For everything from family to computers…
Imagine a robot that can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one material.
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April 17, 2025 at 07:07AM
One of the more serious players in the air taxi game, Archer, has just unveiled routes for a potential service in New York City. Its Midnight aircraft would shuttle passengers from Manhattan to JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airpots in five to 15 minutes, potentially shaving an hour or more from typical driving times. However, Archer didn’t provide any dates for the start of the service and all of this could be derailed by regulatory bodies, particularly the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Any news about air taxis should come with the caveat that no such services are operating yet, even though startups have been trying for a decade or more. With that said, Archer has partnered with a number of established aviation and other companies including Fiat Chrysler and United Airlines, along with fixed base operators (FBOs) like Signature Aviation and Atlantic Aviation. Archer also previously announced proposed air taxi networks in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Archer’s plan is to have you book air taxi rides as an "add-on" to traditional flights. You’d launch from existing Manhattan facilities, namely the East 34th Street Heliport, Downtown Skyport and West 30th Street Heliport. From there, you’d be able to fly to "vertiports" at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airpots, along with locations at other regional airports. Flights would be aboard the company’s human-piloted, four-passenger Midnight aircraft with 12 rotors, six batteries and a range of 20-50 miles.
Archer does have United Airlines, New York’s Port Authority and the New York City Economic Development Corportation (NYCEDC) all on board. However, it hasn’t provided important details like the number of potential flights per day, operating hours and more. That information would be vital to the FAA, which must decide if the service is safe for passengers, other aircraft and people on the ground.
That’s an undertaking that could require a lot of time and cost, and Archer’s VTOL aircraft still hasn’t received its FAA type certification required for any operations. The company did receive the FAA’s final airworthiness criteria, though, making it one of only two air taxi companies with that certification along with rival Joby Aviation. The only air taxi company to obtain type certification from an aviation regulator is EHang from China’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC).
The air taxi game is risky for startups, too. Late last year one of Archer’s VTOL rivals, Lilium ceased operations, laying off 1,000 people, despite successful flight tests.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/YmDVJ4j
via Engadget http://www.engadget.com
April 17, 2025 at 07:37AM
Samsung has been showing off a smart home robot named “Ballie” since at least 2020 as a fun, but silly concept. The idea behind Ballie is to give your home a robotic pet that can help take care of your dog, potentially act as a security camera, project all sorts of screens wherever you need them, and control your smart home. Well, those were the concept ideas for Ballie back in 2024. For 2025, Ballie is real, probably not like it was in 2024’s concept, and you might even be able to buy one in the US.
After showing off the most recent version of Ballie at CES 2025 and promising a launch in the first half of the year, Samsung and Google announced today at Google Cloud Next 2025 that Ballie is indeed arriving this summer with Gemini onboard.
In a short announcement, Samsung says that Ballie will be able to “engage in natural, conversational interactions to help users manage home environments, including adjusting lighting, greeting people at the door, personalizing schedules, setting reminders, and more” as it cruises around your home with its little wheels. What exactly does that mean in your daily life? Well, it sounds…like something.
Using a combination of Google’s multimodal AI reasoning and Samsung’s AI capabilities, Ballie will attempt to do more than just act as a basic assistant. Samsung suggests users ask Ballie, “Hey Ballie, how do I look?” in the morning before they start their day. Ballie will then offer styling recommendations…what? You could also tell Ballie that you “Feel tired today,” to which it will respond by tailoring advice it finds from Google Search…bro, what? That sounds so scary.
That aside, the video below shows what a typical day with Ballie could look like in some future world, so expect only portions of what you see below to be in the real Ballie. This was a video they released a year ago at CES 2024.
How much will Ballie cost? Samsung did not say. However, Amazon has had its Astro robot for sale for some time in invitation-only availability – it costs a whopping $1,600. Will Ballie cost that much? It certainly could. Just don’t expect it to be cheap.
If you are at all interested, you can sign-up at Samsung’s site (here) to receive updates on launch.
