Machine learning & AI news

Machine learning & AI

Meta's Movie Gen lets users animate photos into videos

Meta on Friday provided a look at a generative artificial intelligence model it is working on that lets people create short videos, complete with audio, from text prompts and photos.

Consumer & Gadgets

Q&A: Generative AI embraced faster than internet, PCs

ChatGPT's debut in November 2022 caused a near-instant sensation. It gave most users their first opportunity to try out a new type of artificial intelligence that uses existing data and published materials to create content ...

Robotics

Engineers teach a quadruped robot to climb standard ladders

A team of robotics engineers at ETH Zurich, Robotics Systems Lab, has modified an ANYbotics ANYMal quadruped robot to allow it to easily and effectively climb a standard ladder. The group has written a paper describing their ...

Security

Each year, landmines kill residents of war-torn countries. This innovative tool could save lives

As he grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, Mateo Dulce Rubio would hear a familiar news story every few days—someone had stepped on another landmine. The explosion had killed or injured them. Though the capital city was far from ...

Automotive

Balancing cost and reliability in autonomous machine design

With millions of self-driving cars projected to be on the road in 2025 and autonomous drones generating billions in annual sales, safety and reliability are important considerations for consumers, manufacturers, and regulators. ...

Business

Google is working on reasoning AI, chasing OpenAI's efforts

Google is working on artificial intelligence software that resembles the human ability to reason, similar to OpenAI's o1, marking a new front in the rivalry between the tech giant and the fast-growing startup.

Computer Sciences

How AI is improving simulations with smarter sampling techniques

Imagine you're tasked with sending a team of football players onto a field to assess the condition of the grass (a likely task for them, of course). If you pick their positions randomly, they might cluster together in some ...

Business

Historic funding round values OpenAI at $157 billion

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, secured $6.6 billion in new funding, propelling its valuation to $157 billion and cementing its position as the world leader in artificial intelligence.

Machine learning & AI

Microsoft beefs-up its AI assistant with voice, vision

Microsoft on Tuesday doubled down on deploying artificial intelligence to consumers, releasing an updated version of its Copilot chatbot that can hold voice conversations and interpret images.

Machine learning & AI

AI pareidolia: Can machines spot faces in inanimate objects?

In 1994, Florida jewelry designer Diana Duyser discovered what she believed to be the Virgin Mary's image in a grilled cheese sandwich, which she preserved and later auctioned for $28,000. But how much do we really understand ...

Energy & Green Tech

Researcher wants to ensure AI doesn't ruin the environment

Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the world as we know it. It's been used for everything from health-care monitoring to writing speeches. But the technology's impact on the environment is becoming a serious concern.

Robotics

'Fake' data helps robots learn the ropes faster

In a step toward robots that can learn on the fly like humans do, a new approach expands training data sets for robots that work with soft objects like ropes and fabrics, or in cluttered environments.

Internet

How technology can detect fake news in videos

Social media represent a major channel for the spreading of fake news and disinformation. This situation has been made worse with recent advances in photo and video editing and artificial intelligence tools, which make it ...

Robotics

Robot overcomes uncertainty to retrieve buried objects

For humans, finding a lost wallet buried under a pile of items is pretty straightforward—we simply remove things from the pile until we find the wallet. But for a robot, this task involves complex reasoning about the pile ...

Automotive

Extra 'eye' movements are the key to better self-driving cars

Andrea Benucci and colleagues at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science has developed a way to create artificial neural networks that learn to recognize objects faster and more accurately. The study, recently published in the ...

Energy & Green Tech

Modeling the climate-energy consumption link in Tibet

Researchers from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have investigated how climate influences the amount of electricity used in Tibetan homes based on machine learning.

Machine learning & AI

The dangers of big data extend to farming

Most internet users are by now aware of the vulnerability of their personal data. When the news broke that tech companies misuse and manipulate our personal data, there was a widespread "techlash" against the corporate giants ...

Computer Sciences

Researchers use GPUs to evaluate human brain connectivity

A new GPU-based machine learning algorithm developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) can help scientists better understand and predict connectivity between different regions of the brain.

Engineering

Researchers develop a wearable textile exomuscle

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a wearable textile exomuscle that serves as an extra layer of muscles. They aim to use it to increase the upper body strength and endurance of people with restricted mobility.

Computer Sciences

New algorithms track ships in harbors

The security of port areas involves monitoring at various levels. What kind of ships are coming in, are they perhaps guilty of illegal fishing, and what cargo do they carry? Security officers and harbor masters often can't ...

Robotics

Robots learn to play with play dough

The inner child in many of us feels an overwhelming sense of joy when stumbling across a pile of the fluorescent, rubbery mixture of water, salt, and flour that put goo on the map: play dough. (Even if this happens rarely ...