Daily Archives: August 3, 2017

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up after firing on worshippers inside the mosque, a Herat provincial spokesman told CNN.

ISIS took responsibility for the attack Wednesday in a series of messages sent to Telegram channels associated with the group.

The all-girl robotics team flew to the United States in July to take part in an international competition with students from nearly 160 countries.

At the competition, the team received the silver medal in the Raja Cherkaoui el Moursli Award for Courageous Achievement.

In addition, the girls were given congressional records detailing their journey to America by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

"You are an inspiration to all of us," the New Hampshire Democrat told them.

Writing Thursday on Twitter, Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, said his heart went out to Fatima for the loss of her father.

"We will defeat the forces trying to dismantle our future," he wrote.

The US Embassy in Afghanistan condemned the attack Thursday as "deplorable."

"We send our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured," a statement said. "We commend the government and security forces ... for their response to this latest act of cowardly violence."

Tuesday's bombing was among a series of recent deadly attacks on civilians and armed forces in Afghanistan by terrorist groups.

Link:

Father of girl on Afghan robotics team killed in ISIS bombing - CNN International

Photo: Anthony Weate/QUT Peter Corke, director of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision at Queensland University of Technology, and other members of Team ACRV work on their robot, named Cartman, which won the 2017 Amazon Robotics Challenge in Japan.

Amazon has a problem, and that problem is humans. Amazon needs humans, lots of them. But humans, as we all know, are the most unreasonable part of any business, constantly demanding things like lights and air. So Amazon has turned to robots (over 100,000 of them) for doing tasks likemoving things around in a warehouse.But its proving to be much more difficult to get the robots to do some other tasks. One of the hardest ispicking objects from shelves and bins.

To solve this problem, Amazon is making it someone elses problem, by hosting a yearly robotics pickingchallenge. In the competition,teams have to developrobotics hardware and software that can recognize objects, grasp them, and move them from place to place. This is harder than it sounds, because were on year threeand Amazon is still running this thing, but some clever Australians are making substantial progress.

The 2017 incarnation of the Amazon Robotics Challenge was held at RoboCup in Nagoya last month, and sixteen teams from around the world made the trip to Japan. What Amazon was looking for was a robot that could identify items, remove target items from storage and place them into boxes (picking), take target items from totes and place them into storage (stowing), and then do both at once in a grand fantastic explosion all-or-nothing final competition.

Teams brought their own robots with their own nutty gripper designs, and also their own item storage system designed to be able to handle all of the stuff and junk that crazy people like you buy on Amazon every day. Points were awarded for successful picks, successful stows, neat packing, and overall quickness, while points were deducted for (among other things) major damage to items, which is unfortunate, since a robot that could just flatten everything into a pancake would have a much easier time at this!

Heres an overview of how things went:

Team ACRV (from the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision at Queensland University of Technology in Australia), which didnt place in the top three on either the individual pick task or stow task, managed to knock it out of the park on the combined final task, taking first place and going home with US $80,000 (which is way more in Australia).

Third place went to Singapores Nanyang Technological University, whichmanaged a first in the picking task anda second in the stowing task. And second place went to NimbRo, which posted this video of their final run:

A few things to note from these videos: It looks like most teams used some flavor of hybrid gripper design, relying primarily on suction and using a physical gripping mechanism when necessary. There are also plenty of instances when the first grasping attempt fails, and the robot needs to be able to detect and adapt to that, just like a human does. Additionally, the robots sometimes grasped multiple things at once by accident, or had to deal with objects (like books) that can change their shape post-grasp as they were lifted. These sorts of things are why challenges like these are important: Given the number of objects that Amazon is foisting on us,its hard to predict how any system will perform without trying it out in real life, or as close to real life as challenges like these allow.

While QUTs press release suggests that the team has solved a key robotics problem for Amazon picking items and stowing them in boxes in an unstructured environment, that strikes us as awfully optimistic. Its certainly a key robotics problem, but solving it implies a reliable robotic solution that can compete (at least to some extent) with a human picker, and based on these videos, we seem kind of far from that. Also worth noting is that QUTs winning robot is a stationary gantry system, suggesting that Amazon could perhaps be open to a picking solution that doesnt move, rather than a mobile manipulator.

