Pacific Beach Town Council Councilmember Campbell release statements on the planned protest – Councilmember Jennifer Campbell: For the last few days…

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Pacific Beach Town Council, Councilmember Campbell release statements on the planned protest

San Diego Community News Group

Councilmember Jennifer Campbell:

For the last few days, my office has received an outpouring of calls from residents concerned about this weekends protest in Pacific Beach. While no one is arguing against anyones freedom of speech, holding a rally during a pandemic goes against our public health orders and common sense. There are many other forms of civic engagement available that dont put San Diegans in danger. I am deeply disappointed that a tiny number of individuals from inside and outside San Diego are putting themselves and others at risk with these actions. Thats why the Pacific Beach Town Council and I stand firmly against this planned protest.

Im so proud of the work that everyone in our beach and bay communities have done to slow down the spread of COVID-19. I am distraught that these efforts could be undone by an unsafe gathering of people who are not following social distancing procedures, vastly increasing the chances of this extremely infectious disease to spread.

No one has enjoyed the last few weeks. Families have had to say goodbye to loved ones too soon. Life milestones like weddings and graduations have been canceled. Frontline workers from nurses and doctors to grocery store workers and first responders have worked tirelessly to keep our city running. These protests are a slap in the face to all the sacrifices San Diegans have made.

To those planning on driving in, stay home. Be with your families. Leave Pacific Beach out of your dangerous and potentially deadly protest.

Councilmember Jennifer Campbell represents San Diegos Second Council District including the communities of Bay Ho/Bay Park/Morena, Midway/North Bay, Mission Bay, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, and Point Loma.

Pacific Beach Town Council:

The Pacific Beach Town Council stands firmly against the exploitation of our neighborhood for this planned gathering by out-of-towners. This protest is not only inconsiderate to our community at large, but we find it especially discourteous to our vulnerable populations and to the sacrifice made by our local nurses, grocery store employees, and other essential workers. These brave workers have carried the burden of exposure while PB residents have been respecting the temporary 'stay at home' order and social distancing measures in order to bend the curve of this pandemic.

Most of these protesters will be driving in from other parts of the county. We strongly oppose this. Phase 1 reopenings of beaches and bays are already scheduled to begin the morning after this attention-seeking protest. Our Northern Division police officers are overburdened enough without having to chaperone this planned protest of hundreds.

I've shared comments on their Facebook event page. We understand their right to free speech and freedom of assembly, but we're asking them to revise their strategy given the phase 1 reopening now scheduled for Monday.

Sincerely,

Brian White

President, Board of Directors

Pacific Beach Town Council

pbtowncouncil.org/leadership/

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Pacific Beach Town Council Councilmember Campbell release statements on the planned protest - Councilmember Jennifer Campbell: For the last few days...

RobotWorx – Examples of Robotics

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The word "robotics brings many images to mind. Depending on your experiences and frame of mind, a robot could be anything from the Roomba robotic vacuum to Lego and VEX robots used in educational facilities across the country to theindustrial robotsseen in manufacturing plants all over the world. All of the listed items are examples of robots androbotics.

Many people are introduced to robots androboticsthrough toys and the media. Remember Rosey, the robotic maid in the television cartoon The Jetsons? How about R2-D2 from the Star Wars movies? These and other examples of roboticsare often our first introduction to robots. If these examples of robotsseem a little dated, one doesnt need to look very far to find more modern examples. The Roomba robotic vacuuming system regularly runs commercials on our television sets.Hondas ASIMO made headlines in the last few years, stunning viewers with its human-like abilities and demeanor.

While Rosey, R2-D2, Roomba, and ASIMO dont usually play a vital role in our daily lives and arent weaved to complexly into the fabric of our economy, educational robots androboticstake us one step closer. Many middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities take part in robotic competitions every year. Organizations such as Legos, VEXRobotics, and FIRST Robotics distribute robotic building kits to hundreds of teams every year the allow students to learn about, build, and operate robots androbotic systems. The education gained from competing in these robotic events gives students an introduction into the field of robotics and the principles needed to take their interest to the next level.

What is the next level?Industrial robotsrepresent the real-world, practical application of robotics.Industrial robots from manufacturers such asFANUCandMotomanautomateindustrial tasks such asspot welding,palletizing,arc welding,machine loading,cutting, and many others. The experiences gained from educational robots and a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) based education give students the background and foundation necessary to jump right into theindustrial roboticsfield.

To learn more about examples of robotics and examples of industrial robots,visit ourFAQandproduct pages. To speak with an expert aboutindustrial robots, callRobotWorxat 740-251-4312 or get in touch online.

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RobotWorx - Examples of Robotics

What Types of Jobs Are in Robotics? – Grad School Hub

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Decades ago robotics was science fiction, and any consideration of the types of jobs in robotics was a thing of the future. Well, it's no longer science fiction, but rather science fact. It's still a thing of the future, but it's also very much a thing of the present with many job opportunities. It will continue to grow and increase in job prospects. If you're even remotely interested in this science, now is the time to get the training to enter this field.

A few of the types of jobs in robotics include:

This is a profession for someone with a lot of patience, besides a lot of training in engineering. An engineer has the responsibility for developing the robot on paper. This creation can take quite some time, because of research and the high technicality and sophistication of robotics. Then, as it's being built, he will oversee practically every aspect of the development of the robot, from safety to testing to analyzing and reviewing every movement.

An engineer will also need to debug any problem within the software system. Because of the need to oversee every project, engineers don't create very many robots throughout their careers. This type of robotics job is very technical and time consuming.

Each robot needs to have a computerized internal system that is highly efficient in operating the machine. This schematic design is written and coded by the software developer along with the engineer to assure the robot performs the functions it's designed to carry out in a safe and precise way. Obviously, the software developer has to be very efficient in computer coding and software design.

There are a couple types of technicians. A robotics technician can repair and maintain robots and build some robotic parts along with other tasks.

An electromechanical technician works with the engineer in the design process of new robots.

Sales engineers must know the products inside and out, as they will be attempting to sell advanced technological robots and their designs to potential customers. They must also be able to consult with the buyer and make any changes in the design to satisfy their needs.

Of course every robot has to have someone operating and overseeing it 24 hours a day. In case anything should go wrong or break down, someone would need to be on top of the situation immediately. That's where an operator comes in. Working in shifts around the clock, they ensure everything goes smoothly.

They are also needed to operate and repair such equipment as flying drones, undersea robots and robots designed for military activities.

Yes, there are even jobs within the robotics field that include accounting. For this, an individual would need a strong background in robot technology, sales, accounting, and customer service. He or she would need to be outgoing yet independent, and have a strong personality to connect with and make sales to customers within the robotics industry.

Related Resources: Types of Jobs in Biostatistics

As you can see, the technology of robotics is growing. According to an article in The New York Times, more and more robots will be replacing humans in everyday tasks and jobs, with the need for more and more robotics engineers, technicians and others in the field. It's a growing industry and worth focusing your sites on if you're interested in making a future in one of the many types of jobs in robotics.

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What Types of Jobs Are in Robotics? - Grad School Hub

Autel Robotics EVO Review | PCMag

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DJI created and owns the folding drone space, but it's not without viable competition. The Autel Robotics EVO ($999) does some things that DJI Mavic drones don'tincluding recording 4K at 60fpsbut does omit some of the more advanced features offered by the competition. But if you place emphasis on high frame rate capture, the EVO is an appealing aerial video platform. I like it a lot, although our favorite folding drone is the pricier, but more capable, DJI Mavic 2 Pro.

The first thing you notice about the EVO is its color schemebright orange is a heck of a lot more eye-catching than most drone designs. If you have to land hard in tall grass or brush it'll make the aircraft easier to spot, and black struts help you visually identify the drone as it soars against a bright sky.

The aircraft features a folding design. With its arms folded against the body, it measures in at about 5.5 by 5.5 by 10.0 inches (HWD). That means you can find space for it in your existing camera bagit takes up about the same amount as a typical 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom and adds about two pounds of weight to your pack.

The arms have to be unfolded before flight, but centrifugal force takes care of putting the propellers in their proper positionthey also fold for storage. Opening up the drone for flight is simple, just remember to swing out the forward arms before the aft ones.

See How We Test Drones

The EVO has the expected safety features. Its positioning system leverages both GPS and GLONASS satellites, so a position lock is acquired quickly. If connection is dropped between the drone and the remote, the EVO will automatically return to its takeoff point. You can also activate return-to-home manually.

Battery life is quite good, though not as good as the 30 minutes advertised by Autel. In real-world flight conditions, I averaged about 26 minutes per flight. That's right up there with competitors, thoughthe DJI Mavic 2 gets about 27 minutes and the Parrot Anafi about 25 minutes. Autel sells additional flight batteries for $85.

Obstacle detection sensors are located at the nose and tail. The forward sensors do cut the top speed to 22mph when enabledthe drone can fly as quickly as 44mph when they're turned off. They can stop the drone from crashing, thoughthe EVO stops in its tracks when it senses an obstruction in its flight path. Flight speed is similar to the DJI Mavic Air, which also tops out around 22mph when its obstacle sensors are enabled. For a faster drone with obstacle detection enabled, consider the Mavic 2 Zoom or Mavic 2 Pro, both of which can fly at 32mph with obstacle detection turned on.

Rear sensors are included too, although they won't prevent you from backing the drone into a tree during manual flight. Both sets of sensors are used when the drone is set to track a moving subjectyou just need to draw a box around your target using the control app. There are no top, bottom, or side sensors available, as you get with the DJI Mavic 2 family, so automated tracking is limited to forward and backward motion.

Autel isn't as authoritative with enforcing safety features as DJI. This can be appealing to pilots who are aware of regulations, but it can also be dangerous for uneducated pilots. So, while it is possible to fly the EVO as high as 2,600 feet above ground level, you should take care to limit yourself to a 400-foot altitudethe default, and legal limit in the US.

There is also a geofence, which can be set from about 100 feet all the way through 1,640 feet. When enabled, the drone won't fly farther away from the launch point than the set limit. It can certainly serve to keep you out of trouble, although you should remember that you're required to keep a drone within visual line of sight when flying in the US.

The EVO doesn't recognize or enforce permanent or temporary no-fly zones. That's a safety concern, too. You'll need to take care to ensure that you're not within five miles of an airport, flying in a national park, or near Washington, DC when using the EVO. Most importantly, you don't want to fly the EVO near wildfiresdrones can interfere with aerial firefighting efforts.

There is no internal memory. The EVO has a single microSD slot and ships with a 32GB card included. You can transfer video to your computer via a micro USB cable, or remove the card and use a card reader. The memory card door is very tight, at least on the EVO I tested, and I had to resort to opening it with a letter opener or scissors.

Battery charging is done outside the drone. It ships with a dedicated charger that can replenish the flight battery, and also includes a USB port to top off the remote control or another device.

The included remote control is quite nice. It's compact, with a clip to hold your phone at its top, handgrips that swing out and to the bottom, and a full-color display. There are wheels to adjust exposure and camera tilt, buttons to snap images and start or stop video clips, two programmable rear controls, and dedicated controls for takeoff and landing, as well as for return-to-home. There's also a Pause button, which will stop the EVO and hover in place.

