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Where’s Your Robot?
Peggy talks about opportunities, drivers, and trends for industrial robots. She shares what manufacturers need to do to prepare for a robotic future, saying robots are coming—and in some instances, they are already here. She also discusses: How much the market is anticipated to grow. An example of a robot in space and what’s happening…
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What to Do with All the Data?
Peggy Smedley and Zoltan Nagy, director, Intelligent Environments Lab, talk about what is happening to our data and who is actually looking at it. He says with the democratization of collecting data, the challenge is no longer can we get the data or how do we store all this data, but rather it is what…
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Employment Is Dead
Peggy Smedley and Deborah Perry Piscione, cofounder, Work3 Institute and coauthor, Employment Is Dead, talk about the 10 operating principles of work and how gen AI (artificial intelligence) can provide advanced training and upskilling. She explains how she and her coauthor came up with the title for the book. They also discuss: The difference between…
What's Trending
AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) can help with a great many things. One such example is making strength predictions in steel columns to ensure strong and resilient infrastructure—which is much needed in today’s age of growing natural disasters. Concrete-filled steel tube columns are often ideal for building stronger buildings and infrastructure, and now researchers are doing experiments to predict their properties. The challenge is the data is limited. Enter a research team led by Associate Professor Jin-Kook Kim of Seoul National University of Science and Technology, which presented and verified a hybrid machine learning model capable of accurately predicting the axial strength of these columns. The researchers employed a form of generative AI to create a synthetic database. Here is how this can help: Evaluate the performance of the proposed model. Better accuracy, achieving lower error rates across many metrics. Create safer and more efficient designs using these columns. As we look to build cities and infrastructure of the future, we must consider how to do it in a way that is strong and resilient. These structures must stand up to climate change and extreme weather events. Certainly, AI and ML will help pave the way for better building and…
Robotics are on the rise—and so too are the technological innovations that enable them. A research project aims to create a vision system with a unique shape and reflective surface. Think, cat eyes on your robots. The researchers at GIST (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology) recognized a challenge: autonomous systems often struggle to see well in different environments. Bright sunlight, low light, and objects that blend into backgrounds are difficult for drones, self-driving cars, and robots. Enter nature’s solution to the problem: cat eyes. Cats can often see well in both bright light and darkness. In the day, vertical slit-shaped pupils help them focus and reduce glare. At night, their pupils widen to let in more light, and a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum boosts their night vision, giving their eyes that glow. Thus, the researchers at GIST created a new vision system that uses an advanced lens and sensors inspired by feline eyes. Imagine how a cat’s pupil looks and then you might understand how the system includes a slit-like aperture. Here is how this can help: Enhance object detection in different lighting conditions. Filters unnecessary details and improves the performance of single-lens cameras. Energy-efficient approach relies on the design of the lens rather than additional computer processing. Research on this technology was published last fall, but the bottomline is we will continue to see new advances aimed at making our devices smarter. Continue to keep an eye on the research and development market, as new innovations continue to come to market in the year…
The opportunities gen AI (artificial intelligence) brings to most industries are significant—dare we say remarkable? But let’s be clear, there are still some challenges. For example, most LLMs (large language models) are trained on publicly available data and the vast majority of enterprise data remains untapped, and much work needs to be done to address this. And again, dare we say address this sooner, rather than later? Enter Granite 3.0, IBM’s third-generation Granite flagship language models, which was announced earlier this week at IBM’s second annual TechXchange event. By combining a small Granite model with enterprise data, especially using the…
We have come a long way with safety. If you journey back to the year 1960 and walked a construction jobsite, you would see very different work conditions than you see today. Hard hats were not mandatory yet and PPE (personal protective equipment) wasn’t the common three-letter jobsite acronym that it is today. Workers would be hanging from the top of buildings, with little gear to protect them. We have certainly come a long way, right? Yes and no. The reality is every year, one in 100 construction workers still get hurt bad enough to need time off work. We…
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