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Bill Gates and Masayoshi Son are backing a plan to have video cameras watch every inch of Earth from space
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Tech
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April 18, 2018 at 02:56PM
IKEA-Building Robot Conquers Touchy-Feely Challenge
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Anyone who has spent an afternoon puzzling over an IKEA furniture kit will appreciate how tempting it would be to turn the project over to a robot. Fortunately the store’s complex self-assembly kits are something of a benchmark for roboticists who have toiled for years at building automatons smart and dexterous enough to fit screws and wooden pegs into their corresponding holes. Progress has been steady, but it will likely be awhile before robots can build a STUVA loft bed combo in your bedroom while you sip coffee in the kitchen.
A STEFAN chair kit is clearly within reach, however, according to engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. In this week’s Science Robotics they report having assembled a STEFAN using a two-armed robot, whose sensors and programming enable it to fit most of the pieces together without human help. The machine’s arms, parallel grippers, sensors and 3-D camera completed the chair’s frame (not including the seat and stabilizing screws), covering more than 50 steps in about 20 minutes.
Just as noteworthy: each of the robot’s parts was the generic, off-the-shelf kind—a key step toward making such machines mass-producible. The components that did the assembly work “are already mass-produced, so the technology we developed here can be deployed in actual factories in [the] very near future,” says Pham Quang-Cuong, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who built the robot with fellow Nanyang researchers Francisco Suárez-Ruiz and Xian Zhou.
The engineers programmed the robot using computer code, rather than training the device to assemble parts via machine-learning and other artificial intelligence techniques crucial to the future of robotics. “In this work we were interested in achieving the low-level capabilities such as perception, planning and control, rather than in the high-level reasoning,” Quang-Cuong says. “Those low-level capabilities are crucial for, and can be adapted to, the assembly of other objects or to other industrial tasks such as handling, drilling, glue dispensing, assembly and inspection. We are also planning to integrate AI methods in our future work to automate [more abstract] high-level reasoning.”
The Nanyang robot arms’ movements may look slow and tedious but their ability to fit pegs into holes tackles “a superhard problem in robotics,” says Ross Knepper, an assistant computer science professor at Cornell University who was not involved in the Nanyang research. Knepper would know—he was part of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology team that in 2013 built the “IKEABot” system of autonomous robots capable of assembling LACK side tables. The MIT project debuted the same year as another LACK-building bot developed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Willow Garage robotics research lab and elsewhere (pdf).
The MIT IKEABot was an automated system that coordinated two robots with specialized tools to perform the assembly. This system applied reasoning about the geometry of individual parts in order to figure out how they fit together. “Whereas my work used a visual perception modality—using vision to solve the peg-in-a-hole problem—the Nanyang researchers are doing it through tactile feedback, feeling whether or not the peg went into the hole,” Knepper says. “The applications are both for IKEA furniture, but the contributions to robotics are very different.”
The Singapore-based researchers’ technology promises to be versatile, able to be reprogrammed for different tasks—maybe even assembling other kinds of furniture. “Many people, especially many Americans, have this intimate experience with struggling and maybe failing to build IKEA furniture,” Knepper says. “The dream is still to have one robot system that can assemble IKEA’s entire catalogue—but we’re not there yet.”
Tech
via Scientific American https://ift.tt/n8vNiX
April 18, 2018 at 01:01PM
ZTE exports ban may mean no Google apps, a death sentence for its smartphones
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The ZTE Tempo Go is the first Android Go device to launch in the US, but it’s probably dead now.
Ron Amadeo
The back of the Tempo Go.
The ZTE Axon M is a crazy dual-screened phone.
The Axon M folds in half, and then it looks like a more normal phone… other than the extra screen on the back.
Most people know ZTE from the Axon 7. A cheap-but-good $400 smartphone.
ZTE also made the news recently with this “Iceberg” concept.
The Iceberg has not one, but two notches! The top and bottom notches hold front-facing speakers.
The US government is going after another Chinese Android device maker. After shutting down Huawei’s carrier deals and retail partners, the government is now pursuing ZTE. The US Department of Commerce has banned US companies from selling parts and software to ZTE for seven years.
ZTE was caught violating US sanctions by illegally shipping telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea. The company then made things worse by “making false statements and obstructing justice, including through preventing disclosure to and affirmatively misleading the US Government,” according to the Department of Commerce. The company reached a settlement with the government, agreeing to pay up to $1.2 billion in penalties and discipline the employees involved in the sale.