The remote's color screen doesn't just show telemetry data, battery life, and other sundry features. With a press of the Display button, it switches to show a live feed from the EVO's camera. Unlike most competing models, you can fly it without having to attach a smartphone and still see the view from the camera. The 3.3-inch display isn't huge and doesn't support touch input, so you'll need to navigate through settings using the physical controlsthe right wheel is used to scroll through menus and doubles as a button to confirm any changes you make to settings.

You can access and adjust basic settingsvideo resolution, frame rate, image file format, maximum flight altitude and geofence settings, and the likeusing the remote. But for more advanced settings, including access to different video profiles, automated shot modes, and subject tracking, you'll still need to attach a phone. The EVO does remember which video profile you've chosen, though, so you can make those configuration changes once with the phone app and they'll still be applied when flying with the remote control only.

The Autel Explorer app, a free download for Android and iOS devices, is required to take full advantage of all of the EVO's features. The app gives you access to video profiles, automated shots, which include perfectly circular orbits, and subject tracking. The EVO recognizes a subject easilyjust draw a box around it using your phone's screenand leverages its obstacle detection system to keep pace with moving targets at up to 22mph speed.

I have a minor quibble with the controls. The remote has a button for automated takeoff and landing. It works well for landings, but not so much for takeoff. Pressing it shows an Invalid Command message on the remote's screen. You need to manually fire the motors the old fashioned way, by moving both control sticks diagonally downward and inward, and then press the button to take off. But I found it easier just to push up on the left stick to take off once the rotors spun up.

The EVO sports a 4K video camera, backed by a smartphone-sized 12MP image sensor. I was very happy with the video quality in generalthere's plenty of resolution to show crisp detail, and colors look great. But I have one big complaintthe default profile applies way too much sharpening to footage, giving it an unnatural look. Thankfully you can dial back the sharpening using the app, either by manually fine-tuning the default color profile or switching to the Film mode, which is no different from the default, but with sharpening turned all the way down. It's the first thing I'd recommend EVO buyers do when setting up the drone.

There are a couple of other things to watch out for, too. I had to manually dial in a bit of gimbal roll adjustment in order to straighten out my horizon during one test flight, and propellers can enter the frame when flying forward, even with the top speed throttled to 22mph by the obstacle sensors.

There are a number of frame rates available. I shot my test footage at 24fps, as I prefer a cinematic look, but you can also choose 30fps for a video look, 48fps for cinematic slow-motion, and 60fps for traditional half-speed playback. You're also able to shoot at 2.7K resolution at any of those frame rates, at 1080p (2K) up to 120fps, and 720p as quickly as 240fps.

In addition to the standard profile, you can opt for the aforementioned Film look, as well as Vivid, Black-and-White, and a number of filtered looksArt, Beach, Dream, Classic, and Nostalgic. They're helpful settings for casual users who want to get a different look from video without having to learn how to color grade footage.

But if you're a pro and you love grading your own video, be happy to know there is also a flat Log color profile available. It drops contrast, curbing highlights and reining in shadows, so you have more room to make adjustments. But Log footage doesn't look good without color correction, so it's only something you should use if you're familiar with advanced video editing software.

For stills, you can shoot in Raw or JPG format at 12MP resolution. Image quality is on par with modern smartphones, so it's definitely more point-and-shoot than SLR. But that's the case for most drones. If you're mostly interested in daylight imaging you'll likely be happy with the images, even if you're the type to opt to shoot in Raw and take charge of your own image processing. To get better-than-smartphone shots, you'll need to look at a model with a larger image sensor. If you like to print, consider it, but for Facebook and Instagram, the EVO will do fine.

There are a few drones out there with 1-inch class image sensors, about four times the size of the EVO's smartphone-sized sensor, and they offer a big upgrade in image quality, but you either have to sacrifice a compact design or some dollars to get one. The DJI Phantom 4 Advanced puts a 1-inch sensor camera in a larger drone for around $1,000, while the DJI Mavic 2 Pro is the only folding 1-inch sensor model we've seen, but it costs around $1,500.

Let's face itDJI essentially owns the compact drone market. Its Mavic series created the space and it's now into the second generation of development. The Mavic Air does more stuff than the EVO for less money, after all. But not everyone needs, or wants, more stuff. The Autel Robotics EVO is compelling for different reasons.

A big one is the lack of built-in restrictions. DJI's critics have been vocal, crowing about enforcement of no-fly zones and the necessity to set up an account and tie its drones to it and your smartphone. For some, what is perceived as a Big Brother attitude is enough to keep them from buying a DJI drone.

I don't share that opinion. In my eyes, DJI's built-in safety features are necessary and its self-policing has no doubt prevented someone somewhere from doing something very dumb. But I recognize that not everyone shares my opinions, and potential drone owners who don't like the way DJI does things can buy an EVO and have fun making aerial images and videos.

The other area where the EVO betters the Mavic series is in its remote control. And while Autel doesn't include a touch screen with the EVO remote, it's very practical to use without a smartphone, and if you need to use a feature that requires the Autel Explorer app, you can still connect your phone to the remote to unlock the drone's full feature set.

Video quality is very good, and while I would have liked to have seen a more pleasing default profile, it's easy enough to dial down sharpening orif you really know what you're doingto switch to a Log profile. And the EVO supports 4K DCI capture, as well as 60fps at 4K UHD, options not available in the Mavic series.

The EVO is undoubtedly the right drone for some pilots. Its battery life is right up there with the competition, and it's capable of flying at greater speeds than other small drones that cost about the same. I think the DJI Mavic Air is a better choice for more peopleit's $200 cheaper, has more safety features, and records 4K UHD video. But if the Mavic Air doesn't tickle your fancy, the EVO is a very viable alternative.

Compact, folding design.

Stable 4K video at up to 60fps.

Log video profile.

Supports UHD and DCI formats.

Obstacle avoidance system.

Solid battery life.

Works with or without a smartphone.

Default video profile appears oversharpened.

Memory card door is very tight.

Not as many safety features as other drones.

The Autel Robotics EVO is a very solid small drone with strong battery life, a stabilized 4K camera, and an obstacle detection system.

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Autel Robotics EVO Review | PCMag

Kell Robotics | Creativity Unleashed

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The STEM Renaissance Project is a vision for a project to advance the state of the art in STEM Education & Learning.

This initiative will broaden STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) learning to encompass a broad range of disciplines and skills including entrepreneurship, business development, leadership, and innovation.

This home of this initiative is a one-of-a-kind facility will integrate a technology, innovation, and art museum; 2,500 seat arena; exposition hall; innovation & creativity laboratory; general purpose science lab; classrooms; lecture halls; machine and workshop; technology and business incubators; television studio, and cafeteria. The arenas design will be optimized to accommodate STEM competitions, exhibitions and conferences. This is expected to be the first facility of this type in the world, a facility that is purpose built to support the high impact STEM competitions that are emerging in the 21st century.

The facility described here is designed to house a multi-disciplinary set of initiative that will support teacher production and development, business development and incubation, Informal STEM Learning and Competition Support, product innovation and development, and engineering and scientific research.

This initiative is a celebration of STEM learning, made visible by creating an architecturally iconic facility that will be recognized around the world.

This visionary concept is a Big Bang idea, supporting and celebrating STEM activities as a vital part of our world community.

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Kell Robotics | Creativity Unleashed

Danville students draw on robotics team experience to create PPE for East Bay hospitals – danvillesanramon.com

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Just before Easter, while Danville high schools were on spring break, Vikram Gopalan saw a YouTube video about a group in Alabama making face shields using 3D printers.

"Check out this link," the San Ramon Valley High School (SRVHS) junior immediately texted to some of his classmates. "I think we as a team have the skill set, experience and determination to do something like this for our area. We have the infrastructure to organize this, and it's the kind of thing FIRST Robotics Competition has been preparing us for."

Indeed it was, especially considering how quickly the Danville high school's robotics team got to work.

Three days later, on April 12, the students launched a professional-looking website for their initiative named Danville Fighting COVID. Their goal: to rally local makers and craftspeople to join them in creating personal protection equipment (PPE) for medical front-line workers and to help stock local food banks through donations and well-organized, hygienic deliveries.

Radhika Gawde, a senior and robotics team member who is serving as project manager, credits their previous experience as competitive engineers to quickly draw up and execute a plan.

"We had a white board and came up with what I call our 'high-level battle plan,'" she said.

3D-printed headpieces intended for face shields were made at San Ramon Valley High School facilities.

Laying the groundwork, Gawde said, was the easy part, thanks to the team's experience collaborating on both robotics and the fundraising required to participate in national competitions. The challenge has been getting their hands on available 3D printers, as well as sourcing face shield materials.

But, she noted, they are on track so far to meet their goal of delivering 200 face shields, and any other PPE equipment they can gather from the community, to Kaiser Permanent and John Muir Health in Walnut Creek on Saturday.

The initiative is run by a core of 12 students, most from SRVHS, plus a few friends from Monte Vista High School, also in Danville. In addition to providing links for those who want to make monetary donations to local food banks, the students are organizing drop sites for food donations that they will then sort, sanitize and deliver. The website also has patterns for making face shields, places to donate materials, links for donating meals to first responders and other COVID-related groups.

With spring break over, the students are back in class, and happy to have a sense of purpose. What's hardest, said Gawde, is that they'll never get to travel to the robotics competition for which they'd been preparing all year.

"And we still have to pass all our classes," she noted. "But we're not doing that much. It's the health care workers who are working so hard. If there's a way we can support that, we definitely want to."

Editor's note: Story by Lisa Wrenn, Bay City News Foundation. See the original story presentation on the BCN Foundation site.

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Danville students draw on robotics team experience to create PPE for East Bay hospitals - danvillesanramon.com

Service Robotics Market Segmentation, Application, Technology, Analysis Research Report and Forecast to 2026 – Cole of Duty

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Geckosystems Intl

Global Service Robotics Market Segmentation

This market was divided into types, applications and regions. The growth of each segment provides an accurate calculation and forecast of sales by type and application in terms of volume and value for the period between 2020 and 2026. This analysis can help you develop your business by targeting niche markets. Market share data are available at global and regional levels. The regions covered by the report are North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Africa and Latin America. Research analysts understand the competitive forces and provide competitive analysis for each competitor separately.

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Service Robotics Market Region Coverage (Regional Production, Demand & Forecast by Countries etc.):

North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)

Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Russia, Spain etc.)

Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia etc.)

South America (Brazil, Argentina etc.)

Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc.)

Some Notable Report Offerings:

-> We will give you an assessment of the extent to which the market acquire commercial characteristics along with examples or instances of information that helps your assessment.

-> We will also support to identify standard/customary terms and conditions such as discounts, warranties, inspection, buyer financing, and acceptance for the Service Robotics industry.

-> We will further help you in finding any price ranges, pricing issues, and determination of price fluctuation of products in Service Robotics industry.

-> Furthermore, we will help you to identify any crucial trends to predict Service Robotics market growth rate up to 2026.

