A Robot Finds Its Way Using Artificial “GPS” Brain Cells

One robot has been given a simulated version of the brain cells that let animals build a mental map of their surroundings.

As reported by MIT Technology Review: The behavior and interplay of two types of neurons in the brain helps give humans and other animals an uncanny ability to navigate by building a mental map of their surroundings. Now one robot has been given a similar cluster of virtual cells to help it find its own way around.

Researchers in Singapore simulated two types of cells known to be used for navigation in the brain—so-called “place” and “grid” cells—and showed they could enable a small-wheeled robot to find its way around. Rather than simulate the cells physically, they created a simple two-dimensional model of the cells in software. The work was led by Haizhou Li, a professor at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

“Artificial grid cells could provide an adaptive and robust mapping and navigation system,” Li wrote in an e-mail coauthored with Huajin Tang, a research scientist at A*STAR, and Yuan Miaolong, a graduate student and first author on a paper about the work. “Humans and animals have an instinctual ability to navigate freely and deliberately in an environment rather effortlessly.”

The work is significant because it shows the potential for having machines mimic more complex activity in the brain. Roboticists increasingly use artificial neural networks to train robots to perform tasks such as object recognition and grasping, but these networks do not faithfully reflect the complexity and subtlety of a real biological brain.

“Neural networks are actually very loosely inspired by the brain,” says Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. “They are distributed computing elements, but they’re very simple as compared with neurons; the connections are extremely simple as compared with a synapse.” He says this new development that takes inspiration from the brain “seems like good work.”

Place cells were first identified in the 1970s by John O’Keefe, who found that they fire whenever a mouse passed the same spot in an area. Grid cells, pinpointed in a different part of the brain by May-Britt and Edvard Moser in 2005, activate when an animal arrives at any location on a triangular grid of points, thereby providing a more detailed sense of position in space.

Together with other types of cells, and by processing sensory information, grid and place cells are thought to afford animals with an innate sense of the world around them and of their location within it. The discovery of these cells earned the three scientists involved the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2014 (see “Nobel for Brain’s Location Code”).

The Singaporean researchers tested the approach on a robot let loose in a 35-square-meter office space. They had the robot roam around the office space, and verified that its artificial place and grid cells functioned in a comparable way to their biological counterparts.

The navigation system isn’t yet as good as a conventional one, and the researchers say they need to develop a better understanding of the way biological cells function in order to improve it. However, they suggest that it could offer advantages over conventional systems, which may be confused by changes to an environment, for example.

As well as providing a more efficient and reliable way for machines to get about, Li hopes that the work could help neuroscientists understand the functioning of the brain’s navigation system. “This will provide a solution to predict neural activities using mobile robots before conducting experiments on rats,” the researchers write.

Artificial intelligence researchers are increasingly looking to research on the brain for ways to refine modern approaches to machine learning. However, Etzioni of the Allen Institute notes that the complexity of the organ makes applying neurological research difficult. “Which is why this work is exciting,” he says.

Zero Motorcycles' Latest Electric Bikes Pack More Powerful Engines, Tesla SuperCharger Interface

As reported by Engadget:Electric motorcycle maker Zero has announced its 2016 lineup and in particular it's expanding its stable of two-wheeled vehicles. The new FXS is a lightweight supermoto-inspired bike for the city while the DSR adds more power to the company's fleet of dual sport bikes with additional toque and horsepower. Powering these new bikes and others in the line is an updated Z-force motor that promises improved performance and efficiency.

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2016 Zero Motorcycle line

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While rivals Mission and Brammo have either completely disappeared or been swallowed up by a larger company, Zero keeps improving and introducing new bikes. It's steadily improved its offerings over its 10-year history. I rode the DS model a few years and wasn't impressed. It felt like a bad motorcycle with an electric motor strapped on. A few months back I rode the 2015 DS, FX and SR models and was impressed at how much the company had come at creating vehicles that were not only real motorcycles, but were fun to ride.

The new DSR has 25 percent more horsepower and 56 percent more torque than the regular DS. That performance increase is due to the new high-output 660-watt motor controller. The base model ($15,995) has a city range of 147 miles and freeway range of 70 miles when cruising at 70-miles an hour. The optional "Power Tank" adds 2.8 kWh of power storage (for an additional $2,674) that extends the range to 179 miles in the city and 86 on the highway.

The FXS continues the FX's mission to make riding on the street way more fun than it should be. It has 70 pounds of toque and up to 44 horsepower in a less-than-a-300-pound body. The 3.3 kWh version with 45 mile city range runs $8,495 while the 6.5 kWh version with a 90 mile city range will set you back $10,990.

