The Prometheus League
Breaking News and Updates
- Abolition Of Work
- Ai
- Alt-right
- Alternative Medicine
- Antifa
- Artificial General Intelligence
- Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Super Intelligence
- Ascension
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- Atheist
- Atlas Shrugged
- Automation
- Ayn Rand
- Bahamas
- Bankruptcy
- Basic Income Guarantee
- Big Tech
- Bitcoin
- Black Lives Matter
- Blackjack
- Boca Chica Texas
- Brexit
- Caribbean
- Casino
- Casino Affiliate
- Cbd Oil
- Censorship
- Cf
- Chess Engines
- Childfree
- Cloning
- Cloud Computing
- Conscious Evolution
- Corona Virus
- Cosmic Heaven
- Covid-19
- Cryonics
- Cryptocurrency
- Cyberpunk
- Darwinism
- Democrat
- Designer Babies
- DNA
- Donald Trump
- Eczema
- Elon Musk
- Entheogens
- Ethical Egoism
- Eugenic Concepts
- Eugenics
- Euthanasia
- Evolution
- Extropian
- Extropianism
- Extropy
- Fake News
- Federalism
- Federalist
- Fifth Amendment
- Fifth Amendment
- Financial Independence
- First Amendment
- Fiscal Freedom
- Food Supplements
- Fourth Amendment
- Fourth Amendment
- Free Speech
- Freedom
- Freedom of Speech
- Futurism
- Futurist
- Gambling
- Gene Medicine
- Genetic Engineering
- Genome
- Germ Warfare
- Golden Rule
- Government Oppression
- Hedonism
- High Seas
- History
- Hubble Telescope
- Human Genetic Engineering
- Human Genetics
- Human Immortality
- Human Longevity
- Illuminati
- Immortality
- Immortality Medicine
- Intentional Communities
- Jacinda Ardern
- Jitsi
- Jordan Peterson
- Las Vegas
- Liberal
- Libertarian
- Libertarianism
- Liberty
- Life Extension
- Macau
- Marie Byrd Land
- Mars
- Mars Colonization
- Mars Colony
- Memetics
- Micronations
- Mind Uploading
- Minerva Reefs
- Modern Satanism
- Moon Colonization
- Nanotech
- National Vanguard
- NATO
- Neo-eugenics
- Neurohacking
- Neurotechnology
- New Utopia
- New Zealand
- Nihilism
- Nootropics
- NSA
- Oceania
- Offshore
- Olympics
- Online Casino
- Online Gambling
- Pantheism
- Personal Empowerment
- Poker
- Political Correctness
- Politically Incorrect
- Polygamy
- Populism
- Post Human
- Post Humanism
- Posthuman
- Posthumanism
- Private Islands
- Progress
- Proud Boys
- Psoriasis
- Psychedelics
- Putin
- Quantum Computing
- Quantum Physics
- Rationalism
- Republican
- Resource Based Economy
- Robotics
- Rockall
- Ron Paul
- Roulette
- Russia
- Sealand
- Seasteading
- Second Amendment
- Second Amendment
- Seychelles
- Singularitarianism
- Singularity
- Socio-economic Collapse
- Space Exploration
- Space Station
- Space Travel
- Spacex
- Sports Betting
- Sportsbook
- Superintelligence
- Survivalism
- Talmud
- Technology
- Teilhard De Charden
- Terraforming Mars
- The Singularity
- Tms
- Tor Browser
- Trance
- Transhuman
- Transhuman News
- Transhumanism
- Transhumanist
- Transtopian
- Transtopianism
- Ukraine
- Uncategorized
- Vaping
- Victimless Crimes
- Virtual Reality
- Wage Slavery
- War On Drugs
- Waveland
- Ww3
- Yahoo
- Zeitgeist Movement
-
Prometheism
-
Forbidden Fruit
-
The Evolutionary Perspective
Daily Archives: June 3, 2017
STEM lab serves robotics, computer programming for lunch at Ontario junior high – Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Posted: June 3, 2017 at 12:31 pm
ONTARIO >> At Woodcrest Junior High School, lunchtime means sandwiches, fresh fruit, robots and circuitry.
Here we go, said seventh-grader Adrian Agustin, 12, tossing a polystyrene ball at a hand-drawn target hooked up to a circuit board. The sensor behind Adrians target registered the impact, and on an attached 8-by-8 grid of lights, an illuminated +1 scrolled across. And another. And so on.
The kids have an opportunity to come in and explore, experiment, hang out with friends, have a safe environment to play with engineering, said Lisa Lista, an instructional coach at the school and one of the two women behind the schools lunchtime STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) lab.
The lab began in October, sharing space with another classroom, but soon became so popular that it needed a full-sized classroom of its own.
There are times when this classroom is so filled that we need to get help from other teachers, said Sarai Padilla, an instructional coach at the school and Listas partner in the lab.
Up to 30 kids will show up in the laboratory at a time.
I didnt know if kids would come, Lista said. Its during their lunch and their time for hanging out with their friends at the lunch tables. ASB usually has a lot of stuff going on: games, music. But thankfully, a lot of the kids want to come in. They want to do something, hands-on.
The lunchtime STEM lab participants run the gamut from special education students to honors students.
Its a safe place for everybody to come to, Padilla said. You dont have to have any engineering experience at all. They just come in and say Whats this about? and are curious.
The students build Lego Mindstorms robots, HyperDuino computer components and Little Bits modular electronics, like the ones Adrian was using.
Last year, I was using Little Bits in my classroom, with my fifth-graders, and wanted to be able to open up and branch out to other students instead of just my class, Lista said. We wanted a wider range of kids to be able to come.
While there are structured projects available, there are no grades and students are able to experiment and tinker with the labs technology.
We have a girl group who come in and they made an electronic nail file, Lista said, grinning. Its something that theyre interested in. Its easy for them to come in and explore and create.
One student has been so inspired that he and his brother now raid the trash from electronics stores for spare parts.
He has made a Bluetooth earphone set, Padilla said.
Advertisement
Hes made a fan, Lista said.
... that you plug into your phone, Padilla said.
Hes made a cellphone charger, Lista said. He started here, with Little Bits.
It opened up a new world for him, Padilla said.
Thats awesome, Lista said.
Next year, the STEM lab will be back, sort of.
Its actually going to be a course, Lista said. Next year, its going to be an elective for the students.