On the other hand, maybe we shouldnt draw too many conclusions from the specific designs, and just be happy that were seeing some tangible advancements in object recognition, grasp planning, and everything else under conditions that are somewhat close to real-world usefulness. And as soon as Amazon buys up all the winning teams of one of their challenges and then cancels the following year, we might be able to actually figure out what their robotics fulfillment plan is.

[ Amazon Robotics Challenge]

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

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Continued here:

Aussies Win Amazon Robotics Challenge - IEEE Spectrum

Snapchat owner Snap Inc is in talks to buy Chinese drone maker Zero Zero Robotics to boost its hardware push, according to media reports.

The deal, which was first reported by The Information, will be between $150 million to $200 million, TechCrunch reported citing a source.

Snap and Zero Zero Robotics have not responded to a request for comment.

Zero Zero Robotics makes a $500 foldable hovering drone that follows you and records video. If the acquisition goes through it would mark the latest move by Snap to double down on hardware after the launch of its video recording sunglasses called Spectacles.

The company, which went public in March to much excitement, has struggled to grow its user base amid stiff competition from Facebook's copycat product Instagram Stories. Shares of the company closed at $13.10 on Tuesday, below the company's $17 initial public offer price.

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Snap reportedly close to acquiring Chinese drone maker Zero Zero Robotics - CNBC

For years, Charlottesville has been quietly becoming a leading tech hub in Virginia and on the East Coast. Meet three of the businesses and programs that are spearheading the charge into the growing field of robotics.

Crozet residents are aware that big things are happening in their town. Foremost among these has been Perrone Robotics Inc.s move to invest in the construction of a new multimillion-dollar downtown complex. While the logistics of the project are still being hashed outfor instance, an estimated $3.15 million in funding for Crozet Plaza, a central park and greenspace, has yet to be securedin December 2016, PRI struck a deal with developer Milestone Partners and, in early July, cut the red ribbon on a temporary 5,000-square-foot office and testing facility located on the site of the proposed construction. Once the plaza goes in, and surrounding offices, residential apartments and restaurants are installed, Perrone plans to build a permanent office and testing facility.

Whats significant about this move? PRI is bringing top-tier Silicone Valley innovation to the Charlottesville area.

Positioned at the forefront of the autonomous car revolution, PRI is seeking to play a key role nationally and globally in its development and implementation. Its not often that you get the opportunity to go to work for a company thats doing things this exciting, and is located in an area thats this beautiful, says Chief Operating Officer Greg Scharer.

For PRI founder Paul Perrone, thats exactly the point. Contrary to the volatility of the Silicon Valley workplacewhere talented employees are constantly jumping ship, chasing the highest bidderPerrone has built a company culture devoted to long-term stability and family values. The people that come to work for us are some of the best and brightest in the world, he says. We want them to be invested in the companys future, love where they live and feel confident they can raise their families in this community. With its proximity to the mountains and Charlottesville, Perrone says Crozet is a perfect fit.

But what exactly does PRI do?

A little over 14 years ago, we started building software that makes autonomous cars work, says Scharer, who explains that PRIs flagship product MAXwhich stands for Mobile Autonomous Xis to autonomous vehicles what Android is to smartphones, or Windows is to computers.

Basically, its a software platform that we use to build other software, he says. Think of it like a foundation, or set of tools that lets you put together a house more swiftly. Just, in the case of MAX, youre building software applications. MAX saves programmers time and energy because they dont have to rebuild things theyd otherwise have to make over and over again when creating applications, and this capability is what allows for hardware independence.

Using MAX, PRI can integrate sensors, controls, algorithms, computer platforms and more. In other words, everything you need to run a fully autonomous vehicle.

Thirteen years ago, Paul Perrone entered his first self-driving car, Tommy, in the nations most prestigious competition for autonomous vehicles: the DARPA Grand Challenge, which is funded by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense). Back then the company consisted of little more than a makeshift lab in a basement, a couple of volunteers, Tommy and the MAX software platform.