The motorcycles are both powered by the updated Z-Force motor. Zero says the motor produces power more efficiently, cools more rapidly and has a higher thermal capability. Basically, it lets you ride the bike harder and at higher sustained speeds with better range. In addition to the new bikes, the motor will be in the 2016 Zero SR, Zero S ZF13.0 and Zero DS ZF13.0.

Zero is also introducing an industry standard (J1772) charging port in its new Charge Tank accessory. It's the same charging port system used by Tesla and the Fiat 500e. This is in addition to charging via a regular wall outlet. Known industry wide as Level 2 charging, the new tank will speed up charging from up to over eight hours to about two or three depending on the bike. The Charge Tank will be available in the spring for an additional $1,988 and will work with 2015 and later SR, DS, DSR and S models.

All these new bikes will be available in dealerships starting in November.

SpaceX Just Announced Their Next Historic Rocket Launch, and It's Ridiculously Soon

As reported by Business Insider: "We believe in the next six to eight weeks we'll be able to return to flight," Lee Rosen, who is the vice president of mission and launch operations at SpaceX, said on Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress, Reuters reported. 

That means we can expect to see the next SpaceX launch by early December, which is ridiculously soon, considering the company suffered a devastating loss less than five months ago on June 28.

To return to space so soon is a notable achievement.

For comparison, Orbital Sciences Corporation, now called Orbital ATK Inc., has not flown since their Antares rocket exploded about one year ago on Oct. 28, 2014. And NASA waited more than two years to launch one of their Space Shuttles after the Columbia disaster in 2003.

Exciting upgrades and more historic landing attempts

Since the explosion, SpaceX has not only identified the problem but they have also begun to repair and make some exciting upgrades to their Falcon 9 rockets.

Most impressive is that the company, who is a world leader in reusable rocket technology, will now begin to attempt their historic rocket landings for most launch missions.

SpaceX attempted two of these landings earlier this year, and while neither were successful, these landings are like watching the future of spaceflight become reality. As shown below, the first stage of a Falcon 9 attempts to land on a platform in the ocean:

Flickr/SpaceX PhotosFirst stage Falcon 9 attempting to land on a barge named 'Just Read the Instructions'

Before the upgrades, SpaceX could only attempt these rocket landings for resupply missions to the International Space Station, which cost less rocket fuel therefore leave some left over for the rocket's landing attempts.

But resupply missions account for less than half of all SpaceX Falcon 9 flights.

Now, the upgrades have created a more powerful version of the Falcon 9 that can store fuel to attempt landings for most missions, and this December's will be no exception.

SpaceX's next mission will use a Falcon 9 to carry a communications satellite into orbit for the Luxembourg-based global satellite service provider SES SA. 

Watching the Future Become Reality

Generations from now, people will look back and compare 20th with 21st century spaceflight, and one of the main differences will be reusable rocket technology.

Space rockets cost tens of millions of dollars to make and most are discarded after a single flight. SpaceX wants to change that by recovering the first stage of their Falcon 9 rockets — and they will be attempting the next landing this December. 

While other companies, like France-based Arianespace and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, have proposed designs for future reusable rockets, SpaceX is the first company to actually fly and attempt to retrieve one. Stay tuned for the next landing attempt coming soon.

Tesla’s Master Plan Uses Its Drivers to Map Every Lane on the Road

As reported by Quartz: GPS is a fine tool for finding a route between two places when there is a driver controlling a car, but as we near an era of fully autonomous vehicles, that technology is in need of a major upgrade.

That’s why Tesla is not just in the process of creating its own maps but is deciphering where each individual lane is on every road, across the globe. It’s doing this in part by tracking every one of its Model S cars each time a customer takes a drive, to learn where traffic typically moves. The project is immense but it is necessary if autonomous cars—which Tesla expects to be a reality in three years—are to work properly.

Tesla announced yesterday (Oct. 14) that it was upgrading all of its Model S vehicles with new functions that allow the cars to steer, switch lanes, and park autonomously (though it advised drivers not to actually take their hands off the wheel). Currently, tricks like autonomous lane-changing require a driver to indicate first, and for the car to rely on onboard sensors to decide when it is safe to change lanes.

But a fully autonomous car will need to know which lane it’s already in, how many lanes there are on the road, and where those lanes lead to—or end. Onboard sensors alone can’t generate this level of data. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, believes this mass collection of data—Tesla plans to build around 50,000 cars this year—will set the company’s cars apart from rival auto makers who are preparing their own self-driving cars.

Certainly, tracking existing drivers will give Tesla a head start against “legacy” auto makers such as BMW, which, along with a consortium of other German brands, bought mapping software from Nokia earlier this year. But two more contenders for the autonomous car space may have an even greater advantage than Tesla: Apple and Google.