View post:
Posted in Robotics
Comments Off on STEM lab serves robotics, computer programming for lunch at Ontario junior high – Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Apple’s Swift Playgrounds coding app now supports robots, drones, and toys – The Verge
Posted: at 12:31 pm
Apple today announced that its education programming iPad app, Swift Playgrounds, will soon support robots and drones. That means young kids and students will be able to write their own Swift code to control any number of real-world toys and machines. The company is launching the feature next Monday, partnering with a number of top toy and robotics companies including LEGO, automated BB-8 toy maker Sphero, and drone company Parrot. Other companies on board for the launch are toy robot makers UBTECH and Wonder Workshop, as well as Skoog, the maker of a music cube that relies on Swift code to teach children how to compose songs.
Swift Playgrounds, launched last year during Apples 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference, is effectively a video game that teaches kids how to code using Apples Swift programming language. It breaks down how code functions at the most fundamental level and uses colorful environments and visual guides product manager Tim Triemstra even uses the game industry term cutscenes to explain the effects of code and the power of programming. The code appears on the left side of the iPad screen, either automated by the app to teach a lesson or typed in directly by the user, while an animation the code can manipulate plays out on the right.
Kids can now use Swift to send commands to toy robots and drones
Since the Playgrounds launch, Apple has partnered with a number of educational institutions around the country to get Swift built into introductory computer science curriculums and to make its Playgrounds app a fixture in classrooms. The company says Playgrounds has amassed 1 million unique users since launch. When we were designing Swift, from the very first days we wanted it to be everyones first programming language, Triemstra says. We wanted it to be approachable.
Now, with a significant number of Playground users and Swift picking up steam as a lightweight and more elegant way to build iOS apps, Apple is trying to expand its educational focus from software to hardware. Because Playgrounds will support all manner of robotics, including flying drones, the company hopes it will give young kids a whole new reason to engage with programming and learn the secrets of code. It could also do wonders for the popularity of Swift among the next generation of coders, and help cement the language as a fixture for young and eager roboticists.
Given the popularity of success of the Mindstorms robotics series, its a no-brainer that Apple got LEGO onboard for Playgrounds. In a demo at the iPhone makers Cupertino office, a LEGO representative broke down exactly how a Mindstorms EV3 kit can work with Playgrounds, connecting any number of robot-controlling modules to an iPad via Bluetooth. From there, you can see real-time data provided by the robots actuators, motors, and sensors, as well as program commands for fleshed out LEGO bots to receive and carry out. In preparation for the partnership, LEGO says its also designed 10 hours of lessons specifically for the Playgrounds app for kids to run through with a Mindstorms kit.
Similarly, Spheros transparent SPRK+ orb, which is already used to teach kids elements of robotics and programming, will work with the app. Kids will be able to program movements and games for the orb, with exercises breaking down the step-by-step process of development, including a real-world Pong game they can play with their feet as the paddles and the SPRK+ as the ball.
French drone maker Parrot is also buying into Apples new Playgrounds initiative, adding support for its Mambo, Rolling Spider, and Airborne drones. In another demo at Apples offices, a Parrot representative showed off how the Playgrounds app can be used to input commands for the drones to turn, flip in midair, and land in the palm of a users hand.
Apple stresses that none of these new features and hardware tie-ins for Playground are dependent on brand new or tie-in hardware. With LEGO, all you need is a Mindstorms EV3 kit, released as far back as 2013. The same goes for Spheros SPRK+ and Parrots trio of drones so long as you have the supported product, it will sync with Playgrounds and allow you to start controlling it with your own code.
Original post:
Apple's Swift Playgrounds coding app now supports robots, drones, and toys - The Verge
Posted in Robotics
Comments Off on Apple’s Swift Playgrounds coding app now supports robots, drones, and toys – The Verge
Video Friday: Robot Dance Teacher, Transformer Drone, and Pneumatic Reel Actuator – IEEE Spectrum
Posted: at 12:31 pm
The week is almost over, and so is the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Singapore. We hope youve been enjoying our coverage, which has featured aquatic drones, stone-stacking manipulators, andself-folding soft robots. Well have lots more from the conference over the next few weeks, but for you impatient types, were cramming Video Friday this week with a special selection of ICRA videos.
We tried to include videos from many different subareas of robotics: control, vision, locomotion, machine learning, aerial vehicles, humanoids, actuators, manipulation, andhuman-robot interaction.Were posting the abstracts along with the videos, but if you have any questions about these projects, let us know and well get more details from the authors.
Well return to normal Video Friday next week. Have a great weekend everyone!
This letter presents a physical humanrobot interaction scenario in which a robot guides and performs the role of a teacher within a defined dance training framework. A combined cognitive and physical feedback of performance is proposed for assisting the skill learning process. Direct contact cooperation has been designed through an adaptive impedancebased controller that adjusts according to the partners performance in the task. In measuring performance, a scoring system has been designed using the concept of progressive teaching (PT). The system adjusts the difficulty based on the users number of practices and performance history. Using the proposed method and a baseline constant controller, comparative experiments have shown that the PT presents better performance in the initial stage of skill learning. An analysis of the subjects perception of comfort, peace of mind, and robot performance have shown significant difference at the p < .01 level, favoring the PT algorithm.
In this paper, we introduce the achievement of the aerial manipulation by using the whole body of a transformable aerial robot, instead of attaching an additional manipulator. The aerial robot in our work is composed by two-dimensional multilinks which enable a stable aerial transformation and can be employed as an entire gripper. We propose a planning method to find the optimized grasping form for the multilinks while they are on the air, which is based on the original planar enveloping algorithm, along with the optimization of the internal force and joint torque for the force-closure. We then propose the aerial approach and grasp motion strategy, which is devoted to the determination of the form and position of the aerial robot to approach and grasp effectively the object from the air. Finally we present the experimental results of the aerial manipulation which involves grasping, carrying and dropping different types of object. These results validate the performance of aerial grasping based on our proposed wholebody grasp planning and motion control method.
Unmanned rescue, observation, and/or research vehicles with high terrain adaptability, high speed, and high reliability are needed in difficult-to-reach locations. However, for most vehicles, high performance over rough terrain reduces the travel speed and/or requires complex mechanisms. We have developed a blade-type crawler robot with a very simple and reliable mechanism, which traverses uneven terrain at high speed. Moreover, the gyro wheel design stabilizes the success of this approach in improving the motion, ensuring robust traversal. The improvement in traveling speed and robustness over uneven terrain by our approach was confirmed by experiment.
