Category Science & Technology

How does a driveless car move?

Self-driving cars are loaded with advanced technology that can sense their environment.

The concept of a driverless car has leapt out of the pages of science fiction with major auto-makers working to make them a reality. So far, driverless cars have logged millions of kilometres in test runs and are steadily becoming a reality despite the many hurdles still to be overcome.

Self-driving cars are loaded with advanced technology like radar, lidar, GPS, cameras, and laser scanners that can sense their environment. The control systems in the car evaluate the sensory information about obstacles, road signs, traffic signals and other cars on the road to chart out a navigable path to the destination. The car’s computers accelerate, cruise at 120 kph, slow down, brake and pass without the human driver even touching the steering wheel or gear shift.

In December 2020, Waymo (formerly known as the Google self-driving car project) became the first service provider to offer driver-less taxi rides to the general public, in a part of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. While Honda has launched its self-driving car in Japan, Mercedes-Benz is in the process of doing so.

Picture Credit : Google 

Why is 3D printing important for the future?

3D printing upends the standard manufacturing process. There is no doubt that 3D printing is the future and that we may be able to ‘create’ everything, including organs.

The wheel is one of the earliest inventions of mankind. It revolutionised our life. Going forward, we have made many strides in varied sectors to change life as we know it. Enter 3D Printing, And now, we are in the throes of changing the way matter is being looked at and processed.

With 3D printing, life has become easy and different. You can now print what you want. From hobbyists to businesses everyone is using 3D printing. 3D printing upends the standard manufacturing process

What’s 3D Printing

3D printing is three-dimensional printing and manufacturing of products, and it is an additive manufacturing process.

Additive manufacturing is the process of creating an object by building layers. This is in contravention to subtractive manufacturing where the end product is created by removing or cutting away matter from a solid block of material.

Since 3D printing is done by adding material and building layers, the layering goes on for n number of times until the end product is realised.

Application of 3D printing

There is no doubt that 3D printing is the future and that we may be able to ‘create’ everything, including organs. While the manufacturing and construction industry has been seeing a lot of applications of 3D printing, other areas such as the medical industry, food, packaging, and arms industry are also being revolutionised by 3D printing technology.

The cost-effectiveness, ease of manufacturing, ability to make complicated parts, and less waste generation are just some of the aspects in favour of 3D printing. From plastic models to steel parts and surgical implants are manufactured through 3D printing.

3D bioprinting is the process of applying 3D printing to produce tissues and organs. So imagine this scenario. Instead of waiting for a donor, what if we can just print the organs using the cells? We are still tiptoeing on bioprinting. Recently, a woman had her external ear reconstructed using a 3D-printed living tissue implant. The transplant was used on a woman from Mexico and was carried out in March in the US. The woman was born with a small right ear.

Over the years the construction industry has seen a lot of strides. Commercial buildings and houses have been created using 3D printing. The first 3D-printed bridge came up in Castilla-La Mancha Park in Alcobendas, Madrid.

Picture Credit : Google 

What is a Companion distraction-free smartphone?

Companion is a distraction-free smartphone that has the basic functions of a smartphone, but is stripped of everything that could distract you. It can be worn as a necklace, clipped to belt loops, or wherever preferred. Its small, minimalist design features an E-ink display that won’t tempt users with notifications throughout the day. It has an earpiece and microphone for taking calls, a wide + ultra-wide camera lens with flash, and an air quality sensor. It has no ports, thus freeing up internal space and making the device more water resistant, and it is charged wirelessly. Companion is constructed from a bioplastic that is easily manufactured and disassembled for repair or dismantled at end-of-life. This helps create a closed loop system where plastic is recycled many times over without ending up in a landfill. The texture of the bioplastic mimics the slightly rough feel of pebbles, while the device curves at all angles mimicking the natural design of pebbles. The device’s colours feature a speckle pattern on top of soft hues that resemble the colours and patterns of naturally-found pebbles.

Picture Credit : Google 

HOW TO BE SMART WITH INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)?

The Internet of Things, or lot as it is popularly known, is becoming a very important part of not only the technology industry, but also our daily lives. And you may be using lot without even knowing it!

What is IoT?