These companies could potentially track hundreds of millions of smartphones as their owners drive them from place to place, making their future road maps many times more accurate.

Autopilot for the Tesla Model S is Here: Including Autosteer, Auto Lane Change, and Autopark

As reported by Mashable:  Starting Thursday, your Tesla Model S will have received an over-the-air software update, but not for free. The new 7.0 software will bring with it a new, more modern look to the operating system, some new instrument panel apps, climate control interface improvements, and — oh, yeah — Autopilot.

Autopilot, however, will cost every Tesla Model S owner $2,500, which probably qualifies it as the most expensive in-app purchase ever.

The Autopilot system is comprised of several different subsystems that include Autosteer, Auto Lane Change, Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, Side Collision Warning and Autopark.

The Autopilot suite of features that will be available to Model S cars built from September 2014 and beyond — essentially, any Tesla with the appropriate sensors. With the 7.0 update, drivers will notice the look of their instrument cluster has changed, displaying an update icon of the vehicle. This icon will show a detected vehicle ahead, lane marking readings, and also roadway obstacle warnings.

All exciting things — so let's dig into these new features one by one.

Autosteer

This is the new feature drivers will find most foreign and distinctive in the Autopilot suite, as the car effectively steers itself down the freeway. To activate Autosteer, the driver simply pulls the cruise control lever twice in quick succession. Turning on Autosteer also engages Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, which is Tesla's cruise control system that adjusts the speed of the Model S based upon the speed of the vehicle ahead.

How autopilot looks on the Tesla Model S dashboard.

IMAGE: NICK JAYNES/MASHABLE

Once Autosteer is on, a chime will ding. The sensors in the front of the Model S monitor the lane markings ahead and automatically adjust steering to keep the car within the markings. Now, if you were hoping that Autosteer would free up your hands for some idle work, like, say, whittling, I have some bad news. Like all other self-steering systems from other automakers, including Honda and Mercedes-Benz, the driver must keep his or her hands on the wheel at all times.

Tesla is quick to point out, though, that rainy, snowy, or foggy conditions will deteriorate the Autosteer performance. If Autosteer cannot read the lane markings, it will not be able to work. Autosteer will also cut out if the road the Model S is traveling on is too twisty.

In ideal conditions, however, the Model S will be able to keep itself within its lane without any input from the driver — accept the reassuring feeling that the driver's hands are still on the wheel.

If Autosteer can't confidently operate, it will display a warning for the driver in the instrument cluster. If the driver does not take over immediately, it will chime at you. If the driver still does not retake control of steering, the car will chime incessantly. If the driver does not take control after a few seconds, the Model S will bring itself to a swift stop in the lane and activate the emergency flashers.

Auto Lane Change

Now here's where the Tesla Autopilot suite gets interesting. When Autosteer and Traffic-Aware Cruise Control are engaged, the Model S can autonomously change lanes. This is the biggest distinction between Autopilot and any other carmaker's mild autonomy setups.

Say you want to pass the car ahead of you, simply signal in the direction in which you want to marge (which would be to your left because you don't want to pass illegally on the right, right?) and the Model S will move into the lane in the direction you indicated with your turn signal.

As it does this, the icon of the car in the instrument panel screen will go from a solid to a dashed line. Once the Model S determines the lane change is complete, the dashed line will return to a solid line and you can switch off the turn signal.

Side Collision Warning

Should a car or another object get too close to your Model S for its own comfort, it will alert you with visual cues on the digital instrument cluster. The graphics indicating an impending collision resemble radiating fluid lines coming off the side of the little digital Model S on the screen.

Arguably, this seems like a pretty innocuous extension of side blind-spot monitoring. Side Collision Warning does have an interesting feature, though. Should a car or object get too close to the Model S, it will autonomously steer out of the way while still keeping itself in its own lane. Intriguingly, this safety feature will activate even if the driver has disabled Side Collision Warning in the system settings.

Autopark

Should you you find a parallel parking spot that you don't feel quite up to the task of threading your Model S into, it can now do the duty for you. After you pass a suitable parking spot, a P logo will appear on the instrument cluster, indicating to you the car has seen the spot and is ready to park in it.

Put the vehicle into reverse and the Autopark guide will appear on the screen alongside the reverse camera image. Once you engage Autopark, the system controls both steering and vehicle speed. This is in stark contrast to a similar system from Ford, which relies on the driver to control vehicle speed with throttle and brake inputs.

Should you want to stop the Tesla Autopark system at anytime, you can do so by taking over steering operation, stepping on the brake or simply pushing the cancel button.

If you were hoping to whiz through town without a care in the world while your car searches for a parking spot, think again. Autopark will only recognize suitable parking spots when it is traveling below 15 mph.