Two less addressed issues of deep reinforcement learning are (1) lack of generalization capability to new goals, and (2) data inefficiency, i.e., the model requires several (and often costly) episodes of trial and error to converge, which makes it impractical to be applied to real-world scenarios. In this paper, we address these two issues and apply our model to target-driven visual navigation. To address the first issue, we propose an actor-critic model whose policy is a function of the goal as well as the current state, which allows better generalization. To address the second issue, we propose the AI2-THOR framework, which provides an environment with high-quality 3D scenes and a physics engine. Our framework enables agents to take actions and interact with objects. Hence, we can collect a huge number of training samples efficiently. We show that our proposed method (1) converges faster than the state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning methods, (2) generalizes across targets and scenes, (3) generalizes to a real robot scenario with a small amount of fine-tuning (although the model is trained in simulation), (4) is end-to-end trainable and does not need feature engineering, feature matching between frames or 3D reconstruction of the environment.
A 3 DoF parallel cable driven body weight support (BWS) system has been developed for the University of Utahs Treadport Locomotion Interface, for purposes of rehabilitation, simulation of steep slopes, and display of reduced gravity environments. The Treadports large belt (6 by 10 feet) requires a multi-cable support system to ensure that the unloading forces are close to vertical. This paper presents the design and experimental validation, including the system model and force control.
We present a policy search method for learning complex feedback control policies that map from highdimensional sensory inputs to motor torques, for manipulation tasks with discontinuous contact dynamics. We build on a prior technique called guided policy search (GPS), which iteratively optimizes a set of local policies for specific instances of a task, and uses these to train a complex, high-dimensional global policy that generalizes across task instances. We extend GPS in the following ways: (1) we propose the use of a model-free local optimizer based on path integral stochastic optimal control (PI2), which enables us to learn local policies for tasks with highly discontinuous contact dynamics; and (2) we enable GPS to train on a new set of task instances in every iteration by using on-policy sampling: this increases the diversity of the instances that the policy is trained on, and is crucial for achieving good generalization. We show that these contributions enable us to learn deep neural network policies that can directly perform torque control from visual input. We validate the method on a challenging door opening task and a pick-and-place task, and we demonstrate that our approach substantially outperforms the prior LQR-based local policy optimizer on these tasks. Furthermore, we show that on-policy sampling significantly increases the generalization ability of these policies.
We define a system architecture for a large swarm of miniature quadcopters flying in dense formation indoors. The large number of small vehicles motivates novel design choices for state estimation and communication. For state estimation, we develop a method to reliably track many small rigid bodies with identical motion-capture marker arrangements. Our communication infrastructure uses compressed one-way data flow and supports a large number of vehicles per radio. We achieve reliable flight with accurate tracking (< 2cm mean position error) by implementing the majority of computation onboard, including sensor fusion, control, and some trajectory planning. We provide various examples and empirically determine latency and tracking performance for swarms with up to 49 vehicles.
This paper presents a system that consists of three robots to imitate the motion of top volleyball blockers. In a volleyball match, in order to score by spiking, it is essential to improve the spike decision rate of each spiker. To increase the spike decision rates, iterative spiking training with actual blockers is required. Therefore, in this study, a block machine system was developed that can be continuously used in an actual practice field to improve attack practice. In order to achieve the required operating speed and mechanical strength each robot has five degrees of freedom. This robot performs high speed movement on 9 m rails that are arranged in parallel with the volleyball net. In addition, an application with a graphical user interface to enable a coach to manipulate these robots was developed. It enables the coach to control block motions and change the parameters such as the robots positions and operation timing. Through practical use in the practice field, the effectiveness of this system was confirmed.
This paper contributes to quantifying the notion of robotic fitness by developing a set of necessary conditions that determine whether a small quadruped has the ability to open a class of doors or climb a class of stairs using only quasi-static maneuvers. After verifying that several such machines from the recent robotics literature are mismatched in this sense to the common human scale environment, we present empirical workarounds for the Minitaur quadrupedal platform that enable it to leap up, force the door handle and push through the door, as well as bound up the stairs, thereby accomplishing through dynamical maneuvers otherwise (i.e., quasi-statically) unachievable tasks.
We present a simple probabilistic framework for multimodal sensor fusion that allows a mobile robot to reliably locate and approach the most promising interaction partner among a group of people, in an uncontrolled environment. Our demonstration integrates three complementary sensor modalities, each of which detects features of nearby people. The output is an occupancy grid approximation of a probability density function over the locations of people that are actively seeking interaction with the robot. We show empirically that simply driving towards the peak of this distribution is sufficient to allow the robot to correctly engage an interested user in a crowd of bystanders.
Collisions between quadrotor UAVs and the environment often occur, for instance, under faulty piloting, from wind gusts, or when obstacle avoidance fails. Airspace regulations are forcing drone companies to build safer drones; many quadrotor drones now incorporate propeller protection. However, propeller protected quadrotors still do not detect or react to collisions with objects such as walls, poles and cables. In this paper, we present a collision recovery pipeline which controls propeller protected quadrotors to recover from collisions. This pipeline combines concepts from impact dynamics, fuzzy logic, and aggressive quadrotor attitude control. The strategy is validated via a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation of collisions against a wall, showing the feasibility of recovery from challenging collision scenarios. The pipeline is implemented on a custom experimental quadrotor platform, demonstrating feasibility of real-time performance and successful recovery from a range of pre-collision conditions. The ultimate goal of the research is to implement a general collision recovery solution as a safety feature for quadrotor flight controllers.
State estimation techniques for humanoid robots are typically based on proprioceptive sensing and accumulate drift over time. This drift can be corrected using exteroceptive sensors such as laser scanners via a scene registration procedure. For this procedure the common assumption of high point cloud overlap is violated when the scenario and the robots point-of-view are not static and the sensors field-of-view (FOV) is limited. In this paper we focus on the localization of a robot with limited FOV in a semi-structured environment. We analyze the effect of overlap variations on registration performance and demonstrate that where overlap varies, outlier filtering needs to be tuned accordingly. We define a novel parameter which gives a measure of this overlap. In this context, we propose a strategy for robust non-incremental registration. The pre-filtering module selects planar macro-features from the input clouds, discarding clutter. Outlier filtering is automatically tuned at run-time to allow registration to a common reference in conditions of non-uniform overlap. An extensive experimental demonstration is presented which characterizes the performance of the algorithm using two humanoids: the NASA Valkyrie, in a laboratory environment, and the Boston Dynamics Atlas, during the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals.
In this paper, we propose an epoch-making soft sheet actuator called Wavy-sheet. Inspired by gastropods locomotion, Wavy-sheet can generate continuous traveling waves on the whole soft body. It aims to be applied to a mobile soft mat capable of moving and transporting without damaging the object and the ground. The actuator, driven by pneumatics, is mainly composed of a couple of flexible rubber tubes and fabrics. The advantages are: i) many traveling waves can be generated by just three tubes, ii) the whole structure can adapt its own shape to the outer environment passively, and iii) only 10 mm in thickness and can generate waves with larger than 10mm in amplitude. In this paper, first, we describe the basic concept of Wavy-sheet, and then show the configuration and the principle of wave propagation. Next, fabrication methods are illustrated and the design methods are addressed. By using a prototype actuator, several experiments are conducted. Finally, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed actuator and its design methods.
