This week: Researchers develop a robot capable of mimicking human facial expressions, people with disabilities deliver drinks in a Japanese cafe using remotely-controlled robots, Chinese 'artificial Sun' sets new world record for extremely high temperatures and the FBI arrests 800 criminals through disguised messaging app called ANOM.
INNOVATION
This robot can mimic your facial expression by watching you by ctvnews.ca
For the past five years, AI researchers at Columbia University's Creative Machines Lab have been working on EVA, an animatronic robot that can watch you and mimic your facial expressions. “The idea for EVA took shape a few years ago, when my students and I began to notice that the robots in our lab were staring back at us through plastic, googly eyes,” said Columbia engineering professor Hod Lipson, who is the director of the Creative Machines Lab, in a news release. Read more
DESIGN
Barrier-free 'avatar robot cafe' opening in Tokyo aims to 'eliminate loneliness' by mainichi.jp
TOKYO -- A cafe where robots serve customers will open here in June. People with severe disabilities who have difficulty leaving their homes will remotely control the "avatar" robots to deliver drinks and chat with customers. A young robotics researcher, who has made it his life's mission to "eliminate loneliness" through his experiences of truancy and social withdrawal, has put his cherished idea into practice. Read more
SCIENCE
China maintains 'artificial sun' at 120 million Celsius for over 100 seconds, setting new world record by globaltimes.cn
China broke the record by keeping the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) by achieving plasma temperature at 120 million Celsius for 101 seconds and 160 million Celsius for 20 seconds, a major step toward the test run of the fusion reactor. The Tokamak devise is located at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is designed to replicate the nuclear fusion process that occurs naturally in the sun and stars to provide almost infinite clean energy through controlled nuclear fusion, which is often dubbed the "artificial sun." Read more
UNUSUAL
ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app by bbc.com
More than 800 suspected criminals have been arrested worldwide after being tricked into using an FBI-run encrypted messaging app, officials say. The operation, jointly conceived by Australia and the FBI, saw devices with the ANOM app secretly distributed among criminals, allowing police to monitor their chats about drug smuggling, money laundering and even murder plots. Read more