Recently, the Commerce Department found ZTE was not complying with this settlement, which triggered the next part of the agreement: a seven-year ban on US exports to ZTE. The company is no longer allowed to use US components and, possibly, software in its devices.
Reuters estimates that “25 percent to 30 percent” of the components in ZTE devices come from the US. One big supplier is Qualcomm, which owns a very large chunk of the SoC market and tons of cellular connectivity patents in the US. Estimates given to Reuters put Qualcomm’s chips in 50 to 65 percent of ZTE devices. Qualcomm is dominant in the US, but worldwide ZTE could possibly survive by just using Taiwan-based MediaTek SoCs in every device.
The latest news from Reuters raises even bigger issues for ZTE, though. A source told Reuters that “The Commerce Department decision means ZTE Corp may not be able to use Google’s Android operating system in its mobile devices.”
Android is free and open source and will probably remain free for ZTE to use without Google’s involvement. Reuters’ source is probably referring to the Google apps, which aren’t sold to device makers but are carefully licensed to them in exchange for other concessions. The Google apps package includes popular services like Gmail and Google Maps, and it also unlocks the Play Store, Google Play Services, and the entire Android app ecosystem. For a market-viable Android device, the Play Store is pretty much mandatory in every country other than China. So while ZTE could conceivably source hardware components from non-US sources, being locked out of the Play Store would devastate ZTE’s smartphones worldwide.
The text of the export denial order certainly implies a software ban. The order says ZTE is “incapable of being, or unwilling to be, a reliable and trustworthy recipient of US-origin goods, software, and technology” and “may not, directly or indirectly, participate in any way in any transaction involving any commodity, software, or technology exported or to be exported from the United States…”
ZTE is mostly a low-end device maker that doesn’t make a lot of noise in the tech media. Despite that, it still managed to be the number-four smartphone seller in the US, thanks to deals with the four big carriers. The company started to gain publicity in the tech news cycle with the Axon 7 launch in 2016. In a similar vein to OnePlus devices, the Axon 7 combined a high-end SoC (the Snapdragon 820) and other “good enough” specs at a $400 price point. The company never followed up the Axon 7 with a true successor, though. Lately, ZTE has been producing crazy concept devices like the dual-screen Axon M and the dual-notched “Iceberg” concept.
ZTE was most recently in the news for being Google’s sole US launch partner for Android Go. Android Go is a revamped Android package from Google designed to run on super low-end phones with 1GB of RAM or less. Google has tweaked Android and built several new “Go” Google apps from scratch with low-end devices in mind. While worldwide there are several OEMs creating Android Go devices, the ZTE Tempo Go was the only device planned for the US at launch.
The $80 Tempo Go went on sale on March 30 and quickly sold out in about a day. Since then, the device has been listed as “Out of stock” on ZTE’s website. Since the devices use a Qualcomm SoC and Google software, is the Tempo Go dead after a single day on sale? The device came with Verizon CDMA bands, which lead to speculation that it would soon be offered in Verizon stores. But now that is surely not happening. Google will no doubt have other OEMs onboard with Android Go launches in the US eventually, but for now, it seems like ZTE’s ban means any consumers looking for an Android Go phone will have to wait. For now, there are no other launches we know about.
ZTE seems more or less doomed. We still managed to buy a ZTE Tempo Go on the single day it was for sale, so in addition to having what is probably now an ultra-rare smartphone, we’ll have an Android Go review up soon.
Listing image by Ron Amadeo
Tech
via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com
April 18, 2018 at 10:05AM
What Are the Differences? Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum, And Other Cryptocurrencies Compared
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Ten years ago, there was just Bitcoin, the original blockchain-based cryptocurrency. Today, there are currently over 1,500 cryptocurrencies. Initially, most of the new coins tried to clone Bitcoin and just change how the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm worked. Since then, many new coins have tried to outgrow Bitcoin and provide a new type of technology, which is how we ended up with multiple types of digital coins.
Of course, the most important transaction type coin is Bitcoin. Bitcoin was created by an anonymous author (or group of authors) using the alias “Satoshi Nakamoto,” with the goal of enabling people to do fast transactions from anywhere in the world with low fees and without any third-party manipulation.