Part handling in warehouse automation is challenging if a large variety of items must be accommodated and items are stored in unordered piles. To foster research in this domain, Amazon holds picking challenges. We present our system which achieved second and third place in the Amazon Picking Challenge 2016 tasks. The challenge required participants to pick a list of items from a shelf or to stow items into the shelf. Using two deep-learning approaches for object detection and semantic segmentation and one item model registration method, our system localizes the requested item. Manipulation occurs using suction on points determined heuristically or from 6D item model registration. Parametrized motion primitives are chained to generate motions. We present a full-system evaluation during the APC 2016 and componentlevel evaluations of the perception system on an annotated dataset.
For collaborative robots to become useful, end users who are not robotics experts must be able to instruct them to perform a variety of tasks. With this goal in mind, we developed a system for end-user creation of robust task plans with a broad range of capabilities. CoSTAR: the Collaborative System for Task Automation and Recognition is our winning entry in the 2016 KUKA Innovation Award competition at the Hannover Messe trade show, which this year focused on Flexible Manufacturing. CoSTAR is unique in how it creates natural abstractions that use perception to represent the world in a way users can both understand and utilize to author capable and robust task plans. Our Behavior Tree-based task editor integrates high-level information from known object segmentation and pose estimation with spatial reasoning and robot actions to create robust task plans. We describe the crossplatform design and implementation of this system on multiple industrial robots and evaluate its suitability for a wide variety of use cases.
In this paper, we present the mechatronic design of our Tactile Omnidirectional Robot Manipulator (TOMM), which is a dual arm wheeled humanoid robot with 6DoF on each arm, 4 omnidirectional wheels and 2 switchable end-effectors (1 DoF grippers and 12 DoF Hands). The main feature of TOMM is its arms and hands which are covered with robot skin. We exploit the multi-modal tactile information of our robot skin to provide a rich tactile interaction system for robots. In particular, for the robot TOMM, we provide a general control framework, capable of modifying the dynamic behavior of the entire robot, e.g., producing compliance in a non-compliant system. We present the hardware, software and middleware components of the robot and provide a compendium of the base technologies deployed in it. Furthermore, we show some applications and results that we have obtained using this robot.
We present an object-tracking framework that fuses point cloud information from an RGB-D camera with tactile information from a GelSight contact sensor. GelSight can be treated as a source of dense local geometric information, which we incorporate directly into a conventional point-cloud-based articulated object tracker based on signed-distance functions. Our implementation runs at 12 Hz using an online depth reconstruction algorithm for GelSight and a modified secondorder update for the tracking algorithm. We present data from hardware experiments demonstrating that the addition of contact-based geometric information significantly improves the pose accuracy during contact, and provides robustness to occlusions of small objects by the robots end effector.
Soft compliant materials and novel actuation mechanisms ensure flexible motions and high adaptability for soft robots, but also increase the difficulty and complexity of constructing control systems. In this work, we provide an efficient control algorithm for a multi-segment extensible soft arm in 2D plane. The algorithm separate the inverse kinematics into two levels. The first level employs gradient descent to select optimized arms pose (from task space to configuration space) according to designed cost functions. With consideration of viscoelasticity, the second level utilizes neural networks to figure out the pressures from each segments pose (from configuration space to actuation space). In experiments with a physical prototype, the control accuracy and effectiveness are validated, where the control algorithm is further improved by an optional feedback strategy.
This paper presents a systematic approach for the 3-D mapping of underwater caves. Exploration of underwater caves is very important for furthering our understanding of hydrogeology, managing efficiently water resources, and advancing our knowledge in marine archaeology. Underwater cave exploration by human divers however, is a tedious, labor intensive, extremely dangerous operation, and requires highly skilled people. As such, it is an excellent fit for robotic technology, which has never before been addressed. In addition to the underwater vision constraints, cave mapping presents extra challenges in the form of lack of natural illumination and harsh contrasts, resulting in failure for most of the state-ofthe-art visual based state estimation packages. A new approach employing a stereo camera and a video-light is presented. Our approach utilizes the intersection of the cone of the video-light with the cave boundaries: walls, floor, and ceiling, resulting in the construction of a wire frame outline of the cave. Successive frames are combined using a state of the art visual odometry algorithm while simultaneously inferring scale through the stereo reconstruction. Results from experiments at a cave, part of the Sistema Camilo, Quintana Roo, Mexico, validate our approach. The cave wall reconstruction presented provides an immersive experience in 3-D.
This paper investigates how a robot that can produce contingent listener response, i.e., backchannel, can deeply engage children as a storyteller. We propose a backchannel opportunity prediction (BOP) model trained from a dataset of childrens dyad storytelling and listening activities. Using this dataset, we gain better understanding of what speaker cues children can decode to find backchannel timing, and what type of nonverbal behaviors they produce to indicate engagement status as a listener. Applying our BOP model, we conducted two studies, withinand between-subjects, using our social robot platform, Tega. Behavioral and self-reported analyses from the two studies consistently suggest that children are more engaged with a contingent backchanneling robot listener. Children perceived the contingent robot as more attentive and more interested in their story compared to a non-contingent robot. We find that children significantly gaze more at the contingent robot while storytelling and speak more with higher energy to a contingent robot.
In this paper, we show that visual servoing can be formulated as an acceleration-resolved, quadratic optimization problem. This allows us to handle visual constraints, such as field of view and occlusion avoidance, as inequalities. Furthermore, it allows us to easily integrate visual servoing tasks into existing whole-body control frameworks for humanoid robots, which simplifies prioritization and requires only a posture task as a regularization term. Finally, we show this method working on simulations with HRP-4 and real tests on Romeo.
For the past few years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been successfully employed in several investigations and exploration tasks such as aerial inspection and manipulations. However, most of these UAVs are limited to open spaces distant from any obstacles because of the high risk of falling as a result of an exposed propeller or not enough protection. On the other hand, a UAV with a passive rotating spherical shell can fly over a complex environment but cannot engage in physical interaction and perform power tethering because of the passive rotation of the spherical shell. In this study, we propose a new mechanism that allows physical interaction and power tethering while the UAV is well-protected and has a good flight stability, which enables exploration in a complex environment such as disaster sites. We address the current problem by dividing the whole shell into two separate hemispherical shells that provide a gap unaffected by passive rotation. In this paper, we mainly discuss the concept, general applications, and design of the proposed system. The capabilities of the proposed system for physical interaction and power tethering in a complex space were initially verified through laboratory-based test flights of our experimental prototype.