-> Lastly, the analyzed report will predict the general tendency for supply and demand in the Service Robotics market.

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Table of Contents:

Study Coverage: It includes study objectives, years considered for the research study, growth rate and Service Robotics market size of type and application segments, key manufacturers covered, product scope, and highlights of segmental analysis.

Executive Summary: In this section, the report focuses on analysis of macroscopic indicators, market issues, drivers, and trends, competitive landscape, CAGR of the global Service Robotics market, and global production. Under the global production chapter, the authors of the report have included market pricing and trends, global capacity, global production, and global revenue forecasts.

Service Robotics Market Size by Manufacturer: Here, the report concentrates on revenue and production shares of manufacturers for all the years of the forecast period. It also focuses on price by manufacturer and expansion plans and mergers and acquisitions of companies.

Production by Region: It shows how the revenue and production in the global market are distributed among different regions. Each regional market is extensively studied here on the basis of import and export, key players, revenue, and production.

About us:

Verified market research partners with the customer and offer an insight into strategic and growth analyzes, Data necessary to achieve corporate goals and objectives. Our core values are trust, integrity and authenticity for our customers.

Analysts with a high level of expertise in data collection and governance use industrial techniques to collect and analyze data in all phases. Our analysts are trained to combine modern data collection techniques, superior research methodology, expertise and years of collective experience to produce informative and accurate research reports.

Contact us:

Mr. Edwyne FernandesCall: +1 (650) 781 4080Email: [emailprotected]

Tags: Service Robotics Market Size, Service Robotics Market Trends, Service Robotics Market Growth, Service Robotics Market Forecast, Service Robotics Market Analysis

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Service Robotics Market Segmentation, Application, Technology, Analysis Research Report and Forecast to 2026 - Cole of Duty

Global Robotic Vision Industry | State – Olean Times Herald

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NEW YORK, April 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Robotic Vision market worldwide is projected to grow by US$3.9 Billion, driven by a compounded growth of 10.5%. Hardware, one of the segments analyzed and sized in this study, displays the potential to grow at over 10.8%. The shifting dynamics supporting this growth makes it critical for businesses in this space to keep abreast of the changing pulse of the market. Poised to reach over US$4.9 Billion by the year 2025, Hardware will bring in healthy gains adding significant momentum to global growth.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05799534/?utm_source=PRN

- Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 12% growth momentum. Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$174.3 Million to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$181.5 Million worth of projected demand in the region will come from Rest of Europe markets. In Japan, Hardware will reach a market size of US$368.9 Million by the close of the analysis period. As the world's second largest economy and the new game changer in global markets, China exhibits the potential to grow at 10% over the next couple of years and add approximately US$662.7 Million in terms of addressable opportunity for the picking by aspiring businesses and their astute leaders. Presented in visually rich graphics are these and many more need-to-know quantitative data important in ensuring quality of strategy decisions, be it entry into new markets or allocation of resources within a portfolio. Several macroeconomic factors and internal market forces will shape growth and development of demand patterns in emerging countries in Asia-Pacific. All research viewpoints presented are based on validated engagements from influencers in the market, whose opinions supersede all other research methodologies.

- Competitors identified in this market include, among others,

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05799534/?utm_source=PRN

I. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY & REPORT SCOPE

II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. MARKET OVERVIEW

A Prelude to Robotic Vision TechnologyRobotic Vision Market Set for a Rapid GrowthMarket OutlookGlobal Competitor Market SharesRobotic Vision Competitor Market Share Scenario Worldwide(in %): 2019 & 2025

2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS

3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

Growing Automotive Production to Drive the Robotic Vision MarketStringent Government Regulations and Rising Need for FoodSafety Propel the Robotic Vision Market in F&B SectorRobotic Vision in Packaging Applications to Bolster Market GrowthRobotics in Aerospace Parts Manufacturing Help Prevent QualityEscapesIntegration of 3D Capabilities in Robotic Vision EnablesSmarter PerformanceAdvancements in Robotics Spur Market Expansion

4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

Table 1: Robotic Vision Global Market Estimates and Forecastsin US$ Million by Region/Country: 2018-2025Table 2: Robotic Vision Global Retrospective Market Scenario inUS$ Million by Region/Country: 2009-2017Table 3: Robotic Vision Market Share Shift across KeyGeographies Worldwide: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 4: Hardware (Component) World Market by Region/Country inUS$ Million: 2018 to 2025Table 5: Hardware (Component) Historic Market Analysis byRegion/Country in US$ Million: 2009 to 2017Table 6: Hardware (Component) Market Share Breakdown ofWorldwide Sales by Region/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 7: Software (Component) Potential Growth MarketsWorldwide in US$ Million: 2018 to 2025Table 8: Software (Component) Historic Market Perspective byRegion/Country in US$ Million: 2009 to 2017Table 9: Software (Component) Market Sales Breakdown byRegion/Country in Percentage: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 10: 2D (Technology) Geographic Market Spread Worldwide inUS$ Million: 2018 to 2025Table 11: 2D (Technology) Region Wise Breakdown of GlobalHistoric Demand in US$ Million: 2009 to 2017Table 12: 2D (Technology) Market Share Distribution inPercentage by Region/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 13: 3D (Technology) World Market Estimates and Forecastsby Region/Country in US$ Million: 2018 to 2025Table 14: 3D (Technology) Market Historic Review byRegion/Country in US$ Million: 2009 to 2017Table 15: 3D (Technology) Market Share Breakdown byRegion/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 16: Automotive (Industry) Worldwide Latent DemandForecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2018-2025Table 17: Automotive (Industry) Global Historic Analysis in US$Million by Region/Country: 2009-2017Table 18: Automotive (Industry) Distribution of Global Sales byRegion/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 19: Packaging (Industry) Sales Estimates and Forecasts inUS$ Million by Region/Country for the Years 2018 through 2025Table 20: Packaging (Industry) Analysis of Historic Sales inUS$ Million by Region/Country for the Years 2009 to 2017Table 21: Packaging (Industry) Global Market Share Distributionby Region/Country for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 22: Aerospace (Industry) Global Opportunity Assessment inUS$ Million by Region/Country: 2018-2025Table 23: Aerospace (Industry) Historic Sales Analysis in US$Million by Region/Country: 2009-2017Table 24: Aerospace (Industry) Percentage Share Breakdown ofGlobal Sales by Region/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 25: Food Processing (Industry) Worldwide Sales in US$Million by Region/Country: 2018-2025Table 26: Food Processing (Industry) Historic Demand Patternsin US$ Million by Region/Country: 2009-2017Table 27: Food Processing (Industry) Market Share Shift acrossKey Geographies: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 28: Metal Processing (Industry) Global Market Estimates &Forecasts in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2018-2025Table 29: Metal Processing (Industry) Retrospective DemandAnalysis in US$ Million by Region/Country: 2009-2017Table 30: Metal Processing (Industry) Market Share Breakdown byRegion/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025