Though Perrone didnt ultimately take home the $2 million prize, participating in the race paid off in two big ways. First, the grueling 150-mile-long remote and driverless run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas through the Mojave Desert tested MAXs real-world capabilities. Second, and perhaps more importantly, after being selected as one of just 40 teams to compete in the contest, Tommys performance against what Perrone describes as an infinitely better-funded field sowed the seeds for PRIs expansion.

The company quickly became a leader in the then-nascent field of autonomous vehicles. However, for the next 12 years, growth was relatively slow. That all changed last fall when PRI received a large investment from Wind River Systems, a subsidiary of Intel. Although exact amounts were not disclosed, the money came as part of a $38 million package split between 12 tech companies (not necessarily evenly), which senior vice president Wendell Brooks described in a statement as allocated to the worlds most visionary entrepreneurs developing breakthrough technologies to transform lives and industries.

According to Perrone, the investment has led to a partnership with Intel, which is enabling PRI to scale up marketing and development for its MAX platform and create new pathways into the global marketplace. Weve met with major European auto manufacturers and, while were not ready to disclose specifics, we expect to announce a major deal very soon, says Scharer.

Meanwhile, the company has added a couple new executives, and has grown to 17 employees. The founder of Atari, inventor of Pong, and renown tech start-up guru Nolan Bushnell has joined PRIs governing board. James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language, recently joined the board of advisers. And starting this year, PRI will add between five and 15 new positions a year for the next five years and may have upward of 120 employees based in Crozet as soon as 2022. These jobs will be top-tier. Well be bringing in highly educated, highly skilled employees, says Perrone.

According to Scharer, these people bring experience and industry know-how to the table, which he says will be invaluable as the company scales up. Nolans been in the IT industry since the beginning and has a proven record of taking technology in its early stages and creating a productive business around it, he says. And James is considered a guru in the coding communityI cant tell you how great it is to have these guys to bounce ideas around with.

Considering PRIs pioneer patent for MAX, and the fact that players such as Google, Uber, Tesla, Volvo, Ford and at least 13 other automakers have committed or implied theyll make fully autonomous vehicles available by 2020, PRIs future looks lucrative. According to a study conducted by worldwide management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, by 2035 12 million fully autonomous units could be sold a year globally, and the market for partially and fully autonomous vehicles is expected to leap from about $42 billion in 2025 to nearly $77 billion in 2035.

The BCG study also says the growth capacity of the autonomous industry is being driven largely by safety considerations, citing a National Highway Safety Administration report stating that, each year, there are 33,000 to 40,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S. alone, with 747 fatal crashes each week. But once autonomous cars are deployed at scale, Perrone claims traffic fatalities will be reduced by 75 percent, almost instantaneously. With complete standardization, we expect fatalities will drop by another two orders of magnitude, he says.

Moving into the future, both the BCG study and Perrone say autonomy in cars is only going to grow.

We predict that, by 2035, the preponderance of cars will be autonomousand were going to have a major stake in that action, says Scharer. Were working to become the Microsoft of the autonomous car industry. And while that may sound like a lofty goal, its one we feel is attainable.

Since its founding in 2007, WillowTree has made a name for itself in the tech world. As a budding provider of mobile strategy, design and development services, the company has blossomed from a handful of entrepreneurs to having more than 200 employees housed in offices located in Charlottesville and Durham, North Carolina. With $13.2 million in revenue in 2015, the company experienced growth of 226 percent in fewer than three years, and in the past five years has received numerous accolades and awards.

From 2012 to 2016, Inc. Magazine named WillowTree one of the fastest-growing companies in America. Meanwhile, as one of the fastest-growing businesses in the state, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce has presented it with consecutive Fantastic 50 awards since 2013. In 2015, CEO and founder Tobias Dengel was recognized by SmartCEO as helming one of the nations most promising tech companies. And in both 2015 and 2016, WillowTree was awarded International Academy of the Visual Arts Communicator Awards for its work designing mobile apps for Regal Entertainment Group and AOL.