Additional Updates

Of course, being Tesla, the 7.0 software update includes more than Autopilot. It also includes a new feature called Vehicle Hold, which is an extension to Hill Start Assist, which hold the car in place on steep inclines between the driver releasing the brake and applying the accelerator.

Vehicle Hold will also keep the Model S in place for extended periods of time. When engaged, the system is essentially a flexible parking brake, one that can be easily released by pressing the accelerator pedal.

Tesla has also updated the look of the instrument cluster energy usage display and clock in addition to the aforementioned vehicle icons that display the Autopilot functions.

VW Plans to Recover From Its Scandal by Going Electric

As reported by Wired: NOW THAT THE Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal is a month old, the new VW Brand Board of Management is beginning to publicly discuss its plans for the future—and how they’ve changed.

Step one: Use emission control systems that actually control emissions. Step two: Go electric.

As soon as possible, VW says, it will start equipping all its diesel cars in Europe and North America with AdBlue technology and selective catalytic reduction, a chemical process that breaks smoggy NOx down into nitrogen and water. It adds complication and expense—$5,000 to $8,000 per car—but it’s effective, eliminating 70 to 90 percent of NOx emissions.

VW’s big “advance” was the “clean diesel” technology that supposedly made this technology unnecessary on its smaller cars, like the Beetle, Jetta, and Audi A3 that are being recalled because they don’t meet emissions standards under real-world driving conditions.

Beyond diesels, VW announced it is “giving our product range and our core technologies a new focus,” lurching away from diesel and toward another way to meet increasingly strict CO2 and NOx emissions regulations in the US and Europe: an increased focus on plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. One of those, the company announced this week, will be the next-generation Volkswagen Phaeton.

Details are scarce, but the press release is full of high-minded statements about the past and the future. The first Phaeton was an engineering marvel that turned out to be one of the finest executive sedans ever made. Too bad no one in America wanted a $70,000 Volkswagen.

Well, VW is trying again, but rather than making the world’s greatest gasoline-powered car, it’s looking at something more futuristic.

“The Volkswagen Phaeton has embodied the brand’s technological competence and brand ambition from the first generation onward,” the company says. It plans to make the new Phaeton “the flagship for the brand’s profile over the next decade.”

The new Phaeton has supposedly been in the works for a while. VW says it’s “redefined the current project,” though it’s not clear exactly what’s changing, and what kind of work needs to be done to get there. VW is calling for a Phaeton with “pure electric drive” with “long-distance capability.”

This is not an easy shift to make. To date, the pure electric vehicle market has been split in two, with the roughly $100,000, 265-mile range Tesla on one side, and more affordable, 85-mile range city cars on the other (like VW’s own $29,000 e-Golf). Without years of investment, it’s hard to believe VW can bring out a fully electric large sedan with serious range and an attainable price tag anytime soon.

That’s why VW says its “focus is on plug-in hybrids,” which combine an electric motor with an engine, and can drive powered either by electricity or by gasoline. VW’s sister brand Audi has already put plug-in hybrid versions of its R8 and A3 cars on the market, with the “e-tron” moniker. VW brands Bentley and Lamborghini are also planning to introduce plug-in hybrid versions of their upcoming luxury SUVs, so it’s not a stretch to imagine the tech coming out with a VW badge on the hood.

Along with electric drive, VW promises the Phaeton will deliver “an emotional design.”

Based on the response from VW’s customers and dealers to the scandal so far, let’s hope that emotion isn’t disgust and betrayal.

Still, Volkswagen is a huge company with a ton of wicked smart engineers and designers (the diesel scandal aside) and we’re very interested to see what they come up with. But it may be too little, too late.

BP Chief Economist: The World Will Probably Never Run Out of Oil

Spencer Dale, Governor Mark Carney, Jon Cunliffe and Andrew Bailey (L-R) arrive to release the Financial Stability Report, at the Bank of England in London.

As reported by Business Insider: Concerns about the climate change impact of burning the world's remaining oil resources mean the reserves will never be fully exploited, BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale said on Tuesday.

That assumption means the relative price of oil will not necessarily increase over time, Dale said at an economists' conference in London on Tuesday.

Bejing Air Polution

Burning existing reserves of oil, gas and coal would emit more than 2.8 trillion tonnes of climate-harming carbon emissions, much more than the 1 trillion threshold scientists have set to limit global warming to 2 degrees.

"Concerns about carbon emissions and climate change mean that it is increasingly unlikely that the world's reserves of oil will ever be exhausted," Dale said.

BP is among the world's top oil producing companies but it is also part of a group of energy firms that has called for the creation of a global carbon pricing mechanism that would limit investments in climate-harming forms of energy.

Technological advances will also reduce the cost to extract harder-to-reach resources, Dale said. 

Alberta Oil Sands