III. MARKET ANALYSIS

GEOGRAPHIC MARKET ANALYSISUNITED STATESMarket Facts & FiguresUS Robotic Vision Market Share (in %) by Company: 2019 & 2025Market AnalyticsTable 31: United States Robotic Vision Market Estimates andProjections in US$ Million by Component: 2018 to 2025Table 32: Robotic Vision Market in the United States byComponent: A Historic Review in US$ Million for 2009-2017Table 33: United States Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdownby Component: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 34: Robotic Vision Market in US$ Million in the UnitedStates by Technology: 2018-2025Table 35: United States Robotic Vision Market RetrospectiveAnalysis in US$ Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 36: United States Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdownby Technology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 37: United States Robotic Vision Latent Demand Forecastsin US$ Million by Industry: 2018 to 2025Table 38: Robotic Vision Historic Demand Patterns in the UnitedStates by Industry in US$ Million for 2009-2017Table 39: Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown in the UnitedStates by Industry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025CANADATable 40: Canadian Robotic Vision Market Estimates andForecasts in US$ Million by Component: 2018 to 2025Table 41: Canadian Robotic Vision Historic Market Review byComponent in US$ Million: 2009-2017Table 42: Robotic Vision Market in Canada: Percentage ShareBreakdown of Sales by Component for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 43: Robotic Vision Market Analysis in Canada in US$Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 44: Robotic Vision Market in Canada: Historic Review inUS$ Million by Technology for the Period 2009-2017Table 45: Canadian Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byTechnology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 46: Canadian Robotic Vision Market Quantitative DemandAnalysis in US$ Million by Industry: 2018 to 2025Table 47: Robotic Vision Market in Canada: Summarization ofHistoric Demand Patterns in US$ Million by Industry for2009-2017Table 48: Canadian Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis byIndustry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025JAPANTable 49: Japanese Market for Robotic Vision: Annual SalesEstimates and Projections in US$ Million by Component for thePeriod 2018-2025Table 50: Robotic Vision Market in Japan: Historic SalesAnalysis in US$ Million by Component for the Period 2009-2017Table 51: Japanese Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis byComponent: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 52: Japanese Medium & Long-Term Outlook for RoboticVision Market in US$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 53: Robotic Vision Market in Japan in US$ Million byTechnology: 2009-2017Table 54: Japanese Robotic Vision Market Percentage ShareDistribution by Technology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 55: Japanese Demand Estimates and Forecasts for RoboticVision in US$ Million by Industry: 2018 to 2025Table 56: Japanese Robotic Vision Market in US$ Million byIndustry: 2009-2017Table 57: Robotic Vision Market Share Shift in Japan byIndustry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025CHINATable 58: Chinese Robotic Vision Market Growth Prospects in US$Million by Component for the Period 2018-2025Table 59: Robotic Vision Historic Market Analysis in China inUS$ Million by Component: 2009-2017Table 60: Chinese Robotic Vision Market by Component:Percentage Breakdown of Sales for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 61: Robotic Vision Market Estimates and Forecasts inChina in US$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 62: Chinese Robotic Vision Retrospective Market Scenarioin US$ Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 63: Robotic Vision Market in China: Percentage ShareAnalysis by Technology for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 64: Chinese Demand for Robotic Vision in US$ Million byIndustry: 2018 to 2025Table 65: Robotic Vision Market Review in China in US$ Millionby Industry: 2009-2017Table 66: Chinese Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byIndustry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025EUROPEMarket Facts & FiguresEuropean Robotic Vision Market: Competitor Market ShareScenario (in %) for 2019 & 2025Market AnalyticsTable 67: European Robotic Vision Market Demand Scenario in US$Million by Region/Country: 2018-2025Table 68: Robotic Vision Market in Europe: A Historic MarketPerspective in US$ Million by Region/Country for the Period2009-2017Table 69: European Robotic Vision Market Share Shift byRegion/Country: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 70: European Robotic Vision Market Estimates andForecasts in US$ Million by Component: 2018-2025Table 71: Robotic Vision Market in Europe in US$ Million byComponent: A Historic Review for the Period 2009-2017Table 72: European Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byComponent: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 73: European Robotic Vision Market Assessment in US$Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 74: European Robotic Vision Historic Market Review in US$Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 75: Robotic Vision Market in Europe: Percentage Breakdownof Sales by Technology for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 76: European Robotic Vision Addressable MarketOpportunity in US$ Million by Industry: 2018-2025Table 77: Robotic Vision Market in Europe: Summarization ofHistoric Demand in US$ Million by Industry for the Period2009-2017Table 78: European Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis byIndustry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025FRANCETable 79: Robotic Vision Market in France by Component:Estimates and Projections in US$ Million for the Period2018-2025Table 80: French Robotic Vision Historic Market Scenario in US$Million by Component: 2009-2017Table 81: French Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis byComponent: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 82: French Robotic Vision Market Estimates andProjections in US$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 83: French Robotic Vision Historic Market Analysis in US$Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 84: French Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byTechnology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 85: Robotic Vision Quantitative Demand Analysis in Francein US$ Million by Industry: 2018-2025Table 86: French Robotic Vision Historic Market Review in US$Million by Industry: 2009-2017Table 87: French Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis:A 17-Year Perspective by Industry for 2009, 2019, and 2025GERMANYTable 88: Robotic Vision Market in Germany: Recent Past,Current and Future Analysis in US$ Million by Component for thePeriod 2018-2025Table 89: German Robotic Vision Historic Market Analysis in US$Million by Component: 2009-2017Table 90: German Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byComponent: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 91: German Robotic Vision Latent Demand Forecasts in US$Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 92: Robotic Vision Market in Germany: A HistoricPerspective by Technology in US$ Million for the Period2009-2017Table 93: German Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byTechnology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 94: Robotic Vision Market in Germany: Annual SalesEstimates and Forecasts in US$ Million by Industry for thePeriod 2018-2025Table 95: German Robotic Vision Market in Retrospect in US$Million by Industry: 2009-2017Table 96: Robotic Vision Market Share Distribution in Germanyby Industry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025ITALYTable 97: Italian Robotic Vision Market Growth Prospects in US$Million by Component for the Period 2018-2025Table 98: Robotic Vision Historic Market Analysis in Italy inUS$ Million by Component: 2009-2017Table 99: Italian Robotic Vision Market by Component:Percentage Breakdown of Sales for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 100: Robotic Vision Market Estimates and Forecasts inItaly in US$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 101: Italian Robotic Vision Retrospective Market Scenarioin US$ Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 102: Robotic Vision Market in Italy: Percentage ShareAnalysis by Technology for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 103: Italian Demand for Robotic Vision in US$ Million byIndustry: 2018 to 2025Table 104: Robotic Vision Market Review in Italy in US$ Millionby Industry: 2009-2017Table 105: Italian Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdown byIndustry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025UNITED KINGDOMTable 106: United Kingdom Market for Robotic Vision: AnnualSales Estimates and Projections in US$ Million by Component forthe Period 2018-2025Table 107: Robotic Vision Market in the United Kingdom:Historic Sales Analysis in US$ Million by Component for thePeriod 2009-2017Table 108: United Kingdom Robotic Vision Market Share Analysisby Component: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 109: United Kingdom Medium & Long-Term Outlook forRobotic Vision Market in US$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 110: Robotic Vision Market in the United Kingdom in US$Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 111: United Kingdom Robotic Vision Market PercentageShare Distribution by Technology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 112: United Kingdom Demand Estimates and Forecasts forRobotic Vision in US$ Million by Industry: 2018 to 2025Table 113: United Kingdom Robotic Vision Market in US$ Millionby Industry: 2009-2017Table 114: Robotic Vision Market Share Shift in the UnitedKingdom by Industry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025REST OF EUROPETable 115: Rest of Europe Robotic Vision Market Estimates andForecasts in US$ Million by Component: 2018-2025Table 116: Robotic Vision Market in Rest of Europe in US$Million by Component: A Historic Review for the Period2009-2017Table 117: Rest of Europe Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdownby Component: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 118: Rest of Europe Robotic Vision Market Assessment inUS$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 119: Rest of Europe Robotic Vision Historic Market Reviewin US$ Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 120: Robotic Vision Market in Rest of Europe: PercentageBreakdown of Sales by Technology for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 121: Rest of Europe Robotic Vision Addressable MarketOpportunity in US$ Million by Industry: 2018-2025Table 122: Robotic Vision Market in Rest of Europe:Summarization of Historic Demand in US$ Million by Industry forthe Period 2009-2017Table 123: Rest of Europe Robotic Vision Market Share Analysisby Industry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025ASIA-PACIFICTable 124: Robotic Vision Market in Asia-Pacific by Component:Estimates and Projections in US$ Million for the Period2018-2025Table 125: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Historic Market Scenarioin US$ Million by Component: 2009-2017Table 126: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis byComponent: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 127: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Market Estimates andProjections in US$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 128: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Historic Market Analysisin US$ Million by Technology: 2009-2017Table 129: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdownby Technology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 130: Robotic Vision Quantitative Demand Analysis inAsia-Pacific in US$ Million by Industry: 2018-2025Table 131: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Historic Market Reviewin US$ Million by Industry: 2009-2017Table 132: Asia-Pacific Robotic Vision Market Share Analysis:A 17-Year Perspective by Industry for 2009, 2019, and 2025REST OF WORLDTable 133: Rest of World Robotic Vision Market Estimates andForecasts in US$ Million by Component: 2018 to 2025Table 134: Rest of World Robotic Vision Historic Market Reviewby Component in US$ Million: 2009-2017Table 135: Robotic Vision Market in Rest of World: PercentageShare Breakdown of Sales by Component for 2009, 2019, and 2025Table 136: Robotic Vision Market Analysis in Rest of World inUS$ Million by Technology: 2018-2025Table 137: Robotic Vision Market in Rest of World: HistoricReview in US$ Million by Technology for the Period 2009-2017Table 138: Rest of World Robotic Vision Market Share Breakdownby Technology: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025Table 139: Rest of World Robotic Vision Market QuantitativeDemand Analysis in US$ Million by Industry: 2018 to 2025Table 140: Robotic Vision Market in Rest of World:Summarization of Historic Demand Patterns in US$ Million byIndustry for 2009-2017Table 141: Rest of World Robotic Vision Market Share Analysisby Industry: 2009 VS 2019 VS 2025

IV. COMPETITION

ADEPT TECHNOLOGYCOGNEX CORPORATIONFARO TECHNOLOGIESGOM GMBHHEXAGON ABKEYENCE CORPORATIONKOH YOUNG TECHNOLOGYMATROX ELECTRONIC SYSTEMSMVTEC SOFTWARE GMBHNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS CORPORATIONNIKON METROLOGY NVQUALCOMM TECHNOLOGIES, INC.SICK AGTELEDYNE DALSATORDIVEL ASV. CURATED RESEARCHRead the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05799534/?utm_source=PRN

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__________________________Contact Clare: clare@reportlinker.comUS: (339)-368-6001Intl: +1 339-368-6001

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Global Robotic Vision Industry | State - Olean Times Herald

AI’ll be there for you: are robots coming to take our jobs? – The Irish Times

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Fear and apprehension relating to the potential of new generations of robots leading to mass unemployment tends to move up a notch whenever a shiny new piece of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology is unveiled.

One of the few instances where that was not the case was the recent announcement by Irish company Akara Robotics that it had developed a virus-killing robot with the ability to disinfect hospitals and get rid of the Covid-19 virus. The replacement of human labour was naturally seen as a positive.

But that is far from the norm. I generally get asked two questions about AI and robotics which are usually based on fear, says KPMG director Kieran Towey. When are robots going to take my job away and when are they going to murder me in my bed?

Towey, who worked as an epidemiologist with the Department of Agriculture during the foot and mouth disease crisis of 2001, remains very positive, nevertheless.

If you think back 150 years ago, most of work was powered by the horse, he says. It was used for everything transport, logistics, farming, pulling barges along canals. The advent of the internal combustion engine changed everything. It put horses and all the ancillary services like blacksmiths out of business and they became very niche.

But what came out of it was something much better. It created the car industry, the petrochemicals industry, and a whole lot of other industries that couldnt have been imagined before then exploded out of it.

EY partner and head of data analytics Eoin OReilly shares this optimism. There is a range of things going on, he says. At one end of the spectrum you have care workers and others in sectors that require human contact and face-to-face engagement. They will see less disruption. On the other hand, there are activities with higher potential to be automated like stock market analysis that will be more affected.

Indeed, certain news agencies are already using AI-powered algorithms to compile reports on minority interest sports based purely on results data.

There will be a range of disruption and it wont hit all industries equally, OReilly adds. There is no doubt that the impact will be severe for some. We shouldnt be too shy about saying that. Some office jobs and others like truck drivers will change drastically or even disappear. On the other side, a whole new set of jobs and industries can be created by the technology.

That more or less positive outlook is also shared by PwC technology partner David Lee. Most industry sectors have undergone some form of automation, he says. But automation, robots and AI can actually create more jobs, many of which will be new roles. Thats because automation can reduce the more mundane and repetitive work elements, leaving opportunities for people to improve their skillsets for a higher-value role. This is particularly important in a crisis, when attention may need to be given to new directions very quickly.

PwC analysis to assess the impact of AI on Irelands economy concluded that the adoption of AI, removing humans from processes and certain decision-making, will mean that some jobs will inevitably become redundant, but others will be created.

This is the case as shifts in productivity and increased consumer demand take place, Lee explains. The impact is mainly driven by product enhancements (7.9 per cent of GDP in 2030) which increase product variety, quality and time saved. The impact from productivity gains is lower than consumption-side enhancements (3.7 per cent of GDP in 2030). The analysis concluded that the effect on jobs in Ireland in the long term would at least be neutral, if not net positive.

Towey points to other research carried out by the Oxford University Future of Humanities Institute and Yale, which was based on a survey of 352 top thinkers in the field. They were asked when they believed high-level machine intelligence (HLMI) will be able to accomplish every task better and more cheaply than human workers.

Overall, the forecast was that there is a 50 per cent chance of this happening in 45 years time and a 100 per cent probability in 150 years time. More strikingly, the research indicated a 10 per cent change of it happening within the next decade.

But this does not necessarily point to a bleak future. A task is not a job, it is part of a job, Towey points out. We know in professional services that a vast amount of our time is taken up by mundane tasks that are all necessary. Wed love to be able to have a Star Trek computer to ask to do the simple things for us. Those things are already here in a nascent form.

He says we will increasingly use AI to perform menial tasks. What we are good at is the creative side. AI is just a tool. Diversity becomes more important in that context. By diversity I mean teams collaborating together to be more creative. Our emotional intelligence and problem-solving and teamworking abilities will come to the fore. We will work more closely with people but will use the AI tools to do so.

OReilly takes the same view. You need to think about it in different ways, he says. AI and robotics can do a lot of the boring things we do today and allow us to be more impactful in our jobs. We will be able to spend more time analysing and acting on data than gathering and preparing it. Whole new industries might be created around training the technology. Apple has people listening to conversations and Facebook has people moderating content and these human interventions are used to train the machines.

Lee says it would be very difficult to remove people completely from many processes. It will be more a future where people and machines will work together, creating more rewarding jobs, he says.