We present a weakly-supervised approach to segmenting proposed drivable paths in images with the goal of autonomous driving in complex urban environments. Using recorded routes from a data collection vehicle, our proposed method generates vast quantities of labelled images containing proposed paths and obstacles without requiring manual annotation, which we then use to train a deep semantic segmentation network. With the trained network we can segment proposed paths and obstacles at run-time using a vehicle equipped with only a monocular camera without relying on explicit modelling of road or lane markings. We evaluate our method on the largescale KITTI and Oxford RobotCar datasets and demonstrate reliable path proposal and obstacle segmentation in a wide variety of environments under a range of lighting, weather and traffic conditions. We illustrate how the method can generalise to multiple path proposals at intersections and outline plans to incorporate the system into a framework for autonomous urban driving.
We present the design, modeling, and implementation of a novel pneumatic actuator, the Pneumatic Reel Actuator (PRA). The PRA is highly extensible, lightweight, capable of operating in compression and tension, compliant, and inexpensive. An initial prototype of the PRA can reach extension ratios greater than 16:1, has a force-to-weight ratio over 28:1, reach speeds of 0.87 meters per second, and can be constructed with parts totaling less than $4 USD. We have developed a model describing the actuator and have conducted experiments characterizing the actuators performance in regards to force, extension, pressure, and speed. We have implemented two parallel robotic applications in the form of a three degree of freedom robot arm and a tetrahedral robot.
Humans utilize their torsos and arms while running to compensate for the angular momentum generated by the lower-body movement during the flight phase. To enable this capability in a humanoid robot, the robot should have human-like mass, a center of mass position, and inertial moment of each link. To mimic this characteristic, we developed an angular momentum control method using a humanoid upper body based on human motion. In this method, the angular momentum generated by the movement of the humanoid lower body is calculated, and the torso and arm motions are calculated to compensate for the angular momentum of the lower body. We additionally developed the humanoid upper-body mechanism that mimics the human link length and mass property by using carbon fiber reinforced plastic and a symmetric structure. As a result, the developed humanoid robot could generate almost the same angular momentum as that of human through human-like running motion. Furthermore, when suspended in midair, the humanoid robot produced the angular momentum compensation in the yaw direction.
IEEE Spectrums award-winning robotics blog, featuring news, articles, and videos on robots, humanoids, drones, automation, artificial intelligence, and more. Contact us:e.guizzo@ieee.org
Sign up for the Automaton newsletter and get biweekly updates about robotics, automation, and AI, all delivered directly to your inbox.
Luke Skywalker, your new robotic hand is ready 18Feb2016
Attack eagles are training to become part of the Dutch National Police anti-drone arsenal 1Feb2016
The latest ATLAS is by far the most advanced humanoid robot in existence 24Feb2016
A robot that uses artificial sweat can cool its motors without bulky radiators 13Oct2016
Finally a gear system that could replace costly harmonic drives 19Oct2016
A live dragonfly with a cybernetic backpack and optical implants is now airborne 1Jun
We're at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2017 in Singapore 29May
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 26May
This little legged robot may one day walk straight out of a 3D printer 24May
Robot mounted on a turtle uses snacks and LEDs to control the animal's movements, and a fully immersive Matrix for turtles is not far behind 23May
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 19May
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 5May
We take an in-depth look at the new TurtleBot 3 Burger and Waffle from Robotis 2May
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 28Apr
The questions he was asked spoke volumes about Ubers suppliers, the secret Spider lidar, Googles early suspicions, and more 26Apr
Kid-proof robots are small, cheap, and help turn abstract concepts into interactive lessons 25Apr
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 21Apr
This transparent, soft robot fish propels itself by flapping fins made of dielectric elastomers 16Apr
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 14Apr
Two new prototypes tackle the challenge of making soft robots that can move 11Apr
Read the original:
Video Friday: Robot Dance Teacher, Transformer Drone, and Pneumatic Reel Actuator - IEEE Spectrum
Posted in Robotics
Comments Off on Video Friday: Robot Dance Teacher, Transformer Drone, and Pneumatic Reel Actuator – IEEE Spectrum
Shhhh! Use These 5 WordPress SEO Secrets to Drive Insane Traffic – Small Business Trends
Posted: at 12:30 pm
There are more websites than there are people in the United States, by a good margin. The population in the U.S. is around 321 million while the latest web server survey in May 2017 stated that there are about 1.8 billion websites online. Thats a lot of websites out there that you have to compete against more than there are consumers in the U.S.
The increasing number of websites online has made the website competition to be found online even more challenging. In other words, getting visibility online keeps getting tougher as search engines become saturated with websites. Creating a website and hoping for the best is not enough. Smart businesses owners must be on top of the latest SEO and paid advertising trends to beat the competition.
Furthermore, keep mind that your efforts have to be constant. Doing one SEO tweak every blue moon wont yield results. Fortunately, website CRMs like WordPress make SEO easier to manage with user-friendly platforms and SEO plugins. Here youll learn the SEO fundamentals to use for WordPress to jumpstart your efforts. Lets get started!
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to the process and methods to get visibility online from free or organic search results in search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. As you can see below in my search for jumpsuits on Google, I found paid listings specifically, Google Shopping or PLA adsand organic listings enclosed in green.
If I were searching for a service, I would have found a similar mix of paid and organic listings, but with a different look. In this case, there are no Google Shopping ads, but Google paid search ads.
The middle listings are locations found in Google Maps; they are also not paid. Getting listed on Google Maps or other local directories would be considered local SEO still important, but not the primary focus of this article. Well mainly focus on SEO strategies for eCommerce retailers.
There are on-site and off-site factors that affect SEO. Examples of on-site factors are a websites content, structure, and speed. Some off-site factors that affect SEO are outside links pointing to the site and its social media following and engagement.
Search engines like Google want to provide the best user experience for the searcher; therefore, it uses these and other factors to rank websites. For example, websites that have an organized structure will have higher rankings than websites that dont. This is because more organized structures help users find what they are looking for faster, which leads to better user experience a priority for search engines.
Another thing to keep in mind is that although organic rankings dont require payment to Google, they will still end up costing you money. Whether you decide to hire a search marketing agency or do it yourself, advanced SEO efforts such as link building or writing will require additional paid help. Luckily, all the WordPress SEO tipswell cover in the next section can be done fairly easily.
