard not to agree when you see the cost of gene sequencing going down with every year and with easy gene editing just around the corner.
OTHER
Welcome to the Era of the Computer-Generated Human
Go check the photo of the girl in the article. Nice, isn't it? Well, that girl doesn't exist. The photo was generated by in a computer by Japanese artists Teruyuki Ishikawa and Yuka Ishikawa. She looks so detailed that she has broken past the uncanny valley, and she could herald a new era in CGI.
Thank you for subscribing,
Conrad Gray (@conradthegray)
If you have any questions or suggestions, just reply to this email or tweet at @hplusweekly. I'd like to hear what do you think about H+ Weekly.
Follow H+ Weekly!
