New Technology developed in world

Robot brain! An Indian-origin scientist in US has developed a new feedback system that allows robots to operate with minimal supervision and could eventually lead to autonomous machines.

The system may lead to robots that think for themselves, learn, adapt and use active critique to work unsupervised.

Developed by Dr Jagannathan Sarangapani, from Missouri University of Science and Technology, the system makes use of current formation moving robots and introduces a fault-tolerant control design to improve the probability of completing a set task.
The new feedback system will allow a "follower" robot to take over as the "leader" robot if the original leader has a system or mechanical failure.

In a leader/follower formation, the lead robot is controlled through a nonholonomic system, meaning that the trajectory is set in advance, and the followers are tracing the same pattern that the leader takes by using sonar.

When a problem occurs and roles need to change to continue, the fault tolerant control system comes into use.

It uses reinforcement learning and active critique, both inspired by behaviourist psychology to show how machines act in environments to maximise work rate, to help the new, unmanned robot to estimate its new course.

Without this, the follower wouldn't have a path to follow and the task would fail.
"Imagine you have one operator in an office controlling 10 bulldozers remotely," said Sarangapani, the William A Rutledge - Emerson Electric Co Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering at S&T.

"In the event that the lead one suffers a mechanical problem, this hardware allows the work to continue," said Sarangapani.

The innovative research can be applied to robotic security surveillance, mining and even aerial manoeuvring.

Sarangapani believes that the research is most important for aerial vehicles. When a helicopter is in flight, faults can now be detected and accommodated.

This means that instead of a catastrophic failure resulting in a potentially fatal crash, the system can allow for a better chance for an emergency landing instead.

The fault tolerance would notice a problem and essentially shut down that malfunctioning part while maintaining slight control of the overall vehicle.

"The end goal is to push robotics to the next level," said Sarangapani.

"I want robots to think for themselves, to learn, adapt and use active critique to work unsupervised. A self-aware robot will eventually be here, it is just a matter of time, he said.

I will never forget that one time I was having a good
summer morning, hopped in the shower, sang the entire
discography of Beyoncé’s 4, and exited the bathroom
to a living room full of my brother’s friends commenting
on my mini-concert. Yikes. Sometimes it’s hard to hear
how loud you’re getting when the sound of the pouring
water washes your own ears out.
If you’ve been through a similar situation, don’t feel
embarrassed. Kohler wants to encourage this sort of
behavior with the Moxie ($199, but you can find it
online for $150), a showerhead with a Bluetooth
speaker attachment so you can make it rain music. 

NEW DELHI: Microsoft has revamped its search engineBing by incorporating features such as social search options, 'page zero' tool and adaptability across devices in an effort to better compete with rival Google.

The software giant has also unveiled a new golden orange logo for the Bing.

"It is designed to 'instantly feel at home alongside all Microsoft products', reflecting the growing presence of Bing across Microsoft's various devices and services," said Scott Erickson, a senior director on the Bing brand team, in a blog post.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) unveiled its third generation of Kindle Fire tablets and boosted their prices, as the world’s biggest e-commerce company seeks to set itself apart in an increasingly crowded market.

The new Kindle Fire HDX costs $229 to $479 and comes in two display sizes, 7-inch and 8.9-inch, Amazon said in a statement today. While the prices are lower than Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s latest iPads and iPad minis, which start at $329, they are more expensive than the older Kindle Fire HD that started at $199. The HDX tablets have higher-resolution screens, faster processors, weigh less than their predecessors, and have 4G wireless capability.

Amazon is battling Apple and Google Inc. in the tablet market, where it remains a smaller player. While Amazon’s devices have done well in the holiday season, sales have dropped off after the rush. The company was No. 3 after Apple and Samsung Electronics Co., with 12 percent share in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to researcher IDC, and slipped to No. 4 with 3.7 percentshare in the first quarter.

Amazon takes a different business approach with its tablets than its rivals. While Apple makes money on an iPad each time a tablet is sold, Amazon offers its devices at cost. The Seattle-based company instead aims to profit off the movies, books and music consumed on each Kindle Fire, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in an interview.

“We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices,” Bezos said. “We think that’s good customer alignment. No one has to be on the upgrade trend.”

The company has a history of offering some products and services at cost or at a loss in order to drive consumer engagement. Amazon charges just $79 a year for its Prime fast-shipping service, and members of the program tend to be some of the heaviest buyers of goods through its website.

Amazon has been spending to improve its Kindles, squeezing profit margins and contributing to a $39 million loss last year. Earlier this month, the company updated its Kindle Paperwhite e-reader, adding a sharper screen, faster processor and new features.

In total, the tablet market is projected to increase three-fold to $125 billion by 2017 based on units shipped, according to IDC.

Amazon shares are up 25 percent so far this year, compared with a 19 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as Bezos pours money into fulfillment, cloud technology and Kindles.

As part of the rollout, Amazon is also debuting a new lower-end Kindle Fire HD for $139. Some of the new tablet models will ship next month, with others available in November.

The company is adding more high-end features to the new HDX tablets to attract consumers who may be accustomed to Apple devices. The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX screen has 339 pixels per inch, more than the iPad, and weighs 13.2 ounces, about 10 ounces less then the iPad. Each HDX uses Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM)’s quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, whose 2.2 GHz is more than three times faster than Amazon’s previous generation of tablets.

Amazon also added a new graphics engine to improve video-gaming experiences on the device. Games draw the most in-app purchases of all of Amazon’s applications on Kindle Fires, and the company recently added the ability to purchase physical goods on Amazon through apps as well. The company doesn’t disclose revenue figures for purchases on the tablet.

Amazon also included new security features such as hardware and software encryption, moving to appeal to businesses.

Another new feature is a button called Mayday, which connects the user to a customer service representative via video. It allows Amazon support staff to see a consumer’s screen as-is and draw on it -- arrows and circles to indicate how the consumer should navigate turning on child controls, for instance. The idea is to combine Amazon’s cloud-technology capabilities with its products, Bezos said.

“If you think about Amazon’s history, we have always been where we marry together high tech and heavy lifting,” Bezos said. “Mayday is another example of marrying high tech and heavy lifting.”