A permalink is a URL to a specific post. Instead of having a URL with numbers or dates at the end, such as http://www.yoursite.com/1234, the recommended permalink structure is to use more user-friendly URLs, like http://www.yoursite.com/seo-guide. These types of URLs are easier to share and are preferred by search engines.
Using dates, for example, can make posts look outdated (if the date is old), which, in turn, can lead to lower click-through rates. Which URL would you click on: a post with the URL http://www.yoursite.com/12-5-12 or http://www.yoursite.com/seo-guide? Youd probably skip the post from 2012 and opt for the one that says SEO guide.
To get the ideal permalink structure on WordPress, simply go to Settings> Permalink and select Post Name, as you can see in the image below.
If you havent used this structure so far, make sure to redirect old URLs to the new ones to prevent 404 errors. There are online tools and plugins that can make this process easier.
Additionally, you can add the category name before the posts name. This may be a good idea if your categories and post names are short and descriptive. Otherwise, if your URL is too long, it may get cut off, which is not ideal.
Title tags are one of the most important steps in optimizing website pages for WordPress or any other platform. Its the first snippet of content searchers will read about your page, and it will help differentiate your listing from the rest.
Keep in mind that title tags are meant to encourage the user to click on your listingthey cant look like a bundle of nonsense keywords. They should contain certain keywords in a manner that is easy to read. It should contain your focus keyword, your brands name, and some supporting text to provide the user more information about the page.
Also, note that title tag length varies, according to screen display, so make sure your most important keywords are positioned toward the front. Title tags can help you increase your click through rate or CTR and, in turn, increase your organic ranking; so, the more enticing your title can be, the better.
Meta descriptions are located below the listings URL. These are the snippets of information that allow the user to get more insight into the pages content. They can help with click through rates; however, they dont affect Googles ranking anymore. In 2009, Google announced that meta descriptions and meta keywords dont factor in Googles ranking. Although this news has been out for quite some time now, there are still many people who use meta keywords. Dont bother wasting your time.
Note that if you dont use a meta description, it will be automatically generated by the search engine by finding the keyword searched for in your document and automatically choosing information around that. This shows a bolded word or two in the results page. See, below, an example of an automatically generated meta description in red and a manually created description in green:
As you can see, meta descriptions that are created manually look better and are more enticing than automatically created ones.
An XML sitemap shows all the pages in a website and shows relationships of content within the site such as organization, navigation, and labeling. It allows search engines to crawl your site and properly index pages. Having a sitemap wont help you automatically jump in ranking; however, it will help search engines easily crawl your site and find pages faster. Also, it will allow you to keep track of all your pages to make sure there are no broken links and all redirects are properly in place.
The easiest way to create a sitemap on WordPress is using a plugin such as Yoast or Google XML sitemap generator. Using Yoast, youll simply have to enable the XML sitemap functionality. Every time a new page is created, your sitemap will automatically be updated.
Image optimization is often overlooked, but its an important component in your SEO efforts for many reasons. To start, your images need to be the right size and dimensions. If the image is too big, the page will take too long to load and cause a bad user experience, which, in turn, results in lower rankings. The file size is measured in KB or MB, and you can think of it as the weight of the image. The files dimensions are measured in width, height, and pixels.
Regarding image size, full page images should be around 80Kb-100Kb at most. If the image is part of a page, 20Kb-30Kb is fine. Images in full-screen mode can be around 1280px, 1290px, or even wider. Fortunately, when uploading images, WordPress automatically creates three resized images in addition to the original one: large, medium, and thumbnail. Thus, you can select a different size if you need it.
Other useful optimizations are the addition of image alt tags and title tags. Alt tags show when an image is unable to display, and it helps the user know what the image is about. The title tags help search engines know what your images are about to index them properly.
SEO is a must to increase a websites visibility and stay competitive. Smart business owners must follow best practices to optimize all the various offsite and onsite factors that contribute to a healthy SEO.
Although it is meant to increase free traffic, there are advanced SEO techniques that will require some paid help. Allocate a budget for SEO tasks to ensure youre prepared for any future workload. Putting these SEO fundamentals into practice will help you take your WordPress site to the next level.
SEO Photo via Shutterstock
See the original post:
Shhhh! Use These 5 WordPress SEO Secrets to Drive Insane Traffic - Small Business Trends
Posted in Mind Uploading
Comments Off on Shhhh! Use These 5 WordPress SEO Secrets to Drive Insane Traffic – Small Business Trends
Virtual Reality – RedTube.com
Posted: at 12:30 pm
Let the virtual reality on RedTube help you step into the 21st century. If you love VR porn then the content you will discover will blow your socks off. Virtual sex is by far the best way for you to watch and consume XXX videos in the twenty first century. Whichever category, niche or preference you may have RedTube.com has VR porn for you to get off to. Virtual reality sex is the best way to become interactive with your favorite pornstars as you masturbate and cum to these hot porno movies. Once you try VR youre likely to never stray too far from RedTube. Use your Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung VR Gear headsets to enjoy this new kind of porn from anywhere in the world, we come to you to help you cum. You will not regret ever deciding to make RedTube.com your favorite website to enjoy virtual reality sex on. If you have never been able to get access this much POV porn then you will certainly love coming back to see the latest updates and the newest VR porno movies available to you for browsing. You will never see sex videos the same way after you have had the opportunity to experience VR XXX on RedTube.
Visit link:
Posted in Virtual Reality
Comments Off on Virtual Reality – RedTube.com
This app uses virtual reality to help people quit smoking – Metro
Posted: at 12:30 pm
Metro | This app uses virtual reality to help people quit smoking Metro Whether you try going cold turkey, ask the NHS for help, or try that god-awful nicotine gum, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world just can't seem to break that habit and end up relapsing. It can happen two weeks in or two years, but the ... |
See the original post here:
This app uses virtual reality to help people quit smoking - Metro
Posted in Virtual Reality
Comments Off on This app uses virtual reality to help people quit smoking – Metro
US soldiers are training for war using video game-style virtual reality headsets – The Sun
Posted: at 12:30 pm
THE US Army is creating virtual reality headsets for soldiers to see the battlefield as if they are in a video game.
Squaddies wearing the gear can more clearly tell between comrades and enemies and receive GPS locations or use night vision.
Dubbed Tactical Augmented Reality, or TAR, the new tech has been likened to top shoot em up Call Of Duty and spells the dawn of a new type of cyber-soldier.
It is designed to replace handheld GPS devices and frees soldiers up to keep their finger on the trigger while moving through hostile terrain.
