Unmanned U.S. Air Force space plane lands after secret, two-year mission

Very Impressive……Very impressive !!

The U.S. military’s experimental X-37B space plane landed on Sunday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing a classified mission that lasted nearly two years, the Air Force said.

The unmanned X-37B, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, touched down at 7:47 a.m. EDT (1147 GMT) on a runway formerly used for landings of the now-mothballed space shuttles, the Air Force said in an email.

[via Reuters]

General Motors acquires OSVehicle to build EDIT, a new modular self-driving car, in white-label

Not sure how I feel about this.

Today, OSVehicle is announcing its acquisition by General Motors Company. GM already bought another Y Combinator backed company Cruise Automation in March last year to focus on key long-term technologies such as autonomous driving technology and vehicle safety.

GM will now utilize OSVehicle’s open source hardware expertise to develop EDIT, a self-driving car, based on modular version of Chevy Bolt M1 platform. This modular technology was developed jointly with OSVehicle, to enable the easy replacement of key components such as electric motor and battery pack, which will allow vehicles to last 10X longer than traditional cars.

Modularity also allows the hardware upgrade of hardware stacks for self-driving and connected-cars, helping services like ride sharing. This is another strategic move made by GM towards “mobility as-a-service” after investing 500M $ in Lyft and launching Maven, GM’s own car sharing service in January 2016.

 

[via osvehicle]

How to Become Relevant when a Robot Takes Your Job | Pablos Holman | TEDxLA

The Future Doesn’t Need You – How to Become Relevant when a Robot Takes Your Job
In this talk, Pablos dares you to imagine the possibilities in what once seemed impossible: a harmonious co-existence of humans and robots: Robots taking over your jobs and why they should; how this can trigger fear in humans and why it shouldn’t; redefining happiness; solving world problems like eliminating disease; a personal narrative of parenting that will bring you to your knees; and the responsibility of humans in all of this.

Cassie – Next Gen bipedal robotics…

Since then, robots have fascinated the minds of sci-fi writers and engineers alike. Which brings us to Cassie – the next generation of bipedal robots devised by Oregon State University’s Agility Robotics. Cassie originates from its predecessor ATRIAS. The problem that researchers kept stumbling over when developing ATRIAS was that it contained motors which worked against each other. As a result, this left the robot in being completely inefficient. Cassie, on the other hand, contains steering, feet, and a sealed system, allowing it be both agile and robust.

[via serious wonder]