#funkyfutures

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Boston Dynamics has shown off its new version of SpotMini, but now it’s also catching us up with its bipedal Atlas bot, the most humanoid of its creations. Atlas can now jump from elevated block to elevated block, and do a complete about-face in the air. It can leap pretty high, and also do a backflip – and then celebrate its backflipping ability. –

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Tesla released its new Semi truck at a launch event in Hawthorne, California, on Nov. 16 - The Semi can accelerate from zero to sixty in just five seconds, and haul 80,000 pounds. Unlike other trucks, the Tesla Semi places the driver in the center of the front vehicle. Instead of the usual levers, two touchscreens are placed beside the steering wheel. It will also be semi-autonomous, capable of keeping lane and braking on its own. - The truck will have a range of 500 miles when fully charged. Plugging into one of Tesla’s fast-chargers for 30 minutes will give the Semi a 400-mile range. The Semi will be built on a truck chassis with components from Tesla’s Model 3 line, the mass-market vehicle the company plans to make in huge volumes (about 500,000 per year after 2018). - The first deliveries of the semi are expected in 2019, the same year production begins. In May, Musk said the truck will exploit manufacturing efficiencies of the Model 3, making it “a very compelling product that has low unit cost.” –

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Tesla has unveiled a new Roadster, the new version of its original sports car at a launch event in Hawthorne, California, on Nov. 16 - It’s the fastest production car ever made, according to Elon Musk, with speeds of just 1.9 seconds for 0 to 60 4.2 seconds for 0 to 100. It can handle a quarter-mile in 8.9 seconds. “This is the base model,” Musk said, then went on to mention that its top speed is above 250 mph. and it has a 200 kWh battery pack that offers 630 miles of highway driving range. It’s also a 2 by 2 four-seater, and it’s available in 2020 starting at $200,000, with the first 1,000 sold being Founder’s Series models that will retail for $250,000 apiece. –

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Boston Dynamics ‘new’ SpotMini robot looks ready for a walk The all-electric quadruped is built for “offices, homes and outdoors.” Boston Dynamics isn’t a part of Google/Alphabet anymore, but that won’t stand in the way. Described only as the “new SpotMini” it looks sleeker and more production ready than any version we’ve seen before. There’s no creepy manipulator arm mounted on top and it’s covered in plastic, revealing only a set of 3D vision cameras on the exterior. –

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Research from @nvidia has taken neural network image synthesis to much higher visual definition than has previously been achieved. Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) are artificial intelligence algorithms that use unsupervised learning. Typically, a GAN consists of two networks; a generator and a discriminator. The generator is trained to produce a sample image, and the discriminator is trained to asses whether the image is from the training set or a fake from the generator. In the image above, you can see the progress of the network being trained over the course of 19 days. You can also witness a loop of generated faces transitioning one to the next in the latent space. –

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With the BionicOpter, Festo has recreated the highly complex flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature, the ultralight BionicOpter can fly in all directions, hover in mid-air and glide without beating its wings. The tilt of the wings determines the direction of thrust. Amplitude control allows the intensity of the thrust to be regulated. –

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– SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted a photo of the spacesuit that will be used by astronauts flying aboard the company’s Dragon spacecraft, perhaps as early as next year. - This suit is not a mock-up but rather a fully functional unit. “Already tested to double vacuum pressure,” he wrote. “Was incredibly hard to balance aesthetics and function. - They are flight suits designed to be worn during the ride to space and again on the ride back down to Earth. They have a limited time in which they can operate in a full vacuum and are not intended for spacewalks. – @elonmusk

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Researchers at the Computational Learning & Motor Control Lab at the University of Southern California have taught an old robot dog new tricks. USC students developed a new walking methodbased on evaluating terrain types and tested out their ideas with Boston Dynamics’ Little Dog robot. The new walking technique allowed the bot to conquer a wide variety of terrain and, impressively, compensate for obstacles it could neither see nor predict. –