DARPA Overhauls 'Atlas' Robot

Ahead of Competition This Summer

DARPA's Atlas robot has been revamped ahead of this summer's

competition. But robotics teams will have to develop their own
software for the improved bot.
Credit: DARPA image courtesy of Worcester Polytechnic Institute

What do you call a robot that can drive a car, break down walls and scale buildings? Hint: It's
not "The Terminator." This super-capable bot's name is Atlas, and it was created to save
lives, not destroy them.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S.
Department of Defense charged with developing new technologies for the military, recently
upgraded its Atlas robot in preparation for the final round of the DARPA Robotics
Challenge(DRC). The design and development competition began in 2012, and the last round
is set to take place June 5-6 in California.

Approximately 20 teams will be competing in the challenge and are tasked with designing
and testing a robot that can save human lives after a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or
a tsunami. [Images: DARPA Robotics Challenge]

Seven of the teams that made it to the final round of the DRC will be using the DARPA-
developed Atlas robot, which has been significantly upgraded for this final test of its abilities.
The bot's lower legs and feet are all that remain from the original design of this humanoid
robot. The rest of the bot has been totally revamped, according to DARPA officials.

The most significant changes to Atlas' design have to do with the robot's power supply and
hydraulic pump (the mechanism that allows the bot to stand, walk, use tools and perform a
variety of other movements). Unlike in previous rounds, the engineers who control the robots
will not be permitted to attach their bots to any kind of wires or tethers, which is why Atlas
now needs a lithium-ion battery pack.

"The introduction of a battery and variable-pressure pump into Atlas poses a strategic
challenge for teams," Gill Pratt, the DRC program manager, said in a statement. "The
operator will be able to run the robot on a mid-pressure setting for most operations to save
power, and then apply bursts of maximum pressure when additional force is needed. The
teams are going to have to game out the right balance of force and battery life to complete the
course."

In fact, balance will be of the utmost importance to all teams participating in the final round
of the DRC. The untethered bots won't be getting assistance from robotics teams if they fall
over or get stuck during any stage of the competition, according to DARPA officials. In
keeping with the new "no wires" clause, fall arrestors — cables that help the robot right itself
if it falls over or becomes unstable — will not be permitted. The wired communications
tethers that previously helped teams control their bots will also be prohibited.

The first physical tests of the robots took place in December 2013 at the Homestead Miami
Speedway in Florida. The bots had to drive a vehicle through a designated course, make their
way through uneven terrain littered with rubble, clear debris from a doorway and climb up a
ladder. To further test their dexterity, each team's robot had to connect a hose to a spigot,
open different kinds of doors, close a series of valves and cut through drywall using power
tools.

The bots will likely face similar challenges at this year's final in Pomona, California, but this
time around each team will have to run their robot through the course much faster — in one
hour instead of four, according to DARPA officials.

And in case all of these new regulations aren't enough, DARPA announced that it will
intentionally "degrade communications between the robots and human operators working at a
distance" in order to replicate conditions that these robots would likely face in a real-life
disaster zone.

But the robots left standing after this brutal competition will be well rewarded. The winning
team will secure $2 million. DARPA also recently announced that the runner-up in the
contest will be awarded $1 million and the third-place team will walk away with $500,000.

Is the Personal Robot Finally Here

 Robotbase's personal robot fulfills the role of personal assistant, home
security guard and bedtime storyteller, among other things.
Credit: Robotbase

She's a personal assistant, photographer, butler

and home security guard all in one — and
she's a robot.

Robotbase, a robotics company headquartered in New York City, is developing a personal

robotthat can perform a variety of daily functions at home or at work— everything from
turning on lights to managing social calendars.

The bot can even read a bedtime story to your kids, and adjust the color of the room's lighting
based on the story's mood, the makers said. [See video of the personal robot in action]

The first prototype was launched earlier this month at CES 2015 in Las Vegas, and the
company has already raised more than $127,000 through a crowdfunding campaign.

"Twenty years ago, personal computers came along and changed everything. Ten years ago,
we had the smartphone," said Duy Huynh, founder and CEO of Robotbase. "We look at our
product as the next device after the computer and the smartphone."

A variety of robots exist on the market today, yet most of them fall into one of two
categories: toy robots or industrial robots, Huynh told Live Science.

