Control robotics with speech
Researchers from Google Robotics and the Technical University of Berlin have developed PaLM-E. The visual language model is trained with text and image data, takes commands and forwards them to the individual components of a robot – such as a gripper arm. The research paper on PaLM-E describes an application example. After the command “Bring me rice chips from the drawer”, a white platform equipped with a gripper and a camera moves through a room. This stops at the drawer. The gripping arm then extends, opens the drawer, grabs a pack of rice chips and places them on the tabletop. According to Google, all navigation instructions should come from the language model itself.
Floating solar panels
With photovoltaic systems on existing water reservoirs, a large part of the global energy requirement could be covered. Thousands of municipalities and more than 150 metropolises could even use it to cover their entire electricity needs. This was determined by a research team from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. In addition, water loss could be reduced because evaporation is prevented. Floating photovoltaic power plants are not new, but comparatively few have been installed so far, most of them in China. According to the analysis, by far the greatest potential for this type of power generation is in the USA. There are almost 26,000 reservoirs with a total area of 64,000 km².
Our weekday news podcast delivers the most important news of the day compressed to 2 minutes. Anyone who uses language assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant can also hear or see the news there. Simply activate the skill with Alexa or say to Google Assistant: “Play heise Top”.
Many sleep too little
As part of a large-scale study on heart and exercise health, which the Brigham and Women’s Hospital is currently conducting in the United States with support from Apple, a large amount of sleep data was collected, among other things. 42,000 Apple Watch owners participated, who had a total of 2.9 million nights recorded via the computer watch’s sleep tracking function. The result: A clear sleep deficit was found across all subjects. The average sleep duration was 6 hours and 27 minutes.
Space telescope shows precursor of supernova
The James Webb Space Telescope has imaged a massive star undergoing its final phase before the eventual supernova. The so-called Wolf-Rayet star can be seen in the image amidst gas and dust, the material glowing in infrared light. This material is of particular interest to astronomers because it could help clarify the question of why there is more dust in the universe than can be explained with previous theories. At the same time, stars are comparatively rare at this stage in their evolution, which makes observation particularly valuable.
(igr)
