Old robots never die, they simply fade away. (And probably rust a bit.) This week, Boston Dynamics said adieu to HD Atlas, the human-ish robot that debuted over a decade ago. And then promptly introduced its replacement. For years, Atlas has scared us silly with cutesy dance moves and parkour …
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I had My first-ever professional massage last December during a spa day with some friends. Everyone opted for a traditional massage, which required a preliminary consultation. They disrobed, and the massage took place in a private room. I opted for a shiatsu massage—a clothed experience in a semiprivate area, and …
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Peter Chen, CEO of the robot software company Covariant, sits in front of a chatbot interface resembling the one used to communicate with ChatGPT. “Show me the tote in front of you,” he types. In reply, a video feed appears, revealing a robot arm over a bin containing various items—a …
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Near the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, a boxy robot zips along the rocky, cracked road. Snaking from side to side, the robot—a four-wheeled machine, around knee height—carries cargo and ammunition for Russian troops. However, it’s being watched. Hovering above the road, tracking the movements of the robot, is a Ukrainian …
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In 2016, I wrote about an internet that affected the world in a direct, physical manner. It was connected to your smartphone. It had sensors like cameras and thermostats. It had actuators: thermostats, drones, autonomous cars. And it had smarts in the middle, using sensor data to figure out what …
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When my mom was finally, officially diagnosed with dementia in 2020, her geriatric psychiatrist told me that there was no effective treatment. The best thing to do was to keep her physically, intellectually, and socially engaged every day for the rest of her life. Oh, OK. No biggie. The doc …
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Anyone currently worrying about artificial intelligence taking over the world may want to swing by the Boston Dynamics AI Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While walking around, they’d see that the robots that might lead a future uprising are still trying to tie their shoelaces, metaphorically speaking. The Institute’s founder and …
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When medical student Alyssa Murillo stepped into surgery, she was met with something most wouldn’t expect to find in an operating room: a towering surgical robot. She wasn’t there to observe the kind of surgeries she was used to seeing; instead she was getting an in-depth view inside the patient’s …
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FedEx unveiled a two-armed robot called DexR this week that’s designed to automate one of the trickiest tasks facing the company’s human employees—loading a truck with packages. The new robot aims to use artificial intelligence to stack rows of differently sized boxes inside a delivery truck as efficiently as possible, …
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