Skydio 2 Review: This Is the Drone You Want to Fly

Let me begin this review by saying that the Skydio 2 is one of the most impressive robots that I have ever seen. Over the last decade, I’ve spent enough time around robots to have a very good sense of what kinds of things are particularly challenging for them, and to set my expectations accordingly. Those expectations include things like “unstructured environments are basically impossible” and “full autonomy is impractically expensive” and “robot videos rarely

With large language models needing quality data, some publishers are offering theirs at a price while others are blocking accessOpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, knows that high-quality data matters in the artificial intelligence business – and news publishers have vast amounts of it.“It would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” the company said this year in a submission to the UK’s House of Lords, adding that limit

Victoria Shi is modelled on Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine’s version of the reality show The BachelorUkraine on Wednesday presented an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.The ministry said it would “for the first time in history” use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans. Continue reading...

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Eurobot Open 2024: 8–11 May 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCEICRA 2024: 13–17 May 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPANRoboCup 2024: 17–22 July 2024, EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDSCybathlon 2024: 25–27 October 2024, ZURICHEnjoy today’s videos! In this

Head coach Jon Lewis credits AI with helping draw Ashes‘It will help with borderline decisions in terms of selection’The England Women’s head coach, Jon Lewis, has revealed how he is using AI as a selection tool and credits the technology with helping his side draw last summer’s Ashes series.Lewis was first exposed to the work of London-based PSi when he took charge of the Women’s Premier League franchise UP Warriorz in India and now uses the company to bolster the

Researchers and Silicon Valley are using tools powered by AI to read what had long been thought unreadableMore than 2,000 years after Plato died, the towering figure of classical antiquity and founder of the Academy, regarded by many as the first university in the west, can still make front-page news.Researchers this week claimed to have found the final resting place of the Greek philosopher, a patch in the garden of his Athens Academy, after scanning an ancient papyrus scroll recovered from the

Researchers and Silicon Valley are using tools powered by AI to uncover lives of ancient philosophersMore than 2,000 years after Plato died, the towering figure of Classical antiquity and founder of the Academy, regarded by many as the first university in the west, can still make front page news.Researchers this week claimed to have found the final resting place of the Greek philosopher, a patch in the garden of his Athens Academy, after scanning an ancient papyrus scroll recovered from the libr

In history, as in romance, beginnings matter – so what we do now will be crucial in shaping the futureIn these times of planetary polycrisis, we try to get our bearings by looking to the past. Are we perhaps in The New Cold War, as Robin Niblett, the former director of the foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House, proposes in a new book? Is this bringing us towards the brink of a third world war, as the historian Niall Ferguson has argued? Or, as I have found myself suggesting on occasion,

Music giant pulled content amid row over issues such as deepfake AI-generated music and artists’ compensationTikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a deal that will allow songs and artists from its labels including Olivia Rodrigo and Drake to return to the platform.The world’s largest music company began pulling content from TikTok in February after falling out with TikTok over issues including artist compensation and the use of artificial intelligence-generated music on the v

Challenger to market leader OpenAI says it wants to ‘meet users where they are’ and become part of users’ everyday lifeOpenAI’s ChatGPT is facing serious competition, as the company’s rival Anthropic brings its Claude chatbot to iPhones. Anthropic, led by a group of former OpenAI staff who quit over differences with chief executive Sam Altman, have a product that already beats ChatGPT on some measures of intelligence, and now wants to win over everyday users.“

Revenue at Amazon Web Services increases to $25bn as retail giant releases earnings report surpassing Wall Street expectationsAmazon profits soared once again in the first quarter of 2024, the company announced on Tuesday – the latest in a series of robust earnings reports for the retail giant. The company attributed the boost to artificial intelligence and advertising sales.The company reported overall revenue of $143.3bn in the first three months of the year – up 13% from the same

Revenue at Amazon Web Services increases to $25bn as retail giant releases earnings report surpassing Wall Street expectationsAmazon sales surged once again in the first quarter of 2024, the company announced on Tuesday – the latest in a series of robust earnings reports for the retail giant. The company attributed the boost to artificial intelligence.In a statement accompanying the report, the chief executive, Andy Jassy, said Amazon’s continuing focus on AI has “reaccelerat[e

The Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and others file suit saying the tech companies ‘purloin millions’ of articles without permissionA group of eight US newspapers is suing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the technology companies have been “purloining millions” of copyrighted news articles without permission or payment to train their artificial intelligence chatbots.The New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and other papers filed the lawsuit on T

One of the biggest challenges for robotics right now is practical autonomous operation in unstructured environments. That is, doing useful stuff in places your robot hasn’t been before and where things may not be as familiar as your robot might like. Robots thrive on predictability, which has put some irksome restrictions on where and how they can be successfully deployed.But over the last few years, this has started to change, thanks in large part to a couple of pivotal robotics challenge

In 2021, the web felt dead because algorithms were driving people to act like robots. Now, the robots are posting like people• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereI know I’m real. And you, dear reader, know you’re real. But do you ever suspect that everyone else on the internet is acting strange? That the spaces you used to frequent feel a bit … dead? You aren’t alone. “Dead internet theory” first hit the w

In 2021, the web felt dead because algorithms were driving people to act like robots. Now, the robots are posting like people• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereI know I’m real. And you, dear reader, know you’re real. But do you ever suspect that everyone else on the internet is acting strange? That the spaces you used to frequent feel a bit … dead? You aren’t alone. “Dead internet theory” first hit the w

Exclusive: Liz Bonnin’s face used on insect repellant advert after deal negotiated via WhatsApp and voice notes generated by AIThere was something strange about her voice, they thought. It was not unfamiliar but, after a while, it started to go all over the place.Science presenter Liz Bonnin’s accent, as regular BBC viewers know, is Irish. But this voice message, ostensibly granting permission to use her likeness in an ad campaign, seemed to place her on the other side of the world.

Founded in 2005 and lauded by Silicon Valley, the Nick Bostrom’s centre for studying existential risk warned about AI but also gave rise to cultish ideas such as effective altruismTwo weeks ago it was quietly announced that the Future of Humanity Institute, the renowned multidisciplinary research centre in Oxford, no longer had a future. It shut down without warning on 16 April. Initially there was just a brief statement on its website stating it had closed and that its research may contin

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from the author’s book War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future (University of California Press, published in paperback April 2024). The blistering late-afternoon wind ripped across Camp Taji, a sprawling U.S. military base just north of Baghdad. In a desolate corner of the outpost, where the feared Iraqi Republican Guard had once manufactured mustard gas, nerve agents, and other chemical weapons, a