Using NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system, pictures and videos of cherished pets flew through space over laser communications links at a rate of 1.2 gigabits per second — faster than most home internet speeds. NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Christina Koch, and Kjell Lindgren, along with other agency employees, submitted photos and videos of their pets to take a trip to and from the International Space Station. The transmissions allowed NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program to showcase the power…
DFKI and University of Duisburg-Essen test fine motor skills in weightlessness. Fine motor tasks under space conditions are particularly challenging and must first be trained on Earth. Scientists from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) are investigating whether a robotic exoskeleton that can simulate weightlessness is suitable for astronautical training. The team now had the opportunity to participate in the 42nd DLR Parabolic Flight Campaign in Bordeaux, France, to compare the effects…
Researchers demonstrate a programmable approach to fabricating optical qubits in silicon for large-scale manufacturing. Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems in human health, drug discovery, and artificial intelligence millions of times faster than some of the world’s fastest supercomputers. A network of quantum computers could advance these discoveries even faster. But before that can happen, the computer industry will need a reliable way to string together billions of qubits – or quantum bits – with atomic precision….
Lasers have revolutionized the world since the 60’s and are now indispensable in modern applications, from cutting-edge surgery and precise manufacturing to data transmission across optical fibers. But as the need for laser-based applications grows, so do challenges. For example, there is a growing market for fiber lasers, which are currently used in industrial cutting, welding, and marking applications. Fiber lasers use an optical fiber doped with rare-earth elements (erbium, ytterbium, neodymium etc) as their optical gain source (the part…
How can virtual reality (VR) be experienced haptically, i.e., through the sense of touch? This is one of the fundamental questions that modern VR research is investigating. Computer scientist André Zenner, who is based in Saarbrücken, Germany, has come a significant step closer to answering this question in his doctoral thesis – by inventing new devices and developing software-based techniques inspired by human perception. He has now been awarded the prestigious “Best Dissertation Award” at the world’s leading VR conference….
Calcium oxide is a cheap, chalky chemical compound commonly used in the manufacturing of cement, plaster, paper, and steel. But the material may soon have a more high-tech application. UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering researchers and their collaborator in Sweden have used theoretical and computational approaches to discover how tiny, lone atoms of bismuth embedded within solid calcium oxide can act as qubits — the building blocks of quantum computers and quantum communication devices. These qubits are described today in Nature…
Texas A&M researchers have harnessed the power of satellites to constantly monitor infrastructure conditions and maintain them. As infrastructure ages, it becomes more susceptible to failure, which can cause safety and mobility concerns for drivers and pedestrians, and economic woes for taxpayers. A recent study published in “Transportation Research Record” shows that high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data can detect infrastructure issues early on, which can help prevent further damage to roads in the same way that annual checkups can help…
A compact, lightweight sensor system with infrared imaging capabilities developed by an international team of engineers could be easily fitted to a drone for remote crop monitoring. This flat-optics technology has the potential to replace traditional optical lens applications for environmental sensing in a range of industries. This innovation could result in cheaper groceries as farmers would be able to pinpoint which crops require irrigation, fertilisation and pest control, instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, thereby potentially boosting their harvests….
How AI could prevent devastating wildfires… Australian scientists are getting closer to detecting bushfires in record time, thanks to cube satellites with onboard AI now able to detect fires from space 500 times faster than traditional on-ground processing of imagery. Remote sensing and computer science researchers have overcome the limitations of processing and compressing large amounts of hyperspectral imagery on board the smaller, more cost-effective cube satellites before sending it to the ground for analysis, saving precious time and energy….
Artificial intelligence (AI) combined with a novel bio-inspired camera achieves 100 times faster detection of pedestrians and obstacles than current automotive cameras. This important step for computer vision and AI achieved by researchers of the University of Zurich can greatly improve the safety of automotive systems and self-driving cars. The image shows both color information from the color camera and events (blue and red dots) from the event camera; bounding boxes show the detection of cars by the algorithm. (c)…
Researchers have developed a new type of holograms, known as “metaholograms”, capable of projecting multiple high-fidelity images free of crosstalk. This breakthrough paves the way for next-generation technologies including virtual/augmented reality (AR/VR) displays, information storage, and image encryption. Metaholograms offer several advantages over traditional holograms, including broader operational bandwidth, higher imaging resolution, wider viewing angle, and more compact size. However, a major challenge for metaholograms has been their limited information capacity that only allows to project a few independent images….
Lenses are used to bend and focus light. Normal lenses rely on their curved shape to achieve this effect, but physicists from the University of Amsterdam and Stanford University have made a flat lens of only three atoms thick which relies on quantum effects. This type of lens could be used in future augmented reality glasses. When you imagine a lens, you probably picture a piece of curved glass. This type of lens works because light is refracted (bent) when…
Start-up sewts succeeds with AI-based industrial robots. The industrial robots from the Munich-based start-up sewts use AI algorithms to learn how to handle materials with unstable shapes. Laundries are already using the technology to automatically transfer towels to folding machines. The founders and graduates of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) now want to automate the processing of clothing returns in online retail. The founders of swets use robots and AI to prepare laundry for the folding machine. In the…
In the early 2010s, LightSquared, a multibillion-dollar startup promising to revolutionize cellular communications, declared bankruptcy. The company couldn’t figure out how to prevent its signals from interfering with those of GPS systems. Now, Penn Engineers have developed a new tool that could prevent such problems from ever happening again: an adjustable filter that can successfully prevent interference, even in higher-frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. “I hope it will enable the next generation of wireless communications,” says Troy Olsson, Associate Professor in…
Lasers developed at the University of Rochester offer a new path for on-chip frequency comb generators. Light measurement devices called optical frequency combs have revolutionized metrology, spectroscopy, atomic clocks, and other applications. Yet challenges with developing frequency comb generators at a microchip scale have limited their use in everyday technologies such as handheld electronics. In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Rochester describe new microcomb lasers they have developed that overcome previous limitations and feature a simple design that could…
Researchers from the University of Innsbruck have unveiled a novel method to prepare quantum operations on a given quantum computer, using a machine learning generative model to find the appropriate sequence of quantum gates to execute a quantum operation. The study, recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence, marks a significant step forward in unleashing the full extent of quantum computing. Generative models like diffusion models are one of the most important recent developments in Machine Learning (ML), with models as…
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