"But there's a huge gap in between — the consumer robot," he said. Robotbase wants to build
a robot that people can enjoy and feel comfortable seeing around everyday at home and at
work, Huynh said.
Personal assistant

The new personal robot has a wide array of capabilities. It can recognize faces and
expressions, or recognize objects around the house and navigate around them automatically.
If you're hosting a party, the bot can move around and snap candid shots of your smiling
guests.

The robot's camera can recognize faces and even emotions.

Credit: Robotbase

The robot can also recognize speech and respond to requests. The bot can tell you about the
news or the weather, play music and schedule meetings, much like Apple's digital assistant
Siri. But unlike Siri, the robot usesartificial intelligence to understand what the words mean,
Huynh said. For example, users can ask it to do things like order takeout, and it will learn
their preferences.

Robotbase's prototype bot is a female avatar named Maya, but its makers are working on
creating other customizable faces, names and voices.

"When we launched our Kickstarter [crowdfunding campaign] two weeks ago, we thought we
were going to get a lot of challenging technical questions," Huynh said, "but the number one
question was, Can I change that face into a guy face?" or "Can I change it into Alfred in
'Batman?'"

Building a smart robot

To develop the robot's software, Robotbase used a set of machine-learning algorithms

collectively called deep learning, which seeks to identify patterns in information and match it
to something recognizable, much like the human brain does. Google uses deep learning in
many of its products, and demonstrated the technology to great effect in 2012, when it used
16,000 computers to recognize cats in YouTube videos.

The robot runs on the Android operating system, and is designed to be a system for which
software developers can build their own apps.

"We are not building a 'product,'" Huynh said. "We want to be a platform."

Robotbase has a working prototype of the robot, and expects to have a commercial model
ready to ship by the end of 2015, Huynh said. The company has already taken orders for its
first units, priced at $1,000, which sold out in a few days. The second tier of sales is priced at
$1,195, or $1,495 for a developer model. The final retail price will likely be between $1,500
and $2,000, Huynh said.

The notion of a personal robot that can film your house and has access to many of your
personal preferences and habits may seem disturbing to some. But, Robotbase takes privacy
concerns seriously, Huynh said. "We are not going to share that data with anyone else," he
said.

Earlier this month, prominent figures such as billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and
theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned about the potential threats of artificial
intelligence in an open letter. But Huynh rejects the admonitions.

"I think we are hundreds of years away from [dangerous AI], if it happens," he said, adding
that the benefits of the technology are going to outweigh the risks.

Why Your Next Fitness Tracker Will

Be Smarter

When you exercise, the Basis Peak will automatically show your steps,
activity duration, and heart rate, all in one screen.
Credit: Rachael Rettner/Live Science

Fitness trackers that only count steps are so last year.

The newest fitness trackers are going beyond just a simple accelerometer to carry a host of
new sensors, from devices that measure the electrical properties of your skin to optical
sensors that can measure your heartbeat.

But do these sensors really provide a better picture of health?

The new devices do provide an incremental improvement over the earlier ones, but the real
breakthroughs are still a few years off, said Jason Heikenfeld, an electrical engineer and the
director of the Novel Devices Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati. [The Best Fitness
Tracker Bands]

Most of the new devices still don't go beyond providing raw data for users to interpret, and
are still far from making health predictions and prescriptions, said Dan Ledger, who
researches wearables and health technologies at Endeavour Partners, a digital technology
consulting company in Massachusetts.

New devices

The first generations of fitness trackers relied mainly on accelerometers, which measure
movement. That provided an estimate of a person's step count, activity levels and a very
rough picture of sleep, but not much else.

The new devices, however, are increasingly packed with much more sophisticated sensors.
Products such as the Jawbone UP3, Basis Peak and the Microsoft Band have sensors that
measure a person's galvanic skin response, which is a measure of how easily an electrical
current can travel over the skin, and changes when someone sweats. These sweat levels can
in theory be tied to stress levels, Ledger said.

The Microsoft Band and the Basis Peak, along with several other new trackers, such as the
Mio Fuse, also measure a person's heart rate by using light-based sensors, which shine light
through the skin and measure how those light waves are reflected back. Earlier generations of
fitness trackers could be paired with a chest-strap heart rate monitor, which wirelessly
communicated with the tracker.

The new devices can not only tell people their heart rate, but also may reveal their heart rate
variability, which is also a measure of stress. Optical sensors can also reveal how much
oxygen the blood is carrying.