Although Bitcoin was the original “cryptocurrency,” lately more people have started calling it a “store of value,” and we’ve seen some major companies stop supporting it because the fees were getting too expensive. Plus, Bitcoin still hasn’t solved the volatility issues, which means it’s difficult for businesses to work with it unless they use a third-party service to automatically convert Bitcoin into USD when customers purchase their products.
Bitcoin has implemented some new features such as SegWit and the Lightning Network, which allows exchanges or companies to support “off-chain” (outside of the blockchain) transactions that have low or almost zero fees. However, for now adoption is still slow, and it remains to be seen what impact Segwit and Lightning Network will have on future Bitcoin transactions.
New coins that are focused on delivering a high number of transactions per second and low fees have appeared in the past few years. The coins with the highest number of transactions include cryptocurrencies such as Ripple, Stellar, IOTA, Nano, NEM, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and potentially even Ethereum.
Many people have misunderstood Bitcoin’s privacy features, assuming that Bitcoin payments were by default anonymous. However, that’s not quite true. At most, Bitcoin wallet addresses and transactions are pseudonymous in the same way you can create a Twitter account that uses a random nickname instead of your real name and you don’t feed it your real name anywhere in the account. However, Twitter will still know your IP address and anyone you communicate with on the platform, as will everyone else (because Twitter is public).
Similarly, all of your transactions are done on the public ledger/blockchain and anyone who decides to inspect your transactions can see from who you purchased products or to whom you paid money. The only way to have truly anonymous or private transactions is to use Tor for everything and to avoid tying any of those transactions to your real name, location, and so on, just as you would do if you wanted to create a truly anonymous Twitter account.
Some cryptocurrencies solve this issue in different ways (although some of them can also integrate with Tor). One of the most popular and trustworthy is Monero, which is generally regarded as “untraceable.” However, there are still ways in which you can err and reveal your identity, if you’re not careful how you do your transactions.
Zcash is another privacy-focused cryptocurrency that uses a brand-new cryptography technique called “zero knowledge proofs” to create anonymous transactions. However, these transactions are not enabled by default, because they use too many computational resources. The default transactions are just as transparent to the network as Bitcoin transactions are. The project’s team has promised to improve the performance of anonymous transactions significantly in the future.
Other lesser known privacy coins include DASH, Verge, PIVX, ByteCoin, Komodo, DeepOnion, etc.
Ethereum is the most popular “programmable blockchain” platform that allows developers to build other apps, cryptocurrencies, or “smart contracts” (automated scripts that enforce a contract between two or more parties) on top of it.
Smart contracts promise to be a revolution in the finance industry, but also in other industries such as healthcare, real estate, or any industry that might benefit from the radical transparency and accuracy provided by smart contracts.
Ethereum also supports the creation of “tokens,” which are a representation of certain assets on a blockchain. The tokens can represent other cryptocurrencies, commodities, or reward/loyalty points. Tokens are then distributed to the public through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), which are somewhat similar to companies offering an Initial Public Offering (IPO) when they go on the public stock market.
Developers can also create “decentralized applications” on programmable blockchains, such as identity and reputation systems, voting and governance platforms, financial apps, decentralized file storage apps, messaging apps, and more.
Some of the most popular programmable blockchain cryptocurrencies, besides Ethereum, include Cardano, EOS, Lisk, NEM, Neo, Qtum, etc
As we already mentioned, some people consider Bitcoin a transaction cryptocurrency, whereas others see it as more of a store-of-value crypto-asset or as “digital gold.” Bitcoin is considered a store of value because all of the other (over 1,500) cryptocurrencies seem to rise or fall in value based on how well Bitcoin does. If Bitcoin has a few good months, then so will the other cryptocurrencies. If Bitcoin crashes, then so do the other coins.
However, most other coins tend to crash much harder than Bitcoin does, because some people convert money into USD, while others prefer to keep them in Bitcoins. These people keep their money in Bitcoin either because they believe Bitcoin will rise again even more in the future, or because converting into USD means they have to pay taxes for that year, as they’re essentially “taking profits.” This is what keeps Bitcoin’s value relatively high when the whole cryptocurrency market sees a decline.
When the market dips, though, Bitcoin does tend to lose much of its value, which is why some cryptocurrency investors convert to “stablecoins.” A stablecoin is a coin that is a price-stable cryptocurrency, with its value tied to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar.