In manufacturing and logistics, for example, automation may make certain aspects safer and quicker than a human could do the job, Lee continues. In the US, ongoing research includes a focus on trying to protect healthcare workers from infection through the development of a biosensor and AI app that will enable coronavirus diagnosis with more limited patient and healthcare worker interaction. Human judgement will always be required and its really about a new way of working trusting machines to do their jobs but people managing the process. When problems occur, most likely a human will be required to fix it. As technology evolves, people will always be more innovative thinking outside of the box and when a crisis happens, it is people that will sort the problem.

Climate change is one of those crises. There is almost so much data on climate change that they dont know how to deal with it, says Towey. Thats due to the technology but its getting better. They are already able to put computer vision on a pesticide sprayer to identify the leaf to apply it to. They are applying intelligence to where it was never really possible before.

He believes the creation of a global network of sensors to provide data on what is going on in the world will be the next great leap forward. And he doesnt believe that to be very far-fetched. If 30 years ago I said you would have the sum of global knowledge in your hand you wouldnt have believed me. Now Google gives you that on your phone. We cant even begin to comprehend what will come about in the next 30 years. Work may become more of a choice than necessity. AI and robotics could deliver things like universal basic income.

But we should use the time available to us to get ready for the change. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail, he says. We can see whats going to happen so we can prepare for it. We cant allow a situation to develop of first they came for the drivers and then they came for the retailers. When we know disruption is coming, we have to set up society to manage the change. We cant just wait for it to happen.

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AI'll be there for you: are robots coming to take our jobs? - The Irish Times

UV disinfecting robots to be deployed in fighting Covid-19 – straits times

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SINGAPORE - More than 200 locally made UV disinfecting mobile robots will be rolled out in shopping malls and the healthcare and transport sectors by the end of the year to help fight against Covid-19.

These autonomous UV mobile robots, known as Sunburst UV Bots, are made by local robotics technology firm PBA Group and are built with a lamp module emitting powerful ultraviolet-C (UV-C) light.

The robots will first be deployed in Northpoint City in May and eventually to moremalls owned by Frasers Property Retail, PBA Group and Frasers said in a joint statement on Thursday (April 23). Frasers will be the first mall operator to utilise the robots in their malls and has a portfolio of 14 malls in Singapore.

The UV-C rays emitted by the lamp module help decontaminate the environment by tearing apart strands of virus DNA. The robots move around autonomously and are guided by light detection and ranging sensors.

As UV-C light kills around 99 per cent of bacteria and has been clinically proven to eliminate viruses, the robots will disinfect surfaces more effectively compared to manual cleaning and the spraying disinfectant solutions, reduce the need for cleaners and also help protect frontline cleaning staff.

"As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to unfold, it is critical for us to ensure the ongoing health and safety of our staff, tenants and shoppers...This forms part of our overall strategy to tap on technology and automation to increase our operational efficiency," Mr Low Chee Wah, chief executive officer of Frasers Property Retail said in the statement on Thursday.

In malls, the robots will only be used after closing hours. Depending on the size of the mall, the number of robots deployed will vary and is likely to range between 10 and 20 .

"This is just the start. We are already making more robots to introduce to the line-up. PBA will have a family of robots for commercial spaces, on top of hospitals, transport, supermarkets, shopping malls. Eventually, we will be getting the robot into homes," the group's chief executive Derrick Yap told The Straits Times on Thursday.

"Soon we will also roll out these robots in Malaysia, Thailand as well as Hong Kong - we already have large conglomerates placing orders and discussing with our team about the delivery schedules. We estimate over 500 robots in the mentioned region," Mr Yap added.

As UV-C light poses a danger in close proximity, the public will need to keep a 5m distance from the robot. The staff will also either close the door or set up a temporary opaque partition to separate and distance themselves from the robot.

The Sunburst UV Bot is also able detect when people are too near and shut off its lamp.

When power is low, the robot is also able to self-navigate to its charging station. It can operate for around 2.5 hours on a single charge.

Apart from these robots, PBA will also roll out a mask donation initiative, the group said in a separate statement on Thursday.

PBA has donated more than US$50,000 (S$71,000) worth of masks and has called on other contributors to join them in this initiative. The beneficiaries include front-line staff in essential services.

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UV disinfecting robots to be deployed in fighting Covid-19 - straits times

Apple Watch designer reveals history of faces and features on fifth anniversary – 9to5Mac

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Imran Chaudhri spent over 20 years at Apple and helped create the companys hero products like iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Now on the fifth anniversary of Apples highly successful wearable, Chaudhri has shared some neat details on the history of what went into creating the Apple Watchs faces and features.

Chaudri left Apple back in 2017 and is currently working on a company thats mostly still in stealth mode called Humane who just picked up another Apple veteran, this time its VP of product engineering.

But fondly looking back today,Chaudhri shared the fascinating details about Apple Watch on Twitter today including the original sketch of the UI, the first prototype band, and more (via TechCrunch).

Heres a shot of the Apple Watch team five years ago on launch day and a reproduction of Chaudhris original sketch for the watchOS home screen.

Another fun tidbit, the Digital Touch feature that allows users to send their heartbeat and more was called E.T. for electronic touch at first.

And below he shared a look at the first prototype strap that was used with a 6th gen iPod nano.

The loop bands that arrived for Apple Watch were inspired by the velcro speedmaster used by Apollo astronauts and that Andrew Zuckerman was who captured the butterfly Motion watch face.

Another neat fact, the Solar watch face was designed by Chaudhri to be helpful for Muslims as they observed Ramadan as well as teaching everyone about how the sun and time are connected. Hodinkee also just shared a neat article about Apple Watch and twilight.

Just yesterday we also saw Hodinkee post a look at how Apple Watch has transformed the watch industry over the last five years.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

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Apple Watch designer reveals history of faces and features on fifth anniversary - 9to5Mac

Four from UC San Diego Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences – UC San Diego Health

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Left to right, top: Paul Churchland and Vicki Grassian; bottom: Margaret Leinen and David Victor. Photos courtesy of UC San Diego

Four members of the University of California San Diego community, including three professors and one vice chancellor, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciencesone of the oldest and most esteemed honorary societies in the nation.

Paul M. Churchland, Vicki H. Grassian, Margaret S. Leinen and David G. Victor are among the Academys 2020 class of 276 members. They join fellow classmates who are artists, scholars, scientists and leaders in the public, non-profit and private sectors, including: singer/activist Joan C. Baez; immunologist Yasmine Belkaid; former Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr.; author Ann Patchett and CEO and electrical engineer Lisa T. Su.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has honored exceptionally accomplished individuals and engaged them in advancing the public good for more than 240 years. Professor Walter Munk was the first UC San Diego faculty member elected to the Academy. Since then, 79 more have joined Munk in receiving this prestigious honor. For a relatively young institution such as ours, this speaks volumes of the innovative and visionary nature of this university and our well-respected and accomplished faculty, said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. I am proud to see the career accomplishments of these four individuals being recognized on such a distinguished national platform.

According to Academy PresidentDavid W. Oxtoby, the members of the class of 2020 have excelled in laboratories and lecture halls, amazed on concert stages and in surgical suites, and they have led in board rooms and courtrooms. Thesenew members are united by a place in history and by an opportunity to shape the future through the Academys work to advance the public good, said Oxtoby.

Following is more information about each of UC San Diegos newest Academy members:

Paul Churchland, professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Philosophy in the Division of Arts and Humanities, is an expert in the philosophy of science, philosophy of the mind, epistemology and cognitive science, philosophy of language and the history of philosophy. At UC San Diego, Churchland held the Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy from 1984 to 2010, taught in the Department of Cognitive Science, and is currently an affiliated faculty member of the Institute for Neural Computation. One of the most distinguished theorists in the field of the neurophilosophy and the philosophy of the mind, Churchland introduced and defended an influential view known as eliminative materialism, also known as eliminativism, in his book Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind. The research published in his book Matter and Consciousness, which presents an overview of the philosophical issues regarding the mind, is a leading text in philosophy and cognitive science education. Additional published work includes Images of Science: Scientific Realism versus Constructive Empiricism, The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain and Platos Camera: How the Physical Brain Captures a Landscape of Abstract Universals.

Vicki Grassian is the Distinguished Chair of Physical Chemistry, who currently serves as the chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the Division of Physical Sciences and also as a faculty member within the Department of Nanoengineering and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She is co-director of the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE). A leader in championing the inclusion of women and underrepresented groups in the sciences, Grassian focuses her research on the chemistry of complex environmental interfaces with projects on atmospheric aerosols, geochemical interfaces, indoor surfaces that impact indoor air quality and nanomaterials in the environment. She has pioneered laboratory studies of the reactivity and physicochemical properties of mineral dust and sea spray aerosols, providing a molecular understanding of its atmospheric chemistry and global impacts. Her studies on metal and metal oxide nanoparticles have shed light on the unique surface and environmental reactivity of these materials. Grassian is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society. She has received numerous awards including the 2019 William H. Nichols Medal Award for her contributions to the chemistry of environmental interfaces and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry 2019 Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering Award. Grassian was a distinguished member of the faculty at the University of Iowa before joining UC San Diego in 2016. She has more than 250 peer-reviewed publications in a wide range of journals.

Margaret Leinen is UC San Diegos vice chancellor for marine sciences, dean of the School of Marine Sciences and the director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Leinen is an award-winning oceanographer and an accomplished executive with extensive national and international experience in ocean science, global climate and environmental issues, federal research administration and more. Her research has focused on paleo-oceanography and paleo-climatology, specifically on ocean sediments and their relationship to global biogeochemical cycles and the history of Earths ocean and climate. Leinen currently serves on the Executive Planning Group for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. From 2016-2018, Leinen served as a U.S. Science Envoy focusing on ocean science in Latin America, East Asia and the Pacific. She is past president of the American Geophysical Union, a member of the distinguished Leadership Council of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative and past president of The Oceanography Society. Prior to joining UC San Diego, Leinen held academic leadership positions at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, a unit of Florida Atlantic University, and the University of Rhode Island. She also served as assistant director for Geosciences and Coordinator of Environmental Research and Education at the National Science Foundation.

David Victor is the Center for Global Transformation Endowed Chair in Innovation and Public Policy and professor of international relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. He serves as co-director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation and UC San Diegos Deep Decarbonization Initiative. Victors research interests are in energy policy and energy marketsthe future role of natural gas, electric power market reform and rural energy development. His interdisciplinary approach to climate change research, which integrates science, technology and policy, has made him one of worlds top experts on gauging the globes progress on addressing the issue, and what countries and industries need to do collectively and individually to reduce emissions. He is a leading contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-sanctioned international body with 195 country members. Victor is author of "Global Warming Gridlock," which explains why the world has not made much diplomatic progress on the problem of climate change while also exploring new strategies that would be more effective. Prior to joining UC San Diego, Victor served as director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University, where he was a professor at Stanford Law School and taught energy and environmental law. Earlier in his career, he also directed the science and technology program at the Council on Foreign Relations and led the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Victor also serves as an adjunct professor of climate, atmospheric science and physical oceanography at UC San Diegos Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-chairs the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate. In addition, he leads the community engagement panel for decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences was founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock and others who believed the new republic should honor exceptionally accomplished individuals and engage them in advancing the public good. The 2020 members join the company of those elected before them, including Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton in the eighteenth century; Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maria Mitchell in the nineteenth; Robert Frost, Martha Graham, Margaret Mead, Milton Friedman and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the twentieth; and more recently, Antonin Scalia, Michael Bloomberg, John Lithgow, Judy Woodruff and Bryan Stevenson. International Honorary Members include Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier, Mary Leakey, John Maynard Keynes, Akira Kurosawa and Nelson Mandela.

