Thanks to Google’s DeepMind AI, Robots can now dream, significantly increasing the speed at which they can learn and ultimately bringing them closer to human like general intelligence.

Syn. Neurons via Q-Dot Laser. Nice.
Greek researchers working at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) optical communication photonic technology laboratory have developed an artificial “neuron” that simulates fundamental functions of the human brain, at speeds that are many orders of magnitude higher.
A paper on the new breakthrough made by the Greek team, led by Prof. Dimitris Syvridis with Dr. Charis Mesaritakis as main researcher and with Alexandros Kapsalis and Adonis Bogris listed as authors, was published in the “Scientific Reports” section of the science journal “Nature” on December 19.
Simulating the action of biological neurons is the “Holy Grail” of computing; the proposal developed by Mesaritakis and his team uses an integrated all-optical neuron based on an InAs/InGaAs semiconductor quantum-dot passively mode-locked laser.
Very interesting read. The researchers created a completely artificial microscopic transport system mimicking the human body. With this technology we’re going to be able to address many areas of healthcare as well as some areas of AI.
Inspired by micro-scale motions of nature, a group of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in Chennai, India, has developed a new design for transporting colloidal particles, tiny cargo suspended in substances such as fluids or gels, more rapidly than is currently possible by diffusion.
Fluid friction determines micro-scale inertia in fluid. This means, for instance, blood cells swimming within blood encounter roughly the same amount of drag that a human would experience attempting to swim through molasses.
As the group reports in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing, they applied and then extended a model of active filaments that includes these frictional hydrodynamic interactions, specifically as they relate to the speed and efficiency analysis of transporting colloidal particles.
I can honestly state there is already one that folks are using; I would suggest DARPA should assess it and maybe acquire it. As it would give them a jump start and they can enhance it for their own needs.
In today’s data-rich world, companies, governments and individuals want to analyze anything and everything they can get their hands on – and the World Wide Web has loads of information. At present, the most easily indexed material from the web is text. But as much as 89 to 96 percent of the content on the internet is actually something else – images, video, audio, in all thousands of different kinds of nontextual data types.
Further, the vast majority of online content isn’t available in a form that’s easily indexed by electronic archiving systems like Google’s. Rather, it requires a user to log in, or it is provided dynamically by a program running when a user visits the page. If we’re going to catalog online human knowledge, we need to be sure we can get to and recognize all of it, and that we can do so automatically.
How can we teach computers to recognize, index and search all the different types of material that’s available online? Thanks to federal efforts in the global fight against human trafficking and weapons dealing, my research forms the basis for a new tool that can help with this effort.
Meet ‘Prosthesis’, the terrifying 14ft-tall ‘anti-robot’ that can carry a human and run over 20mph almost SILENTLY…
A 14-foot-tall exo-bionic racing robot could soon be tearing across the Nevada desert.
Exhibitors revealed the massive Prosthesis bot at CES 2017 in Las Vegas today, and they say it can hit a top speed of roughly 20 miles per hour – and despite its imposing size, it’s nearly silent when it moves.
The 7,700lb ‘anti-robot’ is controlled by a human pilot who stands at the center of the mechanical exoskeleton, using arm movements to drive it forward at terrifying speeds.