When people buy and sell stablecoins, the value will self-correct to be as close as possible to the value of USD (within 3%-7%). Therefore, even if the cryptocurrency market declines by 70%, those who have put their money into stablecoins before the decline will not lose nearly as much in value as everyone else.
The most popular stablecoin in the past few years has been Tether. However, Tether is also highly controversial right now, because the company behind it seems to continue to print Tether out of thin air without showing much evidence that they’re backing it with real USD, like they were supposed to do.
Alternatives to Tether include MakerDAO’s Dai, TrueUSD, Basecoin, Bitshares’ BitUSD, Kowala’s kUSD, etc.
Another store of value cryptocurrency that’s somewhat similar to stablecoins is DigixDAO’s DGX token, which is backed by (real) gold instead of by fiat currencies. That means its value shouldn’t be quite as stable as the value of stablecoins, because fiat currencies are much more stable than goal in general. However, it should still be significantly more stable than Bitcoin or most other cryptocurrencies, as gold is still far less volatile than cryptocurrencies are.
At the time of this writing, the cryptocurrency market has suffered quite a beating from the sellers, as negative news about major exchange hacks and government regulations abound. However, unless this time really is different, then the market should rebound again, as it’s done plenty of times in the past decade. Then, we should be able to see even more types of coins and blockchain technologies emerge as developers continue to innovate.
Tech
via Tom’s Hardware https://ift.tt/GGC4K5
April 18, 2018 at 07:17AM
A Pipe Cleaner Bending Lego Robot Is Equal Parts Pointless and Brilliant
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Pipe bending machines make short work of twisting and shaping metal tubes into everything from car exhausts to trombones. Yoshihito Isogawa’s pipe cleaner bending robot works essentially the same way, although it’s more of an exercise in pushing Lego to its functional limits, as opposed to filling an automated void in the crafting world.
That’s not to say that there isn’t someone out there who would benefit from a quick way to bend pipe cleaners en masse. There’s got to be at least one Etsy shop full of pipe cleaner masterpieces, and let’s not forget those wise-looking folks who smoke pipes and use pipe cleaners for actually cleaning pipes.
[YouTube via The Awesomer]
Tech
via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com
April 18, 2018 at 09:30AM
Russia appears to have surrendered to SpaceX in the global launch market
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NASA
As recently as 2013, Russia controlled about half of the global commercial launch industry with its fleet of rockets, including the Proton boosters. But technical problems with the Proton, as well as competition from SpaceX and other players, has substantially eroded the Russian share. This year, it may only have about 10 percent of the commercial satellite launch market, compared to as much as 50 percent for SpaceX.
In the past, Russian space officials have talked tough about competing with SpaceX in providing low-cost, reliable service to low-Earth and geostationary orbit. For example, the Russian rocket corporation, Energia, has fast-tracked development of a new medium-class launch vehicle that it is calling Soyuz-5 to challenge SpaceX.
On Tuesday, however, Russia’s chief spaceflight official, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, made a remarkable comment about that country’s competition with SpaceX.
“The share of launch vehicles is as small as 4 percent of the overall market of space services,” Rogozin said in an interview with a Russian television station. “The 4 percent stake isn’t worth the effort to try to elbow Musk and China aside. Payloads manufacturing is where good money can be made.”
According to an independent analysis, the global launch market is worth about $5.5 billion annually. Losing its half share of this market, therefore, has probably cost the Russians about $2 billion, which is a significant fraction of its non-military aerospace budget.
Rogozin is correct that satellite manufacturing is a considerably larger industry, worth about $14 billion a year. But like launch, this is also a competitive industry, and historically Russia has not had a dominant position in the satellite manufacturing and services industry like it has had in launch. It was the Soviet Union that first launched a satellite, Sputnik, and then a human, Yuri Gagarin, into space, after all.
What seems most remarkable about Rogozin’s comment is that, for the first time publicly, the world’s most storied launch provider appears to be ceding the commercial launch market to other providers—most notably a rocket company that didn’t exist until 2002, and flew its first orbital rocket less than a decade ago.
Tech
via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com
April 18, 2018 at 09:05AM
Math is Beautiful
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Grab your calculator or do it by hand. Math is beautiful.
The post Math is Beautiful appeared first on Geeks are Sexy Technology News.
Tech
via [Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News https://ift.tt/23BIq6h
April 18, 2018 at 07:49AM