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Four from UC San Diego Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences - UC San Diego Health

5 key innovations in mining ventilation – Mining Technology

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]]> Modern ventilation systems are finding novel uses for artificial intelligence, internet of things technology, and other innovative solutions to improve the efficiency of airflow through underground mines. Ventilation on demand

Ventilation on Demand (VOD) systems have become popular solutions for more efficient ventilation, with companies including Bestech, ABB and Simsmart offering variations of the software. VOD allows for a more intuitive ventilation system, with software capable of scheduling airflow to different parts of the mine based on a daily schedule, in response to pre-programmed events, or by tracking environmental factors or the locations of personnel and equipment throughout the mine.

These systems allegedly reduce the total air requirements of mines by directing air only to where it is needed, when it is needed and reducing energy consumption in the process.

In theory, VOD systems can be integrated with tag and tracking systems, meaning the ventilation software can locate personnel and equipment in the mine and direct airflow to areas of work as appropriate. In practice, the concept seems to be easier said than done. Innovation in VOD systems has focused on making that selling point a consistently viable reality, as a system that can automatically dictate airflow speed, temperature and direction has huge cost-cutting potential.

In February, Natural Resources Canada awarded C$1.5m ($1.07m) to the Natural Heat Exchange Engineering Technology (NHEET) research project, which is run between the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) and other organisations including Vale, Teck and Laurentian University.

The project is examining the potential use of fractured rocks to improve cooling and air delivery in underground mines. The concept was discovered more than half a century ago at Vales Creighton nickel mine near Sudbury, Ontario, when miners realised that cool air was entering the mine through waste rock during summer, while warm air was entering during the winter. By directing the airflow through the mine, the miners could work to a depth of 2.5km without the use of artificial refrigeration.

Powering ventilation systems consumes 25-50% of the total energy requirements of an underground coal mine. If the NHEET project can successfully replicate the natural ventilation properties of the Creighton mine, it could not only displace the capital and operational costs of a refrigeration and heating system, it could reduce the overall energy consumption of mines reducing costs while also improving the environmental impact of underground mining.

Hydraulic air compressors (HACs) are an almost ancient idea from a technology standpoint, being used in mines more than 100 years ago.

Compressed air systems were most notably used as a means of power generation at mines that could not be easily connected to the existing power grid, such as the Ragged Chutes HAC system that powered silver mines in rural Ontario, Canada, more than a century ago. That system remained operational for 70 years, and only stopped operations twice for repairs in that time.

The high cost of compressed air as a resource meant that the proliferation of electrical and mechanical systems in the latter half of the 20th century resulted in compressed air becoming a non-viable resource for miners.

Now, a modern HAC designed by Electrale Innovation has modified existing air compression technology to provide cooling for underground mines. A demonstration of the HAC is operational in Sudbury, Ontario, and has received funding from the Canadian government, as well as support from mining innovators MIRARCO.

Developers on the project believe that if a natural hydropower resource can be harnessed, compressed air could be produced at almost zero marginal cost. The use of water cools the compressed air without the need for external power sources, and the hope is that the refrigerated air can be used as a low cost means of cooling and dehumidifying ultra-deep mines.

Surface-level monitoring stations can directly monitor the air quality of underground mines using real-time sensors that have the capability to be seamlessly swapped out rather than undergoing time consuming recalibration processes underground.

The Ultra-Deep Mining Network and its partners have developed sensors that can be calibrated on the surface in a stable controlled environment, before being hot swapped with the existing underground sensors.

Modern air quality sensors are touted as increasing productivity by removing the need for manual subsurface recalibration, and can hasten remedial work in the event toxic gases are detected.

Air quality stations are able to accurately monitor airflow rate and direction, gas levels, barometric pressure, and wet/dry bulb temperatures in real-time, and that information can then be used to adjust main and auxiliary ventilation fans as necessary.

Some of the technologies in this bracket are Industrial Internet of Things devices that connect directly to existing networks without requiring the addition of new equipment, resulting in efficiency boosts without large-scale refitting of existing hardware.

While dust, carbon dioxide, and toxic gases such as methane are key air quality concerns for miners, it is predominantly nitrogen dioxide emissions from diesel vehicles that drive the bulk of underground ventilation concerns. Increased uptake of electric mining vehicles could be set to change that, however.

Rapid advancement in battery technologies have led mining companies to begin replacing diesel-fuelled vehicles and drills for lithium-ion battery powered alternatives. For underground mines, electric vehicles dont just boost environmental credentials, they reduce gas and heat emissions too in turn reducing airflow requirements throughout the mine.

A 2019 report by corporate consultants BDO predicted that within four years diesel machinery will not be used in new mines in Australia, and existing mines in the country will have begun phasing them out in favour of battery electric vehicles. The report predicted that the push to electrification will come from the financiers of new mines, as well as potential government regulation as the health risks of nano diesel particulate matter become more commonly accepted.

Free Whitepaper ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MINING SAFETY: Seven ways to make your mine safer and more efficient

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The Sky This Week from April 24 to May 1 – Astronomy Magazine

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Tuesday, April 28At magnitude 8.4, Vesta is within easy reach of most binoculars. To find it, locate Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus, and draw an imaginary line northeast. First, youll hit the open star cluster NGC 1647, which contains several dozen scattered 8th- to 11th- magnitude stars. Continue that line roughly the same distance to the northeast and begin scanning for Vesta, which is slowly advancing through a region with few background stars. Try this exercise two or three nights in a row to find the spot that has moved thats the asteroid youre looking for.

Wednesday, April 29Mars remains an ideal morning target to catch before sunrise. The Red Planet glows at magnitude 0.4 in the southeastern sky, positioned midway between two 4th-magnitude stars: Iota () and Gamma () Capricorni. Mars is nearly 20 above the horizon an hour before sunrise.

Mars also stands at the center of a planetary gathering. Look west to find Saturn nearly 19 away, with Jupiter just 5 farther in the same direction. These two solar system giants shine at magnitude 0.6 and 2.4, respectively. Telescopic observers and imagers can add a dwarf planet to the mix: Pluto is just 2 southwest of Jupiter, glinting faintly at magnitude 14.

Turn your telescope 30 east of Mars to glimpse magnitude 8 Neptune. The ice giant is still low on the eastern horizon, rising higher as the sky brightens with the coming dawn. See how long you can track it before the bright sky hides it from view.

Thursday, April 30First Quarter Moon occurs at 4:38 P.M. EDT. An hour after sunset, our satellite stands high in the southwestern sky in the faint constellation Cancer the Crab. In the moonlit sky, you might have better luck spotting Gemini the Twins and their bright luminaries, Castor and Pollux, to the west. Look east of the Moon to find Leo the Lion, with his brightest star Regulus, and follow the ecliptic farther east to reach Virgo the Maiden, whose brightest star is Spica. This blue-white magnitude 1 star is not one star, but two however, the stars are so close that they cannot be split visually. Instead, astronomers discovered Spicas dual nature by noticing that as one star orbits the other, gravitys effects shift the light we see from the star slightly red and then blue over time.

The larger of the two, Spica A, is roughly seven times wider than our Sun and 10 times as massive. Most of the light we see from the star comes from this component. The smaller Spica B is a little less than four times wider than the Sun and seven times as massive.

Friday, May 1 The Eta Aquariids have been slowly ramping up since last week and will peak in another few days. Its not one of the years best meteor showers, due to its low-altitude radiant in the Northern Hemisphere and low predicted rate of just 10 meteors per hour at its peak. But with Mars hanging nearby and a still-crescent Moon in the sky, its worth trying to catch a few shooting stars this morning.

Find the darkest skies possible and spend some time scanning overhead. Try concentrating on a spot away from the constellation Aquarius, where the showers meteors originate. You may only see five or so Eta Aquariid meteors an hour, but this is also a great chance to relax beneath the stars and get to know the morning sky much better.

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The Sky This Week from April 24 to May 1 - Astronomy Magazine

Hubble watches a suspected exoplanet disappear before its very eyes – Astronomy Magazine

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"Clearly, Fomalhaut b was doing things a bona fide planet should not be doing," Gspr said.

The last straw for Fomalhaut b was when researchers looked at Hubble images from 2014, which revealed the object had vanished altogether. Though there could be reasons why an exoplanet fades, they certainly dont just disappear.

This led researchers to conclude that Fomalhaut b was nothing more than a planetary mirage namely, an energetic cloud of debris blasted from a collision between two large icy objects. Then, as the cloud dispersed, the faux-planet Fomalhaut b dissolved into nothingness. Based on the evolving shape and location of the debris, the researchers estimate the original colliding bodies were each likely a mix of ice and dust measuring about 125 miles (200 kilometers) across.

Unfortunately, Hubble seems to have been late for the main event, as the researchers think the crash happened right before the telescope began observing the system in 2004. But just detecting the results of such a violent cosmic event is exciting, they say. According to the researchers calculations, such a massive collision may only happen once every 200,000 years in a given system.

Astronomers hope to further study the Fomalhaut system with the upcoming the James Webb Space Telescope during its first year of operations. The future observations will hopefully answer questions about Fomalhauts asteroid belt, as well as about any legitimate planets actually orbiting the star.

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A century ago, astronomys Great Debate foreshadowed todays view of the universe – Science News

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Countinguniverses ought to be easy. By definition, you can stop at 1.

Troubleis, definitions change. A century ago, the universe was defined as the MilkyWay galaxy. Heretics who disagreed had long been ridiculed until sciencestaged what became known as the Great Debate, on April 26, 100 years ago. Onthat date, American astronomers HarlowShapley and HeberCurtis articulated opposing views on the scope of the cosmos.

Todayastronomers know that the Milky Way, huge as it is, is a mere drop in thecosmic bucket. Just as the sun is only one of 100 billion or so stars swirlingwithin the Milky Ways pinwheel disk, the Milky Way is only one of hundreds ofbillions of such galaxies inhabiting a vast, expanding bubble of space.

Butin 1920, conventional wisdom dictated that the Milky Way was alone. Mostexperts insisted that the fuzzy patches of light known as nebulae residedwithin the Milky Way. Nebulae with a spiral structure might be solar systems inthe making, some astronomers suggested.

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Othersinsisted that the nebulae were far, far away, well beyond the Milky Waysborders. In fact, the heretics argued, the nebulae (at least some) containedstars in quantities comparable to our galaxy, and deserved recognition asisland universes.