And several devices are using other sensors, such as temperature trackers to measure body
and ambient air temperatures, UV light detectors to measure sunlight exposures and even
microphones to sense when someone coughs.

Limited insight

In theory, these sensors could reveal many new insights about people's health, from their
stress levels to their baseline metabolic rate. Elite athletes are already using such devices and
finding that the gadgets do a good job of providing workout stats such as post-workout
recovery times, Ledger said.
But for the average Joe, "They just want to understand something about their baseline fitness
level — things like stress, sleep, nutrition, hydration, emotion," Ledger told Live Science.
"We're not close to being able to do that."

Each person's physiology is so different that it's just difficult to devise ways to reliably
interpret the data.

"Being able to look at data from 100 people and reliably detect when all 100 people are
experiencing stress — we're really far away from that," Ledger said.

And if the companies claim their devices can make predictions and it turns out that those
predictions are unreliable, they risk alienating their customers or even running afoul of the
Food and Drug Administration, which regulates health products, Ledger said.

As a result, the newer fitness trackers are a lot more fashionable, but under the hood, aren't all
that different from the old ones, and it's still hard to find meaning in the numbers. "Most of
the devices out there are reading a metric from our body and providing it to you as is,"
Ledger said.

There are signs that fitness trackers are trying to do better at data analysis. Companies like
LifeQ and Firstbeat are working on algorithms to analyze biometric data, Ledger said. But
getting to truly useful information is still a ways off, he said.

Future tech

Sensors will likely become more sophisticated in the coming years. The current batch of
sensors don't differ much from those worn by astronauts on the Apollo space missions,
Heikenfeld told Live Science.

But newer sensors could get at information that is simply too difficult to infer with older
sensors. For instance, researchers are developing sensors that detect chemical markers of
health or disease in sweat. These patches either use tiny needles to draw fluid from the upper
layers of the skin, or use a small electrical charge to trigger the skin to generate sweat and
then test the biological chemicals in that sweat for signs of disease, Heikenfeld said.

"You can start to think of all the sophisticated tests you do in a doctor's office or hospital,
going around with you all day, out of sight, out of mind, in a small patch," Heikenfeld said.

Bye, Bye Baubles: New 3D Printers

Could Build Implants, Electronics
 Voxel8's 3D printer is capable of printing in both conventional plastic
and conductive ink, allowing it to print objects with embedded
electronic components.
Credit: Voxel8

Several new 3D printers showcased at CES 2015 in Las Vegas earlier this month suggest that
the 3D printing industry — best known for churning out brightly colored plastic doodads —
could be turning over a new, more scientific leaf.

Amid the rough-edged replicas of superheroes and army tanks that adorned the expo's 3D
printingspace stood a machine that prints tiny medical implants that dissolve inside the
human body. Another printer uses a combination of conductive inks and filaments to print
quadcopters already embedded with the electronics that allow them to hover in the air. One
company displayed a prototype of a 3D-printed medical device that can automatically stitch
up patients after surgery.

The message these companies are sending couldn't be clearer: 3D printing isn't just for
makers anymore. Increasingly, this trendy technology is turning into a must-have tool for
doctors, researchers and engineers, according to Nick Liverman, CEO and founder of Old
World Labs (OWL), a Virginia-based company that designs dissolvable 3D-printed implants.
[The 10 Weirdest Things Created By 3D Printing]

"[Most] 3D printers are made to print what's already out there — a model version of the
Eiffel Tower or a chess set. But you would use our printer to build things that aren't
developed yet: theories, research. It's paperwork that now can become real," Liverman told
Live Science.

3D-printed implants

OWL's MC-1 and MC-2 printers were both on display at CES. The machines use a process
known as stereolithography (SLA), in which lasers harden layers of liquid plastic, or resin,
into three-dimensional shapes. This technique sets OWL's printers apart from other 3D
printers on the market, such as MakerBot's Replicator or the Ultimaker 2, that use a process
known as fused deposition modeling (FDM), not SLA.

This 3D printer by Old World Labs (OWL) prints objects in very fine detail, making it a good tool for researchers and
engineers.
Credit: Old World Labs

In FDM, heated plastic is released layer by layer onto a platform to create a 3D object, a
process that results in a much less detailed product with a rougher finish than objects created
using SLA. Other 3D printers on the market also usestereolithography to build what
Liverman calls "high-resolution" objects. But OWL's machines are more advanced than these
printers, according to Liverman, who said that his company's machines print objects that are
200 times more accurate, or truer to their original design, than objects created with other SLA
printers.

