SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 1, 2023--

Amazon is testing whether humanoid robots that walk around with glowing eyes could help staff its warehouses. The company has in recent years added a host of new technologies as part of its Amazon Robotics arm, primarily using it in its warehouses, including arms and small carts that are able to help pack orders. It now has 750,000 robots working alongside employees, it said. This week it unveiled more of hose robots, including a system named Sequoia that helps pack its itinerary at those warehouses. But the most dramatic new robot was a system named Digit that is now being tested for Amazon’s operations. Amazon calls Digit a “mobile manipulator solution”, and pointed to the fact that they are able to move around and grasp items in ways that other robots aren’t. It does so in an uncannily human form, with glowing eyes in the front of its head and arms and legs that allow it to walk around. The system was built by Agility Robotics, which has a partnership with Amazon. It is 175cm tall, can work for 16 hours out of a day and has the ability to perceive people and crouch and squat, for instance. “Its size and shape are well suited for buildings that are designed for humans, and we believe that there is a big opportunity to scale a mobile manipulator solution, such as Digit, which can work collaboratively with employees,” Amazon said in an announcement. “Our initial use for this technology will be to help employees with tote recycling, a highly repetitive process of picking up and moving empty totes once inventory has been completely picked out of them.” Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, said that he was more interested in how the humanoid form could allow for new kinds of mobility, such as using legs to walk over varied terrain, rather than having it mimic the look of humans. He also suggested that if the robot’s shape came to be a barrier to adoption then Amazon “can change that”. The robot is still in testing for now, in an attempt to understand how it might be used, and is not deployed in any of Amazon's normal operations. It may never actually be used, it suggested, if the project finds that such robots are not helpful. Amazon also committed to ensure “robotics are collaborative and support employees”. In an apparent attempt to allay concerns about the robots taking jobs and leaving its staff redundant, it pointed to the growth in new jobs that has come even as its investment in robotics has increased, and said that there were 700 new job categories that didn’t exist before that expansion. “From the hardware to the artificial intelligence embedded in our robotics, we are passionate about technology that makes the work experience of our employees safer, easier, and less repetitive,” Amazon committed. It said that the extra time saved with robots would allow employees to “take a step back” and evaluate how orders were being fulfilled, for instance. Amazon is just one of a range of companies looking at humanoid robots for logistical work. Tesla, for instance, has a system called “Optimus” which Elon Musk has suggested could eventually become its biggest business, but which is yet to actually be rolled out. Read More Amazon to start dropping packages into people’s gardens using drones in the UK Tesla’s profits dip as Musk goes on rant about staff working from home Facebook has stopped working

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AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 14, 2023--

A woman takes time off work just to play video games and told her husband that for their marriage to work, he had to be a gaming enthusiast to.

Long space missions are damaging astronauts’ brains, scientists have said. Experts now suggest that those who are spending a long time in space should take three years to allow their brains to recover from the changes experienced during their journeys. Those are the findings of a new study looking at how brain’s react to leaving Earth’s gravity. It comes ahead of what is expected to be a new era of long journeys around space, including the first missions to Mars. Researchers looked at brain scans of 30 astronauts, taken before and after they travelled to space. They found that journeys over six months left the brain’s ventricles significantly expanded – and they could take up to three years to recover. The ventricles are cavities in the brain that are filled with a fluid that protects and nourishes the brain, as well as removing waste. Usually, that fluid is helpfully distributed around the body, but the lack of gravity in space can mean that the fluid is pushed upward and shoves the brain higher in the skull. “We found that the more time people spent in space, the larger their ventricles became,” said Rachael Seidler, a professor of applied physiology and kinesiology at the University of Florida and an author of the study. “Many astronauts travel to space more than one time, and our study shows it takes about three years between flights for the ventricles to fully recover.” Read More Scientists demonstrate wireless power transmission from space for first time Japan to launch satellite made of wood in 2024 US tells China: ‘We’ll fight in outer space if we have to’

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Australia on Monday issued a fine of $610,500 Australian dollars ($386,000) against the company formerly known as Twitter for "falling short" in disclosing information on how it tackles child sex abuse content, in yet another setback for the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

This week’s new entertainment releases include albums from Irish singer-songwriter Hozier and Idina Menzel, the animated “The Monkey King” from Stephen Chow and Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings.”

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By Milana Vinn and Anirban Sen NEW YORK (Reuters) -SentinelOne Inc, a cybersecurity company with a market value of about

OpenAI Inc. is bringing its ChatGPT generative AI tool to smartphones for the first time, releasing an iPhone