Actually,the island universe idea had been a popular explanation for the nebulae in themid-19th century. (American astronomer OrmsbyMacKnight Mitchel coined the island universe label inthe 1840s, a translation from a German article referring to the nebulae as Weltinseln.)But by centurys end, the astronomical consensus had affirmed the Milky Way asthe sole and rightful universe. Irish astronomer and author Agnes Clerkedeclared in 1890 that no competent thinker believed the nebulae to be galaxiescomparable to the Milky Way. She later wrote that the island universe theoryhad passed into the realm of discarded and half-forgotten speculations.

Butduring the first two decades of the 20th century, new astronomical observationsraised doubts. Curtis, for one, maintained that the evidence favored islanduniverses. But Shapley insisted that the nebulae could not be far enough awayto be outside the Milky Way. He cited measurements (by Adriaan van Maanen) ofmotion of the spiral arms within some nebulae; such motion would beundetectable if the nebulae were actually distant galaxies.

In1919, leaders of the National Academy of Sciences decided it would be fun to holda debate on the dispute at the academys meeting the following April.

Technically,the topic of the debate was to be on the distance scale of the universe. Onthat issue, Curtis was the conservative and Shapley was the heretic. Curtismaintained the more traditional view that the visible Milky Way stretched onlyabout 30,000 light-years across at most, and was possibly much smaller. Shapleythought that the Milky Way had a diameter of 300,000 light-years (much bigger eventhan todays estimate of roughly 100,000 light-years or so).

AlthoughShapleys view of the Milky Ways size was radical, it did support theconsensus view opposing island universes.

If, as Shapley maintained,the Galaxy was much larger than had previously been thought, it would be moredifficult for Curtis to sustain the claim that the spiral nebulae wereindependent island universes, historian Michael Hoskin observed in a 1976 paper analyzing the debate.

Asit turned out, the debate was nothing that CNN would had televised. Eachastronomer just presented a 40-minute talk. Shapley, who went first, read froma typewritten script. Curtis, the better speaker, showed slides, a more powerfulway to make his point.

Shapleyrecounted a potpourri of recent astronomical observations, barely mentioningthe island universe theory. He insisted that Curtis interpretation of the observationsrequired abandoning the very foundations of modern astrophysics.But he acknowledged that if the Milky Way was really small, the island universeidea just maybe could be right.

Ifthe galactic system is as large as I maintain, the spiral nebulae can hardly becomparable galactic systems, Shapley declared. If it is but one-tenth aslarge, theremightbe a good opportunity for the hypothesisthat our galactic system is a spiral nebula, comparable in size with the otherspiral nebulae, all of which would then be island universes of stars.

Curtispresented data supporting his view of a smaller Milky Way, citing variousestimates of its diameter ranging from 10,000 light-years to 30,000light-years. He argued that the analysis of light from spiral nebulae indicatedthat they were clusters of stars (with similar features to the spectrum oflight from the Milky Way itself). The spectrum of the spiral nebulae offers nodifficulties in the island universe theory of the spirals, Curtis stated.Subsequent slides further built the case for the spirals as island universes.

Moredetailed arguments (deviating considerably from the original talks) appearedthe next year inpapers by Shapley and Curtis published jointly under the title TheScale of the Universe in the Bulletin of the National Research Council.Resolution of the debate came two years later: Astronomer Edwin Hubbledemonstrated that the Andromedanebula was truly an island universe full of stars at a distance farexceeding even Shapleys generous estimate of the Milky Ways girth.

Facedwith new findings, Shapley had to concede. When a letter arrived from Hubblereporting the Andromeda results, Shapley remarked: Here is the letter thatdestroyed my universe.

Shapleyhad been misled by van Maanens measurements they simply turned out to bewrong. Shapley said later that van Maanen was his friend, so of course he believed him,astronomer Virginia Trimble commented in a 1995 discussion of the debate.

ButShapley had not been entirely defeated. For on another important point, he wasright, and Curtis was wrong. In his smaller Milky Way, Curtis placed the sunvery near the center, as astronomical consensus dictated. Around the turn ofthe century, astronomer Simon Newcomb had wondered about that consensus, though,pointing out that ancient astronomers believed with equal confidence that theEarth sat at the center of the universe. Shapley declared that Newcomb wasright to be skeptical.

We havebeen victimized by the chance position of the sun near the center of asubordinate system, and misled by the consequent phenomena, to think that weare Gods own appointed, right in the thick of things, Shapley said at the1920 debate in much the same way ancient man was misled, by the rotation ofthe earth to believe that even his little planet was the center of theuniverse.

Today astronomers all know that Shapley was right about the sun; it is substantially displaced from the galactic center. And everybody knows that Curtis was also right: The Milky Way home to sun, Earth and humankind is not a single universe unto itself, but one of a myriad upon myriad of other galaxies no longer known as island universes, as the definition of universe had to be changed.

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A century ago, astronomys Great Debate foreshadowed todays view of the universe - Science News

Four amazing astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece – The Conversation UK

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The Histories by Herodotus (484BC to 425BC) offers a remarkable window into the world as it was known to the ancient Greeks in the mid fifth century BC. Almost as interesting as what they knew, however, is what they did not know. This sets the baseline for the remarkable advances in their understanding over the next few centuries simply relying on what they could observe with their own eyes.

Herodotus claimed that Africa was surrounded almost entirely by sea. How did he know this? He recounts the story of Phoenician sailors who were dispatched by King Neco II of Egypt (about 600BC), to sail around continental Africa, in a clockwise fashion, starting in the Red Sea. This story, if true, recounts the earliest known circumnavigation of Africa, but also contains an interesting insight into the astronomical knowledge of the ancient world.

The voyage took several years. Having rounded the southern tip of Africa, and following a westerly course, the sailors observed the Sun as being on their right hand side, above the northern horizon. This observation simply did not make sense at the time because they didnt yet know that the Earth has a spherical shape, and that there is a southern hemisphere.

A few centuries later, there had been a lot of progress. Aristarchus of Samos (310BC to 230BC) argued that the Sun was the central fire of the cosmos and he placed all of the then known planets in their correct order of distance around it. This is the earliest known heliocentric theory of the solar system.

Unfortunately, the original text in which he makes this argument has been lost to history, so we cannot know for certain how he worked it out. Aristarchus knew the Sun was much bigger than the Earth or the Moon, and he may have surmised that it should therefore have the central position in the solar system.

Nevertheless it is a jawdropping finding, especially when you consider that it wasnt rediscovered until the 16th century, by Nicolaus Copernicus, who even acknowledged Aristarchus during the development of his own work.

One of Aristarchus books that did survive is about the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon. In this remarkable treatise, Aristarchus laid out the earliest known attempted calculations of the relative sizes and distances to the Sun and Moon.

It had long been observed that the Sun and Moon appeared to be of the same apparent size in the sky, and that the Sun was further away. They realised this from solar eclipses, caused by the Moon passing in front of the Sun at a certain distance from Earth.

Also, at the instant when the Moon is at first or third quarter, Aristarchus reasoned that the Sun, Earth, and Moon would form a right-angled triangle.

As Pythagoras had determined how the lengths of triangles sides were related a couple of centuries earlier, Aristarchus used the triangle to estimate that the distance to the Sun was between 18 and 20 times the distance to the Moon. He also estimated that the size of the Moon was approximately one-third that of Earth, based on careful timing of lunar eclipses.

While his estimated distance to the Sun was too low (the actual ratio is 390), on account of the lack of telescopic precision available at the time, the value for the ratio of the size of the Earth to the Moon is surprisingly accurate (the Moon has a diameter 0.27 times that of Earth).

Today, we know the size and distance to the moon accurately by a variety of means, including precise telescopes, radar observations and laser reflectors left on the surface by Apollo astronauts.

Eratosthenes (276BC to 195 BC) was chief librarian at the Great Library of Alexandria, and a keen experimentalist. Among his many achievements was the earliest known calculation of the circumference of the Earth. Pythagoras is generally regarded as the earliest proponent of a spherical Earth, although apparently not its size. Eratosthenes famous and yet simple method relied on measuring the different lengths of shadows cast by poles stuck vertically into the ground, at midday on the summer solstice, at different latitudes.

The Sun is sufficiently far away that, wherever its rays arrive at Earth, they are effectively parallel, as had previously been shown by Aristarchus. So the difference in the shadows demonstrated how much the Earths surface curved. Eratosthenes used this to estimate the Earths circumference as approximately 40,000km. This is within a couple of percent of the actual value, as established by modern geodesy (the science of the Earths shape).

Later, another scientist called Posidonius (135BC to 51BC) used a slightly different method and arrived at almost exactly the same answer. Posidonius lived on the island of Rhodes for much of his life. There he observed the bright star Canopus would lie very close to the horizon. However, when in Alexandria, in Egypt, he noted Canopus would ascend to some 7.5 degrees above the horizon.

Given that 7.5 degrees is 1/48th of a circle, he multiplied the distance from Rhodes to Alexandria by 48, and arrived at a value also of approximately 40,000km.

The worlds oldest surviving mechanical calculator is the Antikythera Mechanism. The amazing device was discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900.

The device is now fragmented by the passage of time, but when intact it would have appeared as a box housing dozens of finely machined bronze gear wheels. When manually rotated by a handle, the gears span dials on the exterior showing the phases of the Moon, the timing of lunar eclipses, and the positions of the five planets then known (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) at different times of the year. This even accounted for their retrograde motion an illusionary change in the movement of planets through the sky.

We dont know who built it, but it dates to some time between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, and may even have been the work of Archimedes. Gearing technology with the sophistication of the Antikythera mechanism was not seen again for a thousand years.

Sadly, the vast majority of these works were lost to history and our scientific awakening was delayed by millennia. As a tool for introducing scientific measurement, the techniques of Eratosthenes are relatively easy to perform and require no special equipment, allowing those just beginning their interest in science to understand by doing, experimenting and, ultimately, following in the foot steps some of the first scientists.

One can but speculate where our civilisation might be now if this ancient science had continued unabated.

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Four amazing astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece - The Conversation UK

Astronomers May Have Captured the First Ever Image of Nearby Exoplanet Proxima C – Scientific American

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Little is more enticing than the prospect of seeing alien worlds around other starsand perhaps one day even closely studying their atmosphere and mapping their surface. Such observations are exceedingly difficult, of course. Although more than 4,000 exoplanets are now known, the vast majority of them are too distant and dim for our best telescopes to discern against the glare of their host star. Exoplanets near our solar system provide easier imaging opportunities, however. And no worlds are nearer to us than those thought to orbit the cool, faint red dwarf Proxima Centaurithe closest star to our sun at 4.2 light-years away.

In 2016 astronomers discovered the first known planet in this system: the roughly Earth-sized Proxima b. But because of its star-hugging 11-day orbit around Proxima Centauri, Proxima b is a poor candidate for imaging. Proxima c, by contrast, offers much better chances. Announced in 2019, based on somewhat circumstantial evidence, the planet remains unconfirmed. If real, it is estimated to be several times more massive than Eartha so-called super Earth or mini Neptuneand to orbit Proxima Centauri at about 1.5 times the span between Earth and the sun. Its size and distance from its star make the world a tempting target for current and near-future exoplanet-imaging projects. Now, in a new preprint paper accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, some astronomers say they mightjust might have managed to see Proxima c for the first time.