And the system can be linked to gun-scopes, meaning they can peep over walls with their rifles and see the area without putting their heads in the firing line.
David Fellowes, an electronics engineer at US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, debuted TAR at The Pentagon last month.
He said it will "provide soldiers with a much higher level of situational awareness than they currently have".
He added: "I fully expect that the devices will save lives and contribute to mission success."
While a date of manufacture has not been set, the Army says TAR is in the advanced stages of development.
In April, Army tech boffins unveiled a gun-toting robotdesigned to travel underwater and storm beaches as the first line of attack in future naval invasions.
The Multi-Tactical Transport Robot, or MUTT, can be fitted with a range of weapons including machine guns and mortars.
It can also be loaded with gear to transport across dangerous territory.
Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us attips@the-sun.co.ukor call 0207 782 4368
Read the original:
US soldiers are training for war using video game-style virtual reality headsets - The Sun
Posted in Virtual Reality
Comments Off on US soldiers are training for war using video game-style virtual reality headsets – The Sun
Udacity offers photographers the chance to be Virtual Reality pioneers. – British Journal of Photography
Posted: at 12:30 pm
Virtual Reality is predicted to be worth 108bn by 2021. To a large extent, the emergent technology is rooted in basic photography skills. A new online course offers the chance to get involved in the technological arms race that could usher in a cultural epoch.
In 2003, the British photographer Robbie Cooper was employed to photograph the CEO of a large business. As they talked between shots, Cooper learnt that the man had recently separated from his wife, and didnt get much of a chance to spend time with his kids until he found something called Everquest.
Everquest was an early iteration of the 3D fantasy-themed role-playing computer games that cropped up at the turn of the millennium when multiplayer online games were really taking off. Every evening, the businessman would log onto Everquest and, through the game, spend time with his children or at least the cartoonish, anime-style virtual avatars of his children.
As they played together online, the businessman would ask them fatherly things how their schoolwork was going, what was going on with their friends, how their mother was getting on. He was using his virtual self to compensate for the absence of his real self.
Jason/Rurouni Robbie Cooper
Cooper says of the experience: This emotional exchange, taking place in the fantasy of the game, got me thinking about the distinction between reality and virtual reality. It seemed clear that our understanding of each reality would increasingly merge. It seemed like the obvious evolution of our culture.
In the artistic statement for a photography series he later shot, in which Cooper photographed portraits of gamers next their avatars, Cooper quoted Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine. New technology is catapulting images to the centre of the culture, Kelly said. We are becoming people of the screen.
Cooper has left stills photography behind. But his new career remains totally embedded in the language of image-making, for he has founded his own virtual reality company, the Brighton-based Metapixel. Cooper has built what he claims is one of the most advanced virtual reality scanning rigs in the world, designed to create lifelike replications of people in video games. The rig features 105 Nikon D810 36-megapixel cameras each linked and capable of working symbiotically. Rather than using one stills camera, Cooper has learnt how to use 105 simultaneously, to shoot images that can exist in space rather than hang on a wall.
Metapixel
Cooper had to work it out by himself, but he expects many other photographers to take his lead as opportunities to learn about VR grow and the brands that photographers work with today on conventional photographic projects start to adopt the technology.
He thinks getting ahead of that curve and becoming the first photographer in the room to get VR is something other photographers should do if they want to position themselves in a rapidly growing new area of imaging. A remarkable new online virtual reality nanodegree from the new Silicon Valley-based online university Udacity could be one way of getting started on that journey.
Udacity is an online educational startup that provides 21st century skills-based and vocational courses. With both public and private backing, more than 40,000 current students, and courses spanning topics such as digital marketing, mobile app development, and web development to cutting-edge courses in robotics, machine learning, and even self-driving car engineering.
Metapixel
Metapixel
Udacitys six-month long VR nanodegree offer students a certified qualification that, according to the company, is more rigorous and recognised for its practical usefulness than many other VR qualifications but without being as intensive and time-consuming as a full-time university degree.
People want to develop specific skills that allow them to land a job or start a company. Udacity teaches those skills in a highly focused manner and helps filter students directly into a great job at top-tier companies, says Matt Sonic, the lead instructor on Udacitys Virtual Reality nanodegree. Its like a university, but built by industry.
The educational nanodegrees, the first of their kind, are designed to help communities outside major urban centres meet the rising demand for high-tech skills and connect them to Silicon Valley. Udacitys Virtual Reality Developer Nanodegree programme is aimed at photographers who, like Cooper, want to steal a march on this new, rapidly emerging and quite possibly revolutionary, area of the image-based industries. The VR nanodegree aims to provide its students with just-in-time professional skills.
To develop the nanodegree, Udacitys VP of Learning Christian Plagemann and Matt Sonic interviewed top technology companies and asked what skills they wanted for virtual reality developer positions. From there, Udacity worked with Google VR, Upload, Unity, HTC Vive, Samsung, and Unreal to develop a core curriculum focusing on VR development. The programme grew by focusing on the skills employers want to find.
Virtual Reality is going to revolutionise how photographers create art, says Sonic. Instead of capturing a moment in a frame, photography will transform into capturing a moment in a space. You can still have the frame, but it is no longer required.
Mun & Lee/Crammer Robbie Cooper
This nanodegree is for everyone interested in VR development, regardless of your prior experience. Youll learn how to make VR films, some programming, and a lot about how create immersive interactions and environments, says Sonic.
Students start by learning cutting-edge mobile VR development. Then, they specialise in either Desktop VR programming using Unity, Desktop VR using Unreal, or 360 Immersive Media development. For anyone wanting to work in VR, even if its not on the programming side, having a basic understanding of the whole VR ecosystem, including the software elements, is going to be a big plus in getting work.
VR Room at Nick Thornton Jones and Warren Du Preezs Immortal photobook launch event
And the payoff for first movers in the VR career market could be huge. According to KZero, a global VR consulting firm, the consumer virtual reality market will be worth $5.2 billion by 2018. TechCrunch, meanwhile, are forecasting the VR industry will be a $108 billion market by 2021.
The trend hit headlines in 2013, when Facebook spent $2 billion for Oculus VR. Google quickly got involved by investing in startups like MagicLeap, and Microsoft also became involved in VR and augmented reality (AR) with their large investments in HoloLens. Sony and Samsung followed, launching their own virtual reality prototypes.
The technology is still in its early stages, but may have parallels in the mid-noughties mobile phone phenomenon. At first, mobile phones werent user friendly then suddenly, they became ubiquitous. Now its hard to imagine life without one.