OWL is currently using its super-accurate printers to bring complex ideas to life. For
example, cancer researchers who want to deliver localized treatments to patients are using
OWL's machines to build what Liverman called "microfluidic devices." Such devices are
highly detailed, containing tiny channels that circulate prescription drugs into a patient's
body.

"You can also build custom implants, like tissue scaffolds," Liverman said. "You can inject
stem cells into the scaffold that you build with the printer and then you can, for example, do a
cartilage replacement on a knee." [7 Cool Uses of 3D Printing in Medicine]

During cartilage replacement surgery, the scaffold containing the stem cells would be
implanted in the knee, where the stem cells grow to replace the missing cartilage, Liverman
said. The scaffold, which is printed with what Liverman called "bioreabsorbable material,"
eventually dissolves harmlessly inside the body. OWL is currently working on obtaining
long-term FDA approval for the resins used in its printing process. This would allow the
company's clients, which include NASA and Virginia Tech, to print such scaffolds and other
medical-grade devices and use them in real-world settings, not just in the lab.

Printable electronics

OWL wasn't the only progressive 3D printing company hawking its wears at CES. Harvard-
based startup Voxel8 was there, too. The company's 3D printers have two extruders — one
that prints in conventional plastic filaments and another that squirts out highly conductive
ink.
"Coming off the printer is not just a plastic shape but a fully functioning electronic device,"
said Voxel8 co-founder Daniel Oliver.

At CES, Voxel8 showed off a quadcopter printed with its machine. The flying toy was built
in layers — the structure of the device was printed in plastic with cavities carved out for the
control logic board and the motors. The printer then used conductive ink (which takes the
place of wires) on top of the plastic, connecting these electrical components. The ink, along
with the imbedded electronics, eventually got covered up with more layers of plastic.

This small drone was printed with Voxel8's 3D printer.

Credit: Voxel8

Of course, Voxel8's printer is designed to do more than just print tiny drones. The company
will also be releasing new printing materials in order to try its hand at printing resistors,
sensors and, for future models of its printer, even lithium-ion batteries. These objects are in
addition to the custom circuit boards that Voxel8's printers have already perfected.

"We're talking about printing out a circuit at your desk in less than 30 minutes," Oliver said.
This represents a vast improvement over earlier options for printing custom circuit boards, a
process that, Oliver said, traditionally could take up to a month to complete.

Engineers and developers will not only be able to realize their designs much quicker with a
Voxel8 printer, they'll also be able to try out unconventional geometries for their electronics,
Oliver said. For example, rather than trying to get a rectangular circuit board to fit inside a
curved object, it will now be possible to customize the shape of a circuit so that it fits inside
objects of any shape or size.

"There's a trend to try to get 3D printing to create more useful things," Oliver told Live
Science. "[We're] getting closer and closer to the idea that anything can be 3D printed."

Smithsonian App Brings Fossils to

Life
 The new Skin and Bones app helps Smithsonian patrons get a dynamic
view of fossils with a smart device.
Credit: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History

A new mobile app is bringing skeletons to life at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Users can now download the free Skin and Bones app before exploring the museum's historic
Bone Hall, an exhibit of nearly 300 vertebrate skeletons that was first opened in 1881. The
app highlights 13 skeletons, including one of a swordfish, and shows 3D animations of the
animals and how they look and move with their muscles and skin.

"This app is all about sharing some of the untold stories behind one of the museum's most
iconic collections," app producer Robert Costello, the Museum of Natural History's national
outreach program manager,said in a statement. "From vampire bats to a 150-pound
Mississippi catfish, Skin and Bones highlights specimens across the tree of vertebrate life and
invites visitors to interact with them in surprising ways." [6 Strange Species Discovered in
Museums]

Once people download the Skin and Bones app, they can listen to expert information on each
of the animals, watch a variety of videos and animations, and complete activities paired with
each animal.

Museum-goers simply have to point the camera on their mobile device at the specimen, and
an animated creature with muscles and skin will appear on-screen, overlaid on the bones. For
instance, visitors can see the eastern diamondback rattlesnake skull snap its long fangs into a
virtual rodent, or try to identify bats by their unique calls.

