Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Berger highlights Superpedestrian, an MIT startup and electric scooter company that secured $60 million in funding. Berger notes that Superpedestrian “spent more than four years designing a vehicle intelligence system that can diagnose and maintain itself.”
CSAIL’s RoboRaise robot can successfully execute the Bottle Cap Challenge, removing a bottle cap with a well-placed kick, reports Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch. Etherington explains that the robot, “can mirror the actions of a human just by watching their bicep. This has a number of practical applications, including potentially assisting a person to lift large or awkward objects.”
In this video, Mashable highlights how CSAIL researchers have developed a new system that can help lift heavy objects by mirroring human activity. The system uses sensors that monitor muscle activity and detect changes in the user’s arm.
Popular Science reporter Rob Verger writes that MIT researchers have developed a new mechanical system that can help humans lift heavy objects. “Overall the system aims to make it easier for people and robots to work together as a team on physical tasks,” explains graduate student Joseph DelPreto.
In this video, Mashable spotlights how MIT researchers have developed an origami-inspired soft robotic gripper that can grasp a wide variety of objects.
In an article for the Financial Times, Ashley Nunes, a research affiliate at MIT, writes about the Ethiopian Airlines crash and examines the limits of automation. “The more automated the system, the more crucial the human operator becomes,” writes Nunes. “That’s because automation doesn’t purge demand for human labour, instead it changes the type of labour needed.”
Fast Company reporter Mark Wilson writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a new soft robotic gripper that is modeled after a Venus flytrap. “Dubbed the Magic Ball, it’s a rubber and plastic structure that can contract around an object like an origami flower,” Wilson explains.
CSAIL researchers have developed a new robotic gripper that contains an origami skeleton, enabling the device to open and close like a flower and grasp a variety of delicate and heavy objects, reports James Vincent for The Verge “By combining this foldable skeleton with the soft exterior, we get the best of both worlds,” explains Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL.
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that researchers at CSAIL and Harvard have developed a soft robotic gripper that can both handle delicate objects and lift items up to 100 times its own weight. “The gripper itself is made of an origami-inspired skeletal structure, covered in either fabric or a deflated balloon,” explains Heater.
Writing for The Boston Globe, members of the Media Lab’s Scalable Cooperation research group argue that independent oversight is needed to ensure that new AI technologies are developed in an ethical manner. “AI is the new framework of our lives,” they write. “We need to ensure it’s a safe, human-positive framework, from top to bottom.”
Prof. Julie Shah and Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee speak with Miles O’Brien of the PBS NewsHour about how robots can be used to augment human capabilities in the workplace. Shah explains that she is developing technology that enables robots to “integrate and work effectively with the person, so that they can accomplish the task together.”
Boston Globe reporter Katie Johnston speaks with several MIT researchers about their work developing technology that is aimed at improving collaboration between humans and robots. Prof. Julie Shah notes that offloading easier decisions onto a machine “would allow people to focus on the parts of job that truly require human judgment and experience.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a technique that makes it possible to create 3-D motion sculptures from 2-D video, reports Jennifer Kite-Powell for Forbes. The new technique could “open up the possibility to study social disorders, interpersonal interactions and team dynamics,” Kite-Powell explains.
BBC Click reports on a system developed by CSAIL researchers that creates 3-D motion sculptures based off of 2-D video. The technique, say the researchers, “could help dancers and athletes learn more about how they move.”
Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, examines the increasing influence of AI in our lives. Coughlin concludes that in the absence of a human alternative, brief interactions could change our perception of an AI system from “a simple tool that ‘does stuff’ around the house, to a presence that is a real part of our social self.”