This planet is extremely interesting because Proxima is a star very close to the sun, says Raffaele Gratton of the Astronomical Observatory of Padova in Italy, who is the studys lead author. The idea was that since this planet is [far] from the star, it is possible that it can be observed in direct imaging. We found a reasonable candidate that looks like we have really detected the planet.

Last year Gratton and his team were first alerted to the possibility of imaging the planet by Mario Damasso of the Astrophysical Observatory of Turin in Italy, who was the lead author of the original paper on Proxima cs possible discovery. Damasso and his colleagues had presented evidence for Proxima cs existence based on its stars telltale wobbling, which they inferred was caused by the pull of an unseen orbiting planet. Confirming a worlds existence in this way requires seeing the same wobble occur againand againin a process that often takes many months or even years. Damasso wondered if there might be another way. Thus, he asked Gratton and his team to look through data from the SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-Contrast Exoplanet Research) instrument on the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to see if they could actually see the planet. As soon as our paper on Proxima c was considered for publication, I contacted [Gratton] to discuss the possibility of pushing SPHERE to its limits, Damasso says. The [planetary] system is potentially so cool that it is worthy to try other techniques.

If you squint a bit while staring at the SPHERE data, a picture of the mysterious planet seems to swim into view. By focusing on Proxima cs predicted position and separation from its star within multiple, stacked infrared images from SPHERE, Gratton and his colleagues were able to pick out 19 potential appearances of the planet across several years of routine observations. Of these candidate detections, one stood out as being particularly enticing: it appeared in the images about six times brighter than their noisethat is, unwanted light from artifacts or background stars. Its a possible candidate that has a low probability of being a false alarm, says Emily Rickman of the Geneva Observatory, who is a co-author of the paper.

If that detection is genuine, it poses intriguing questions. The object believed to be the planet would be at least seven times the mass of Earthlarge enough to place it firmly beyond the super Earth category. This would definitely be some kind of mini Neptune, says Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the new paper. The object also appears to be 10 to 100 times brighter than a planet of its mass should be. This luminosity, the study authors reason, couldarise from a large amount of dust surrounding the planet, perhaps in a vast ring system that is three to four times larger than that of Saturn. To some, that situation seems too strange to be true.

It would be a huge ring system around a relatively old star, says astrophysicist Bruce Macintosh of Stanford University, who also was not part of the work. Its certainly possible for things like this to exist. But for your first detection of something like this to have that massive ring system, youd have to postulate a universe in which most Neptune-sized planets have massive ring systems enormously bigger than Saturns. And that seems like an unlikely universe to live in.

If genuine, this detectionthis imagewould have profound implications for our understanding of our nearest neighboring planetary system. It would give us definitive proof of the existence of Proxima c and also provide the angle at which the planet orbits its star, relative to our ownsomething that watching a stars wobbles alone cannot provide. The detection would also all but ensure that we could soon study the planets atmosphere with a new generation of powerful observatories, such as the upcoming European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and NASAs Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

Perhaps more importantly, pinning down Proxima c would also likely reveal the orbital angle of Proxima b, because planets would be expected to orbit in the same plane like those in our solar system do. This information, coupled with the wobbles Proxima b raises on its star, would tell us that world must be somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 times the mass of Earth, which would let us refine theories about its characteristics. Such a mass would strongly point to the fact [that Proxima b] is rocky, says Elizabeth Tasker, an exoplanet scientist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who was not involved in the study. In addition to our knowledge that Proxima b orbits in its stars habitable zone, where liquid water and thus life as we know it can exist, proof that the world is rocky would catapult it to the top of any astrobiologists list of promising exoplanets.

Such spectacular possibilities, however, call for steely-eyed skepticism. Indeed, the new papers authors acknowledge there is a decent chance their image is not actually a planet at all but rather just random noise in the data. They also note that the apparent motion of their putative planet conflicts with earlier estimates of Proxima cs position, based on observations of its star made by the European Space Agencys Gaia spacecraft. Thus, other astronomers are treating the potential finding with a considerable amount of caution. Its tough for me to conclude that [this] is a decisive detection, says Thayne Currie, an exoplanet scientist at NASAs Ames Research Center, who was also not part of the work.

Unfortunately, the ongoing global shutdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic means that the result cannot be checked for the time being, because most of the worlds observatoriesincluding the VLTare not operational. It could be [confirmed or refuted] tomorrow, but the observatories are closed, says astronomer Guillem Anglada-Escud, who led the discovery of Proxima b in 2016 and was not involved in the new study. Time is running out for an immediate follow-up: in July Proxima Centauri will pass out of view behind our sun until February 2021.

So for now, the prospect of Proxima c having been seen for the first time remains an enticing but elusive possibility. Even if it proves to be a miragean astronomical false alarmthis potential detection is unlikely to dampen enthusiasm for further studies. Other teams will try again with upcoming instruments, more advanced than SPHERE, operating on supersized telescopes such as the E-ELT. But if the detection is real, which Gratton says he is two thirds confident about, it would be a historic initial glimpse of a planet orbiting the closest start to our own. If this is true, its very exciting, says Anglada-Escud.

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Astronomers May Have Captured the First Ever Image of Nearby Exoplanet Proxima C - Scientific American

Astronomers Just Identified 19 More Asteroids They Think Are Interstellar – ScienceAlert

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The Solar System has been here for a long time. So, when 'Oumuamua was spotted in 2017, it was almost a dead cert it wasn't the only object from interstellar space to visit us over that 4.57 billion-year history. Then comet 2I/Borisov showed up last year. That basically clinched it.

But where are the rest of our interstellar visitors? We'll probably find a few more flying in from the wilds in the coming years. And, according to new research, a whole bunch of interstellar asteroids have been hanging out right here in the Solar System for a very long time.

Based on how they move around the Sun, a team of researchers has identified 19 asteroids they think were captured from another star, way back when the Solar System was just a few million years old.

Back then, astronomers believe, the Sun was part of a stellar nursery, a cluster of stars being born close together of the same cloud of gas and dust.

"The close proximity of the stars meant that they felt each others' gravity much more strongly in those early days than they do today," explained astronomer and cosmologist Fathi Namouni of the Observatoire de la Cte d'Azur in France.

"This enabled asteroids to be pulled from one star system to another."

Fathi and his colleague astronomer Helena Morais of the Universidade Estadual Paulista in Brazil found their first permanent interstellar resident in 2018. They were looking into a group of asteroids called the Centaurs, which hang out between Jupiter and Neptune, and often have really weird orbits.

One asteroid called 2015 BZ509 - later named Kaepaokaawela - was on a weirder orbit than most - exactly the same as Jupiter's, but in the opposite direction, or retrograde. If it was native to the Solar System, it should have been travelling in the same direction as everything else, so the team ran simulations to discover its origins.

They found that Kaepaokaawela's most likely origin was interstellar space, and it had been captured into the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago.

In the new study, the team examined Centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects with high orbital inclination relative to the orbital plane of the planets, sometimes bringing them close to a polar orbit. And, like Kaepaokaawela, some of these objects also have retrograde orbits.

"With moderate to high eccentricities, Centaurs' orbits may be inclined by a few degrees with respect to the Solar System's invariable plane to almost 180 resulting in retrograde motion," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Their orbital features are often taken as a sign of their violent past in the Solar System, a notion reinforced by their so-called instability. If a Centaur orbit is integrated forward or backward in time, it will invariably either hit the Sun, the planets, or be ejected from the Solar System."

The study included 17 Centaurs with orbital inclinations greater than 60 degrees, and two objects that orbit past Neptune, or trans-Neptunian objects. The researchers used the known orbits of these objects to create multiple clones of each one to simulate their orbits back in time - arriving at 4.5 billion years ago.

At this time, the stuff in our Solar System was all more or less in a flat disc around the Sun, leftover from the young star's accretion disc. It should have all been orbiting on around the same plane, and in the same direction.

But, according to the team's simulations, these 19 asteroids weren't a part of that tidy disc. Most of the clones did indeed end up smashing into the Sun or getting kicked out of the Solar System. Fewer ended up smashing into a planet. Even fewer still maintained a stable orbit... however, since those asteroids are here today, they must have beaten the odds, according to this model.

But those that did achieve a stable orbit did not start out in the Sun's disc. Not only were they far beyond the disc's outskirts, but the orbits were perpendicular to it.

This, the researchers said, means that the probability the asteroids were captured by the Sun's gravity from outside the Solar System is higher than the probability they were born here, with the rest of the Solar System's rocks, out of the Sun's leftovers.

Future study of these rocks could help validate the team's findings; from there, they could help us identify more interstellar interlopers, which in turn could help us learn more about the formation of the Solar System, as well as other planetary systems.

"The discovery of a whole population of asteroids of interstellar origin is an important step in understanding the physical and chemical similarities and differences between Solar System-born and interstellar asteroids," Morais said.

"This population will give us clues about the Sun's early birth cluster, how interstellar asteroid capture occurred, and the role that interstellar matter had in chemically enriching the Solar System and shaping its evolution."

The research has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Link:

Astronomers Just Identified 19 More Asteroids They Think Are Interstellar - ScienceAlert

Travis Scott will launch ‘Astronomical’ into the Fortnite frontier this week – Space.com

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Travis Scott is about to get cosmic with Fortnite.

The Grammy-nominated rapper has teamed up with the online video game phenomenon to launch his new (and apparently space-themed) track "Astronomical" on Thursday (April 23).

"From April 23-25, blast off into a one of a kind musical journey featuring Travis Scott and the world premiere of a brand new track," Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, wrote in an announcement. "Astronomical is an other-worldly experience inspired by Cactus Jack's creations, built from the ground up in Fortnite." (Cactus Jack is Scott's record label.)

Fans of Fortnite and Scott can jump into the game about 30 minutes before each scheduled "Astronomical" event (there are five of them) and will receive a free Astroworld Cyclone Glider and two space art loading screens just for tuning in. Fornite also launched a Travis Scott outfit for players that includes three variant skins (including one with a spacesuit helmet).

Here's when the events will occur:

"Astroworld" is the name of Scott's celebrated album and his space-themed festival that took place last November in Houston, Texas, according to our friends at Games Radar. It bears a striking similarity to Astroland, a theme park at New York City's Coney Island, which was also home to a Cyclone roller coaster at its Luna Park. (Yes, I rode it. Yes, it was awesome.)

Today (April 21) Fortnite launched a series of Astronomical Challenges for players, that will unlock a free spacesuit helmet spray, banner and a Travis Scott emote.

Scott's "Astronomical" debut isn't the first cosmic tie-in to land in the Fortnite game.

In December, the game featured a sneak peek at the "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" movie, complete with a message from the Emperor, the Millennium Falcon and "Star Wars"-themed gear for players.

Last October, Epic Games ended Fortnite's first chapter with a massive black hole, which destroyed the game's island battleground for days until Chapter 2 launched. The game has also featured rocket launches, comets, meteors and other sci-fi themes in past seasons.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

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Travis Scott will launch 'Astronomical' into the Fortnite frontier this week - Space.com