Other videos describe the animal's ecology, biogeography, functional anatomy and evolution.
The Skin and Bones app took developers two years to complete, and was released yesterday
(Jan. 13), the Smithsonian said.
Withings Aura: Sleep Tracker
Review

The Withings Aura is a sleep tracker that aims to enrich your sleep experience. BUY the Withings Aura
Credit: Withings

The Withings Aura is a device that aims to track how long and how well you sleep, and also
helps you fall asleep by playing soothing ocean sounds and washing crimson sunset lights
over you. In the morning, the Aura gently wakes you to beautiful tunes, while shining a blue
light on you.

The Aura is made up of two main pieces: a sleep sensor, which looks like a small pad and is
put under the mattress, and a bedside device, which looks like a nightstand lamp. The sensor
and bedside device communicate via Bluetooth with the Withings app on your iPhone
(currently, there is no Android version), so you can set your alarm on your phone.

I used the Aura for a few days to test how it works. At $299.95, the Aura may be too pricey
for a device that just tracks your sleep and has an alarm clock. (There are fitness trackers that
cost less and offer those features.) Nonetheless, I greatly enjoyed using it, and found it to be a
beautiful addition to my room, which I thought looked like a futuristic spa in those foggy
moments when I was falling asleep. Your opinion of the device, however, may depend on
your taste as well as your room's arrangement. In any case, the Aura is a large, white block
that is unlikely to go unnoticed. [11 Odd and Intriguing Smart Home Technologies]

A beautiful design

The Aura has a modern design, and interacting with the device is very intuitive. Instead of
buttons, the Aura has a touch-sensitive surface. You can trigger all of the Aura's functions
with hand movements. For example, one tap on the device activates the sleep mode, and you
can dim the lights or change the volume of the speaker by rubbing your hand over the right-
hand side of the device.

The Aura is made up of two main pieces: a sleep sensor, and a bedside device that connect to the iPhone
Credit: Withings

The Aura starts your sleep cycle at night by shining a red light. The idea behind this function
is that some studies have suggested a link between certain wavelengths (or colors) of light
and the brain's secretion of melatonin, which is the hormone that regulates the sleep-wake
cycle. It is thought that red light may promote the brain's secretion of melatonin, making you
feel sleepy, whereas blue light is said to interfere with melatonin production, which would
have the opposite effect. The Aura shines a blue and purple light in the morning, when it's
time for you to get up.

The sleep sensor is designed to be used by one person, but you can purchase a second one
and plug it into the same bedside device in order to track the sleep of two people. The bedside
device, which has to be plugged into a wall outlet to work, also has a free USB port for
charging your phone.

Enriching the sleep experience?

Aura's sleep sensor tracks your movements during sleep to determine your sleep phases. Most
sleep trackers on the market also use this principle to monitor sleep phases, but the method is
far from a perfect way to measure the quality of your sleep. As a result, there are limits to
what you can learn about the quality of your sleep by looking at this data, experts say.
[Related: How Accurate Are Sleep Trackers?]
Your sleep data is put into a graph in the Withings app.
Credit: Withings

In the morning, you can see your data on a graph in the app. It shows how long you slept, the
time it took to fall asleep and the number of times you woke up during the night. The app also
breaks down your sleep into light, deep and REM (rapid eye movement) stages based on how
much you moved during the night. You can track and review your nightly data over time.

Like some other sleep-tracking devices and apps, the Aura also has a "smart wake-up"
function that aims to wake you when your body is ready to do so. To do that, the Aura lets
you choose when you want to wake up, and also a window of time — for example, 20
minutes — around your intended wake-up time. Within this window, the Aura's alarm goes
off when you are in the lightest stage of sleep, according to Withings. The device brings you
to awareness slowly, by brightening its lights and playing smooth sounds. I liked waking up
this way, but I can't tell with confidence whether it was because this function really works
well, or whether I woke up nice and easy every morning simply because the sound of the
Aura is far gentler than my phone's horrifying alarm tones.

The Aura also has a bonus function: a nap feature. By choosing this option, you can trigger
the device to accompany you into a 20-minute relaxing break.

Bottom line

All that data about your sleep is fun to pore over, but you can get the same data using a
fitness tracker that is equipped with sleep tracking, such as the Jawbone UP24 (which costs
$129.99), the Jawbone UP Move($49.99) or the iFit Active ($65). The main advantage of
using the Aura is that it may help you to fall asleep more smoothly and wake up more easily.