Compiler is a weekly article that gathers the best stories on robots and drones from the past week. From stories on our blog to other popular sites, here are the week’s best stories you don’t want to miss.
Marvin Minksy Passes
The pioneering father of artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky, passed away on January 25, 2016 from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 88 years old. In a recently published obituary, The New York Times’ Glenn Rifkin explores Minsky’s life and work towards machine intelligence.
Google Patents Robot
Google has stepped up its game in the drone delivery wars. The tech giant was recently granted a patent according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website. In an effort to further improve drone delivery (before it’s even launched), the patent overviews a “delivery receptacle” or robot retriever that’s designed to work alongside Google’s Project Wing drones. Essentially, the delivery receptacle would receive a package from a Google delivery drone and keep the package in good hands until the customer receives it.
Making Drones Smarter
Your average drone is dumb, but they are getting smarter. Smart features such as auto-follow and waypoints are being integrated into today’s consumer drones, but it’s still tricky to teach drones how to avoid obstacles. While some drones are designed to bump into things, researchers at MIT are developing planning algorithms that’ll keep drones out of harms way.
Waterproof Drone
Don’t fret over this drone taking a dive, it’s designed to. Loon Copter is a waterproof quadcopter developed at Oakland University’s Embedded Systems Research Laboratory. For the most part, it works the same way a normal quadcopter does. It has four propellers to buzz around, a set of fixed landing legs, and a central computer. However, Loon Copter features a buoyant chamber of oxygen that, once on the surface of water, can fill up forcing Loon Copter to submerge. Loon Copter’s can then swim around by spinning up its four propellers. When it’s done swimming, Loon Copter can resurface by tilting back up 90-degrees and lifting into the air.
Droneboarding
This Russian kid is on the verge of a new sport: “droneboarding.” Similar to windsurfing (but minus the wind and water), droneboarding is a potentially new sport that harnesses the subpar power of consumer drones to pull humans on snowboards at walking speed. Perhaps the kid in the video could use an extra drone? Or a powered tether? Maybe even a wearable battery?
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