Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 453

ShotSpotter technology is being used in areas with high levels of crime and gun violence, which helps law enforcement respond faster to gun shots. Using microphones located around "problem areas" of cities, the ShotSpotter system is able to provide instant locations of gunshots within 10 feet.

The use of the system allows police to investigate shootings that often times aren't reported after they occur. However, it is rather expensive to deploy, with costs ranging from $60,000 up to $100,000 per year per square mile.

"It helps us catching guys and it helps us with officer safety," said Orlando Cuevas, Camden County police chief, in a statement to CBS News. "Now these officers are not traveling blindly into an area where a gunshot is."

Duke University researchers have grown human skeletal muscles in a research lab, with the manufactured creation able to contract and respond like native tissue. It's possible the lab-created muscles can help with drug research and so researchers are better able to study diseases.

Researchers used human cells that progressed past stem cells but didn't reach full muscle tissue yet - and the myogenic precursors were allowed to form into muscle fibers located in a custom 3D scaffolding.

"One of our goals is to use this method to provide personalized medicine to patients," said Nenad Bursac, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, in a press statement. "We can take a biopsy from each patient, grow many new muscles to use as test samples and experiment to see which drugs would work best for each person."

It's hard to predict what will happen as robotics technology matures, and artificial intelligence software advances, but there is growing concern that robots could end up taking jobs from humans. In Germany and other European Union (EU) nations look to solve political problems, there is growing concern that robots - and not immigrants from other nations - could lead to a shrinking work force.

"What's fundamentally different is that (these advances) have the ability to affect a broader set of workers," said Jeremy Bowles, a researcher at the Bruegel Institute in Brussels, Belgium. Bowles believes humanoid robots will be able to carry out human tasks that could one day impact white-collar employees.

However, a counter-argument is that the rise of robotics will help spur the economy, as there will be additional opportunities for businesses. "Robotics is seen as a pivotal technology, which is not only going into robotics per se but into so many other branches and technologies," said Uwe Haas, secretary general of the European Union's robotics program. "It will create new jobs because [it will make] new businesses possible."

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has started testing its VolcanoBot 1 robot in Hawaii, sending it into inactive fissures located inside the active Kilauea volcano. The small two-wheeled robot is less than seven inches tall and around one foot long, with the ability to help researchers create 3D fissure maps.

"We don't know exactly how volcanoes erupt. We have models but they are all very, very simplified. This project aims to help make those models more realistic," said Carolyn Parcheta, JPL postdoctoral fellow.

NASA hopes to refine the VolcanoBot 1's abilities, which could be rolled out for future missions on planets and moons besides Earth. There is specific interest in exploring craters on the moon and Mars, with Earth-based experiments helping perfect hardware before sending them into space.

Research into artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, and there is growing concern that uncontrolled AI could have a significant impact on mankind. To prevent this from happening, the Future of Life Institute (FLI) wants AI researchers to sign an open letter to protect humans from intelligent machines.

"We recommend expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robost and beneficial: our AI systems must do what we want them to do," the letter reads. "The attached research priorities document gives many examples of such research directions that can help maximize the societal benefit of AI. This research is by necessity interdisciplinary, because it involves both society and AI. It ranges from economics, law and philosophy to computer security, formal methods and, of course, various branches of AI itself."

AI is being used in autonomous weapons systems, robots and humanoids, and in autonomous vehicles - raising serious ethical questions that must be answered.

Apple iPhone users separated from their smartphone can suffer from "physiological anxiety" and "poor cognitive performance," according to "The Extended iSelf: The Impact of iPhone Separation on Cognition, Emotion, and Physiology" study, published by the University of Missouri.

The researchers first tasked survey participants to sit down and complete a puzzle while near their smartphone, and then had to take a second survey with their phone in a different part of the room. However, researchers called the phone, with participants able to see their iPhone and could hear it ring - but couldn't answer the phone.

Participants had increased heart rate and blood pressure while trying to complete the puzzle in the second scenario. Researchers recommend iPhone users keep their smartphones nearby when completely tasks that involve significant attention, so no anxiety occurs.

The city of Shenyang, the largest city in Northeast China with more than 6 million residents, could have been home base for the North Korean government's secretive Bureau 121 hacker group, according to defector Kim Heung-Kwang.

Kim left North Korea in 2004 and previously served as a computer science professor in Pyongyang, saying some of his students graduated and began hacking for the North Korean government.

"Bureau 121 began its large-scale operation in China in 2005," Kim recently said in an interview published by CNN. It was established in the late 90s. Team members entered China separately - in smaller groups - 20 members at a time. When they entered China, they came under different titles. For example an office worker, an official with a trade company or even as a diplomatic staffer."

CES 2015-Escort Radar plans to show off its Passport and Passport Max2 radar detectors during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), featuring Bluetooth-equipped products tied to the Escort Live ticket protection app.

As more devices, especially inside of vehicles, continue to include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and mobile apps, Escort wants to make sure its products provide the same connectivity. The company will unveil its Air Patrol and Intelligent Speed Traps social app, able to alert drivers to aircraft and "intelligent speed traps" that are located in the area.

If you're attending CES, Escort will first demo the solution tomorrow during the CES Unveiled Show in the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.

The freshly designed balloon, said to carry a telescope that detects gamma rays unseen by human eyes, was set off with the task of floating over Antarctica for 100 days - marking it as NASA's longest scientific balloon mission ever.

Er, Houston - We have a problem. After only two days of soaring through the sky, the balloon has sprung a leak and plunged back to earth. As according to the COSI '14 Balloon Campaign and Shenanigans website: "I'm saddened to report that the COSI/SPB balloon flight was terminated much earlier than expected. The balloon developed a leak after the first day at float and we decided to increase the chances of instrument recovery this season instead of continuing operations for as long as the balloon maintained altitude."

Currently sitting at 350 miles from McMurdo at an elevation of 8000 ft, this unfortunate situation has seen a daring mission end extremely early. The previous balloon flight mission record sits at 55 days total, with this ambitious mission looking to almost-double this number. Judging by the wrap-up on this website, there are no repair and re-launch plans currently made - it seems like a completely dead project.

The Wi-Fi networks aboard the International Space Station (ISS) could allow robots to autonomously roam the orbiting research lab. The SPHERES robots have been aboard the ISS since 2006, mainly used in a small cube location that is marked by ultrasound beacon limiters.

This would be a unique opportunity to determine if robots would be able to carry out menial tasks board the ISS, so astronauts are able to handle more pressing activities. Operators from the NASA Ames Research Center want to discover if it'd be possible to direct SPHERES using the current ISS Wi-Fi infrastructure.

NASA and other participating space nations have shown increased interest in using robotics technology aboard the ISS - hoping to make the environmental safer to work in, while also helping astronauts with their workloads.