Lifeboat Foundation

Cool new story in the San Francisco Chronicle about the robotics conference. I gave a speech at it yesterday.

At the two-day RoboBusiness Conference, about 2,000 people were serenaded with lullabies and Disney tunes, including “Let It Go” from the hit film “Frozen,” by a human-like robot designed to comfort senior citizens and autistic children.

And next to a man-size robot that can drive a motorcycle 190 mph around a race track, a half-dozen ant-size robots quickly scurried about a miniature factory floor.

Continue reading “The future of robots: singing lullabies, testing motorcycles” »

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s your Uber ride arriving to take you to work.

Uber is researching how to offer customers short-haul flights on vertical-takeoff aircraft in future, the ride-hailing company’s Product Head Jeff Holden told a a Recode reporter on stage at the Nantucket Conference on Sunday.

Holden said the company is looking into drone-like aircraft, “so we can someday offer our customers as many options as possible to move around.”

Continue reading “Uber researches vertical-takeoff planes for short-haul city rides” »

One of the world’s largest package delivery companies is stepping up efforts to integrate drones into its system.

UPS has partnered with robot-maker CyPhy Works to test the use of drones to make commercial deliveries to remote or difficult-to-access locations.

The companies began testing the drones on Thursday, when they launched one from the seaside town of Marblehead. The drone flew on a programmed route for 3 miles over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver an inhaler at Children’s Island.

Continue reading “UPS testing drones for use in its package delivery system” »

When the project started, a “Red Team” of hackers could have taken over the helicopter almost as easily as it could break into your home Wi-Fi. But in the intervening months, engineers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had implemented a new kind of security mechanism — a software system that couldn’t be commandeered. Key parts of Little Bird’s computer system were unhackable with existing technology, its code as trustworthy as a mathematical proof. Even though the Red Team was given six weeks with the drone and more access to its computing network than genuine bad actors could ever expect to attain, they failed to crack Little Bird’s defenses.

“They were not able to break out and disrupt the operation in any way,” said Kathleen Fisher, a professor of computer science at Tufts University and the founding program manager of the High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) project. “That result made all of DARPA stand up and say, oh my goodness, we can actually use this technology in systems we care about.”

The technology that repelled the hackers was a style of software programming known as formal verification. Unlike most computer code, which is written informally and evaluated based mainly on whether it works, formally verified software reads like a mathematical proof: Each statement follows logically from the next. An entire program can be tested with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems.

Take a look at these mini drones that are making their way onto the battlefield. Mini drones improve unit mobility, provide valuable intelligence and save service members’ lives.

The federal government should work with private firms to develop drone traffic management systems and test drone designs. This could help stimulate the development of drone aviation. It could also help modernize the air traffic control system.

About time.

Who watches the drones? Other drones.

To defend against military lasers, Adsys Controls of Irvine, California, has created Helios, which can be carried on drones. To do much damage, an offensive laser needs to remain focused on its target for several seconds. Helios stops a laser from doing this by disrupting the systems controlling the beam – the Achilles’ heel for all such weapons. “Beam control is a critical function of high-energy lasers,” says Adsys CEO Brian Goldberg.

Helios can detect an incoming laser beam and identify its key characteristics, such as power, wavelength, pulse frequency and its source. Helios then interferes with the beam control – possibly by firing back a low-power laser of its own – so the attacking laser cannot fix on the target. “It provides permanent protection,” says Goldberg. “It’s not just buying time.”

He will not say exactly how the interference is done, but it may involve fooling the control system into thinking it is hitting its target despite the laser actually pointing a few metres to the side. A direct hit would have produced a big burst of reflected light, so a pulse sent back by an anti-laser laser could make it look like the original laser was on target.

Continue reading “Drones armed with anti-laser lasers that trick controls of enemy lasers into missing the drone” »

Elevate your selfie game with this pocket-sized drone: engt.co/2cqxRRu