IoT is nothing but the billions of physical devices that are all connected to the Internet. These devices can then be controlled and can communicate information without any help from humans.

The IoT connects “dumb” devices like refrigerators. washing machines or a kettle, to the Internet using software and makes them “smart” loT devices. These loT devices can now collect and exchange data around the world and have some digital intelligence!

Chatting with each other

With loT, devices or machines can talk with each other, or to the people who are controlling them, by messaging over the Internet. This means that these devices can tell other devices, as well as people, if something is wrong with them or they are functioning well.

For example, in loT a car will become smart and can communicate and tell you that it needs petrol.

This has become possible as Wi-Fi networks are very common and devices can now have software to allow Internet access and make use of the Wi-Fi connection. The IoT requires sensors and software to collect data and communicate.

A personal computer or a laptop is not usually considered an loT device. Neither is a smartphone, despite it having sensors.

Aeroplane engine

Large machines, like an aeroplane engine, maybe be filled with numerous smaller loT components and devices, with thousands of them relaying data back and forth and sensors gathering information to make sure it is running efficiently.

loT is here to stay to make your life even easier!

Picture Credit : Google 

WHAT IS THE MOST POWERFUL SUPERCOMPUTER IN THE WORLD?

Frotiere is the first exascale supercomputer. This means that it is a computing system capable of at least one exaflop or a billion- billion calculations per second (1018)

We were heralded into a new era of computational capability in May 2022 as the U.S. retook the top spot in the race to build the world’s fastest supercomputer. Capable of billion billion operations per second, Frontier is the first exascale supercomputer. This means that it is a computing system capable of at least one exaflop or a billion billion calculations per second (1018).

Different level

The fastest supercomputers that were in existence before the Frontier came into being are still in the petascale, capable of quadrillion (1015) calculations per second. By reaching quintillion (1018) operations per second, Frontier has taken computing to a whole new level.

Built by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, the Frontier was able to demonstrate a processor speed of 1.102 exaflops in a benchmarking test called the High-Performance Linpack (HPL).

Faster than the fastest

Frontier took the place of being the world’s fastest supercomputer from Japanese supercomputer Fugaku. Fugaku had held the position for two years having scored 415.5 petaflops in the HPL benchmark. At that time, it was thrice as fast as the machine it had ousted – the Summit supercomputer built by IBM, also housed at ORNL.

The progress in this field has been rapid in the last few years as computer scientists worldwide had been working towards surmounting the exascale barrier. The exascale milestone represents a new level of computational power capable of calculating solutions to highly complex problems. Be it climate systems, new kinds of materials and medicines, or even some of the deepest questions of humankind, exascale devices such as the Frontier can efficiently process vast amounts of data.

This incredible machine, which was built at a cost of $600 million, is undoubtedly the most advanced computer currently on Earth. The unmatched capabilities of Frontier as a tool for scientific discovery will surely unlock new frontiers of knowledge.

Picture Credit : Google 

WHAT IS MORAVEC’S PARADOX?

Artificial intelligence can simplify complicated tasks but it may still be unable to do what humans do instinctively.

It is a concept in computing put forward by Austrian artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Hans Moravec in the 1980s. He theorised that while it is easy to make computers do highly intelligent tasks such as calculating complicated mathematical equations, it is very difficult to make them do simple tasks such as walking. According to Moravec, humans have evolved over millions of years. to perfect simple physical tasks such as walking and running. Such tasks, which we take for granted, are a result of the process of natural selection.

Moravec’s paradox states that it is difficult to build a machine that has the skills of a one-year-old child with the instinctive ability to move around, recognise faces, and avoid danger. It takes a lot of difficult computations to instruct a computer to do what a human being can do without thinking twice. On the other hand, humans acquired sophisticated skills such as abstract reasoning and logical thinking that result in excellence in the fields of engineering, mathematics and art, about hundred thousand years ago. It is easy to devise algorithms for these skills for computers. That is why it is easy to build a computer that can defeat a professional chess player or play music.

Moravec’s paradox can be interpreted in different ways. Some scholars believe that it means that Al can render people with high-level jobs such as stock analysis or engineering unemployed, while the jobs of cooks and gardeners are safe. Others take it to mean that Al will always need human supervision.

Picture Credit : Google