Read the original post: Samsung’s Ballie Robot is Actually Launching and is Powered by Gemini
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April 9, 2025 at 11:17AM
Feeling sluggish, depressed, anxious, and having trouble concentrating while being sick might not just be due to physical weakness. Extensive reports from health professionals have pointed out that these symptoms, labeled "sickness behavior," are more than just side effects of the body fighting off an infection. They appear to be part of an intentional behavior pattern driven by a collaboration between the brain and the immune system.
This pattern may have evolutionary significance, helping to protect the community by reducing direct contact and preventing the spread of disease. Beyond that, it might hold valuable insights into mental health conditions, potentially leading to new treatment strategies.
Two studies from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published in Cell, have brought us a step closer to understanding the molecular mechanisms behind how inflammation impacts our moods and behaviors. The research has identified which parts of the immune system communicate with the brain to explain this phenomenon.
Cytokines are small protein messengers released by a wide range of cells, especially immune cells. They help immune cells communicate, particularly when preparing to launch an inflammatory response to fight off pathogens.
Cytokines are not all the same; they fall into two broad categories: pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory, each playing a role in maintaining the delicate balance between fighting infections and preventing excessive inflammation.
To send messages, cytokines bind to receptors on their target immune cells, much like a key fitting into a lock, to fulfill their role in the immune system. Interestingly, cytokines don’t only affect immune responses; their impact extends to the brain, influencing cognition, mood, and behavior.
For example, a 2019 study on mice suggested that IL-17A, a cytokine released during fever caused by inflammatory infections, could explain the temporary reduction in social behavior often observed in autistic children. While this discovery hints at the complexity of brain-immune crosstalk, the full extent of it is still not well understood.
Read More: Visualizing Brain Connectivity May Aide in Diagnosing Mental Illnesses
The same researchers who conducted the cytokine study on autism expanded their research to investigate how and where cytokine signals in the brain affect mood, anxiety, and social behavior.
One study identified how specific cytokines, such as IL-17A and IL-17C, target the amygdala — the brain’s fear center — and influence its neural activity, leading to increased anxiety. Interestingly, when the researchers attempted to block the receptor (receptor antagonism is a common pharmacological effect of many commercial drugs), anxiety actually increased. Another fascinating finding was that the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 seemed to reduce anxiety.
Another study further explored cytokines’ role in mood regulation by returning to autism-like behaviors. It identified several cytokines and their receptors, in addition to IL-17A, that appear to enhance social interactions in mice with autism-like traits. Notably, IL-17E was also found to be produced by neurons in the brain, positioning it as a neuromodulator, much like other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine.
"Our results emphasize the important role of immune signaling in shaping mood and behavior by acting on specific brain pathways," explained co-senior author Gloria Choi, Associate Professor at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, in a press release.
"By identifying where and how cytokine receptors work in the brain, we have begun to unravel the complex relationship between the nervous and immune systems in the effect of this complex crosstalk on mood and behavior,” said Jun Huh, associate professor of immunology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS and co-senior author on the two studies in the press release.
While Huh’s and Choi’s research brings us forward in understanding brain-immune communication, more studies are necessary, especially regarding human application.
In the future, new treatments for autism and anxiety disorders could be a result of these initial findings. Unlike traditional psychiatric drugs, which alter brain chemistry directly, these therapies may adjust immune signals from outside the brain, offering a novel approach using the immune system.
Read More: Excessive Worry About Health Could be Signs of Illness Anxiety Disorder
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Having worked as a biomedical research assistant in labs across three countries, Jenny excels at translating complex scientific concepts – ranging from medical breakthroughs and pharmacological discoveries to the latest in nutrition – into engaging, accessible content. Her interests extend to topics such as human evolution, psychology, and quirky animal stories. When she’s not immersed in a popular science book, you’ll find her catching waves or cruising around Vancouver Island on her longboard.
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April 9, 2025 at 08:19AM
No one’s ever walked out of a meeting thinking, “Wow, that couldn’t have been an email.” If you’re tired of hearing Steve and Chris ramble on for an hour, just stop going and send this AI voice recorder along instead.
Even if you aren’t in attendance, this gadget captures the whole conversation, uses ChatGPT-4 to provide an accurate transcript, and delivers smart summaries so you can get actual work done during that “important” meeting. Save $76 on the Focais meeting recorder and get free shipping while supplies last.