Smartphones enable access to any information from anywhere, says Christian Plagemann, who co-founded Googles virtual reality team before becoming the VP of Learning at Udacity. Now, with virtual reality you can be anywhere and experience any place as if you were there. This new technology is about the experience and the feeling of presence, the understanding of space, environment and scale.
Creators are not limited to black rectangle screens any more, they can create entire worlds, spaces and experiences creating with an infinite amount of pixels, immersive sound and the most direct forms of interaction we have ever had available for users.
No other medium can create such an intuitive understanding of space and size. Imagine, for example, seeing a beautiful large building on a smartphone, computer monitor, TV or movie screen. You will never be able to truly grasp its size and the feeling of its size. With VR, however, you intuitively feel how the building fits into its surroundings, whether it is overwhelmingly large or just right. You experience space in a very direct, instinctive way.
In 2003 it was extraordinary, even strange, to find an absent father learning how to spend time with his children through their avatars, in the virtual space. In the next decade, this could become the norm for all of us how we socialise, make friends, meet new people, play with and educate our children, and spend our leisure time.
What is really exciting about this new technology is that anyone can learn it quite easily, says Plagemann. If you have access to a computer, some creativity and an open mind, you can jump right in.
For photographers worried about their future prospects, in an industry that sees its traditional revenue streams continuing to dwindle, then given its potential, learning about virtual reality could feel very appealing. Udacitys Nanodegree might very well be a good place to start the course is now open for enrollment until June 11th!
Sponsored byUdacity: This editorial feature was made possible with the support of Udacity. Please click here for more information on sponsored content funding at British Journal of Photography.
See the original post:
Posted in Virtual Reality
Comments Off on Udacity offers photographers the chance to be Virtual Reality pioneers. – British Journal of Photography
Chuck Norris relates new use for virtual reality – WND.com
Posted: at 12:30 pm
Chuck Norris
Sandra Goldsmith, 74, a member of the congregation at South Los Angeles Holman Unified Methodist Church, clips a glasses-like device onto a smartphone and peers in. Instantly she sees herself standing in the middle of a kitchen. On the counter before her sits a range of food products from black beans to salmon to gumbo to lasagna to fruit smoothies. As she focuses in on each item, a header containing the sodium content of the item pops up above it. When she looks down, she is transported to a 3-D rendering of the item inside of a human body her virtual body and a time-lapse representation of a pumping heart as it deteriorates from the effects of years of high blood pressure.
Welcome to the world of virtual reality devices as applied to pre-emptive healthcare.
In the past decade, doctors across the country have used virtual reality in a number of innovative ways; from practicing surgeries, to teaching families about complicated medical treatments, to treating stress, and, most recently, to treating pain. According to the Los Angeles Times, the test project underway with Goldsmith and other congregation members of Holman Unified Methodist Church represents a new evolution to explore how virtual reality might work as a form of healthcare intervention outside a hospital or a doctors office.
Youre sitting there, all of a sudden in your own chest, watching your heart beat, Dr. Brennan Spiegel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center tells public health and health policy reporter Soumya Karlamangla. The whole idea is to just hijack the brain into rethinking the role of food, and in this case salt and health, and were testing this now to see how people experience it and if its helpful to them.
This collaboration between Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Holman Unified Methodist Church to reduce high blood pressure in the community has been underway for approximately two years now. Virtual reality is just one tool in the tool kit to combat the problem. The program also includes weekly healthy dinners and recipe sharing, educational classes, and the wearing and monitoring of fitness trackers, as well as nurse check-ins.
The congregation of Holman Church is predominantly African-American. African-Americans tend to develop high blood pressure more often and at a younger age than other groups. One out of three African Americans in L.A. County said theyd been diagnosed with high blood pressure.
Everyones been on a diet, Dr. Bernice Coleman, a nurse scientist who heads the project for Cedars-Sinai tells Karlamangla. The thing in the middle that nobody understands is salt.
According to a Harvard University report, experts estimate that we could save 280,000 lives in the United States if, for example, for the next 10 years we lowered the average daily sodium intake by 40 percent. The operative word here is lower. Sodium is an essential part of our diet. It helps nerves and muscles function as well as hold onto water, but too much sodium means your body could retain too much liquid and that spells trouble. And that trouble is compounded by a Western diet saturated in salty food.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend the sodium intake of anyone over the age of 14 years be less than 2,300 milligrams per day. The average American consumes 3,409 milligrams of sodium each day, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many Americans routinely exceed this amount. Roughly 75 percent of sodium comes from prepared and processed foods. At the same time, the restaurant industry remains at the top of the list for sodium-dense meals.
According to the Mayo Clinic, high blood pressure and the condition known as hypertension can quietly damage your body for years before symptoms develop. Its why its often called the silent killer. Left uncontrolled, a person could wind up with a disability, poor quality of life or even a fatal heart attack. Roughly half the people with untreated hypertension die of heart disease, while another third die of stroke.
Meanwhile, like explorers in a new frontier, each week members of the Holman Church congregation gather for dinner, followed by a class. Theyve learned all about recommended salt intake. Theyve taken cooking and Tai Chi classes.
The churchs spiritual leader, Reverend Kelvin Sauls, tells the Los Angeles Times that he has come to see health and faith as two sides of the same coin. It is why he brings yoga and Zumba classes to his church. He is well aware that African-Americans, in addition to hypertension, are particularly vulnerable to diabetes and heart disease. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 13 percent of all African-Americans aged 20 years or older have diagnosed diabetes. Nearly 95 percent of the diabetes cases in the United States are Type 2, which many health care professionals see as a reversible disease.
We cant save peoples souls in the sanctuary and kill their bodies in the fellowship hall, Rev. Sauls will say.
It seems a sentiment with which health care systems, looking desperately for more efficient ways to treat patients, could readily agree.
Write to Chuck Norris with your questions about health and fitness. Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebooks Official Chuck Norris Page. He blogs at ChuckNorrisNews.blogspot.com.
See more here:
Posted in Virtual Reality
Comments Off on Chuck Norris relates new use for virtual reality – WND.com
‘Largest virtual reality arcade in North America’ opens in Calgary – Calgary Herald
Posted: at 12:30 pm
Calgary Herald | 'Largest virtual reality arcade in North America' opens in Calgary Calgary Herald Vrkade, a virtual reality arcade, allows visitors to explore a variety of virtual reality worlds and games. Using a headset covering the eyes, headphones for the ears and two hand-held controllers, users are placed inside a computer-simulated ... |
More here:
'Largest virtual reality arcade in North America' opens in Calgary - Calgary Herald
Posted in Virtual Reality
Comments Off on ‘Largest virtual reality arcade in North America’ opens in Calgary – Calgary Herald