1. Best Robotics in 2018
In the mind of a design engineer, a robot can be a collection of mechanical and digital systems that can install wallboard like a human, or it can be a piece of fabric that has embedded intelligence, or even a shiny plastic puppy. Here’s a look at Electronic Engineering Times’s “Top 10 Robots of 2018.”
2. Top 10 Emerging Technologies in 2019
Reviewing the most significant developments in technology this year, the World Economic Forum selected 10 technologies from energy, medicine, manufacturing, data storage, utility-scale electrical storage, and a kind of collaborative telepresence that borders on teleporting yourself through your computers.
3. Google’s Vanishing AI Ethics Board
Google announced the formation of an Advanced Technology External Advisory Council that would “consider some of Google’s most complex challenges that arise under our AI principles, like facial recognition and fairness in machine learning.” The AI ethics board lasted just 10 days. What happened?
4. Beware the Triton Sabotage Malware
The Triton industrial sabotage malware is a spreading security threat. The code is designed to disable safety systems that are in place to prevent catastrophic industrial accidents. It’s potentially “the world’s most murderous malware...[and] the hackers are targeting companies in North America.”
5. Debut of the Urban Parcel Robots
Start-up company Quadrobot Inc. will be rolling out its robotic delivery trucks in Detroit, Mich., and China in late 2019. The QUADROBOT U1 is a four-wheel-drive, autonomous, all-electric vehicle designed for urban environments and neighborhoods to provide “last-mile” delivery service.
6. Google’s Own AI Scorecard for 2018
Jeff Dean, Google artificial intelligence lead, reviews 17 AI topics, from ethical principles for AI research to applying machine learning to clinical healthcare. Google’s legacy will rest on what it has discovered, developed, and distributed in AI as a source for good in the world.
7. WIPO: U.S. and China Lead the World in AI Innovation
A study from the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) documents “a massive recent surge in artificial intelligence-based inventions, with U.S.-based companies IBM and Microsoft leading the pack, as AI has moved from the theoretical realm toward the global marketplace.”
8. Understanding Machine Behavior
In April 2019, MIT’s Media Lab published a paper titled “Machine Behavior,” a call for a new field of scientific study into machine behavior. A blend of computer science and the behavioral models applied to biological agents, the research would examine machine algorithms and their social environments.
9. Apple’s Daisy Robot on Earth Day
In 2018, Apple announced that a new recycling robot called Liam would join its global recycling programs and recover reusable elements from old iPhones. This year, the company issued a follow-up Earth Day message and welcomed Daisy, a faster, more efficient version of the robot.
10. 3D Printed Villages
3D-printing technologies have now expanded into various fields, including real-estate construction. Apis Cor, a company with locations in San Francisco, Calif., and Russia, has affordable, eco-friendly construction projects under way that can be constructed in 24 hours at just more than $10,000.