You might not be allowed to skip the meeting outright, but this smart device at least allows you to secretly do work on your laptop—or just zone out into your happy place. And those who work from home can simply walk away and let the Focais gadget do its magic.
Pair it with the app, power it on, and forget about those quarterly budget updates. Here’s what makes Focais different from just recording the meeting with your phone:
Unlike basic recorders or apps that require uploading files to multiple platforms, this device is a self-contained system. Record, transcribe, and summarize on the fly and access everything from its companion app for iOS, Android, or desktop.
Only 40 of these Focais AI smart meeting recorders are left in stock at $72.99 with free shipping, so order yours ASAP (reg. $149). No coupon is needed to get this price.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Focais: Meet One – Your AI-Powered Assistant to Capture & Summarize Notes – $72.99
If meetings are the biggest time-suck in your workweek, this AI note-taking tool could give you hours of your life back. With AI doing the heavy lifting—recording, transcribing, summarizing, and even translating in real time—you’re free to multitask or mentally check out without missing a thing. Normally, tech this advanced comes with a subscription or steep price tag, but this lifetime tool is just a one-time $72.99 buy. For anyone drowning in calls, lectures, or team standups, that’s a small price for sanity.
The post This gadget attends your meetings so you don’t have to appeared first on Popular Science.
via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://www.popsci.com
April 7, 2025 at 06:06AM
Animator Hoog just dropped the most important retro PSA of our time: how to survive an attack from killer robot dogs. That’s right—cybernetic murder mutts with flamethrowers, sniper rifles, and the ability to outmaneuver you and your Wi-Fi.
Learn to run, trap, and fight back with fishing magnets, paintball guns, and slippery floors—because nothing stops a murderbot like a well-lubed hallway. You’ll also learn helpful tips like: don’t trust escalators, dig moats, and never make eye contact with glowing red sensors that scream “I have rockets.”
If this is how the future looks, we’re gonna need more rope nets and less optimism. Watch the video and start booby-trapping your hallway, Kevin McCallister-style.
Watch it, laugh nervously, and start digging that moat.
Click This Link for the Full Post > PSA: Your Guide to Outsmarting a Weaponized Cyber-Poodle, Kevin McCallister-Style
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April 8, 2025 at 11:52AM
https://gizmodo.com/darpa-unintentionally-invents-new-rocket-radar-thanks-to-spacex-2000584008
While listening in on the atmosphere, a team of researchers from the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) picked up unexpected disturbances caused by a SpaceX rocket plummeting through the atmosphere toward its landing site.
DARPA’s AtmoSense program seeks to use Earth’s atmosphere as a global sensor by measuring acoustic and electromagnetic waves propagating through the atmosphere, and attempting to trace them back to a specific disturbance event that took place on Earth. In doing so, DARPA hopes to be able to trace underground explosions or other national security threats using the signals detected from the atmosphere.
During its latest round of listening to the atmosphere, a team used AtmoSense to study sound waves created by controlled explosions in New Mexico. While conducting this work, the team behind the program made an unplanned discovery after noticing something unusual in the sensor data.
“As the team was looking at the data, they saw a huge drop in what’s called total electron content that puzzled them,” Michael Nayak, program manager of AtmoSense, said in a statement. “Imagine that you have water going through a hose. That’s a flow of electrons, and if you put your fist in front of the hose, you’ll notice a significant drop in water volume coming out of the hose.”
After analyzing the data, the team was able to trace the disturbance to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket reentry that took place on the same day as the test. “Then they decided to pull other SpaceX reentry data, across dozens of launches, to see if they could spot a similar electron drop,” Nayak added. “The phenomenon is highly repeatable.”
Using AtmoSense, the team inadvertently discovered a new technique to identify objects reentering through Earth’s atmosphere, according to Nayak. The researchers behind the program will share the most recent results from AtmoSense during an upcoming virtual workshop being held from April 15 to 17.
Falcon 9 is the hardest working rocket in the game, with over 450 missions under its belt. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is a partially reusable, two-stage rocket that launches payloads into orbit, then returns to Earth for a controlled landing, allowing its first stage to be recovered and reused.
via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/
April 2, 2025 at 11:15AM