According to WillowTree Chief Experience Officer Blake Sirach, the company helps Fortune 500 companies take advantage of the mobile wave in ways their internal teams and existing consultants cannot. Because of new device capabilities the medium introduces new and near-constant opportunity, and mobile demands design-driven software development, and thats where we excel. As we continue to help companies understand the essential role mobile plays in providing a competitive advantage and better engagement with customers, more and more are turning to us to help guide and implement their mobile strategies.

That last statement is no exaggeration. In addition to AOL and Regal, the companys short list of heavy-hitting clients includes GE, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Time Warner, AEG, Wyndham and Harvard Business Publishing.

Most recently, WillowTrees work in the growing field of chatbotsor conversational user interfaceshas been garnering tremendous attention. A chatbot is basically an interface that can hold a conversation with a user via auditory or textual methods, says Sirach. Designed to simulate human conversation, the bots are used for tasks such as customer service, trouble-shooting and information acquisition.

According to Sirach, for certain businesses or products, CUIs offer an advantage over traditional apps.For example, say youre chatting with a friend via Facebook Messenger and decide to catch a movie. Only, you dont know whats playing at what time or where, much less what a given film is about. Its one of those situations where itd be great to have a person around who knows all the answers and can cater to your needs exactly, says Sirach. However, thats not often the case. But what if you could simply access a chatbot within the app and, within a couple of questions, get all the info you need? What this example illustrates is the type of problem thats perfect for a CUI to solve.

By the end of the chatbot conversation, not only will you and your friends have decided on a flick, your tickets can be sent directly to you via email, text or natively in the app. Because the information is provided within the interface youre already using, you wont have to download an additional app or pull up a search engine, says Sirach. Which makes for a much more streamlined and friction-free experience.

Moving into the future, Sirach says customized CUIs will offer companies valuable value-added productsand WillowTree tremendous potential for growth. With businesses seeking increasingly engaging interfacesaccording to Business Insider, more than half of all apps downloaded are used only once, with usefulness and engagement holding the key to frequent usehe says the chatbot market is ripe for growth because CUIs enable products and services to be where the users already are.

Chris Goynes students have the good fortune of participating in one of the nations most groundbreaking undergraduate spacecraft design courses. Since 2013, the UVA aerospace engineering professors students have been working with NASA to design research equipment and crafts that travel into the stratosphere and beyond.

Their current project? A three-pound, softball-sized satellite that will spend at least two months orbiting the planet at altitudes equivalent to that of the International Space Stationthat is, a minimum of 1,000 orbits at 250 miles above the Earths surface. Known as the CubeSat, the vessel is part of a three-satellite group slated to be carried into space in late 2018 by a NASA rocket that will resupply the International Space Station. Although the project is being supervised by UVA students, the other two units are being designed and built by students at Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech.

What is the CubeSats mission? According to Goyne, the satellite will take measurements from various altitudes for atmospheric density. Once compiled, the data will aide NASA in its efforts to greater understand global atmospheric properties, and how subtleties in the upper atmosphere work to cause drag on orbiting satellites.

Equipped with a tiny ultra-high frequency radio, the CubeSat will beam the data it collects to a UVA ground-control station. Meanwhile, the station will transmit instructions to the craft and communicate with other satellites in space. Our students will have direct control of our spacecraft, gaining valuable firsthand experience in spacecraft operations, says Goyne. Theyll also control the data received from the spacecraft and handle its distribution and dissemination.

The first UVA-developed and -operated spacecraft, CubeSat is a multi-year project, and is passed down to succeeding groups of fourth-year engineering students as a capstone project or course. The craft is expected to be completed this fall, with about 100 students working on the project across the three schools.

In essence, [they] are walking in the footsteps of famous NASA programs like the Apollo missions, says Goyne. Its a great opportunity for them to participate in a NASA project with real science and technology investigations, and a special experience for them to design, build, test and ultimately fly a craft that actually goes into space.

Link:

Local businesses are at the forefront of the developing robotics world - C-VILLE Weekly