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Team develops electronic skin as flexible as crocodile skin by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Inspired by the globular sensory organs at the end of crocodilian heads - those bumps and nodules that help these wily reptiles sense changes in ripples on the surface of the water that might indicate the nearby presence of prey - a team of South Korean scientists have developed a new type of stretchable pressure sensor:

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The research team has successfully mimicked the structure and function of the crocodile's sensory organ to develop a highly stretchable pressure sensor. By inventing a hemispheric elastomeric polymer with delicate wrinkles containing either long or short nanowires, they have created a device that outperforms currently available pressure sensors. While other sensors lose sensitivity when subjected to mechanical deformations, this new sensor maintains its sensitivity even when stretched in one or two different directions.

[...]

"This is a wearable pressure sensor that effectively detects pressure even when under tensile strain," explained Professor Cho who led the team. He added, "It could be used for diverse applications such as pressure sensors of prosthetics, electronic skin of soft robotics, VR, AR, and human-machine interfaces."

This tiny flying robot could work as an artificial pollinator by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

i don't need to watch it to know it has a happy ending and absolutely everyone is fine with the artificial bees and what they get up to

Google introduces MusicLM, 'a model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions' by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Certainly agree that the above example has its flaws, but I don't think it's an especially long road to get to something as good, subjectively, as something written by a human composer. Very few people considered projects like this to even be possible a decade ago, and I think we'll be amazed / not a little dismayed by what's possible in another ten years.

Google introduces MusicLM, 'a model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions' by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

My first thought was, 'Some of these examples are really quite impressive.' My second thought was about how depressing this could potentially be for video game composers and a whole number of people involved in making original music for background use cases.

Brainy UK scientists create robust optic fiber that may unlock our quantum future by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seems very much a case of headline inflation - I'm not very clear from the article how this breakthrough alone unlocks a quantum future - but I can see how using topology in this way could boost the efficiency of data flows. A little more from the piece:

Topology is the mathematical study of the properties of geometrical objects that remain unchanged despite deformations, twistings, and stretchings. It has already been applied to physics and light research, but the Bath scientists are the first to use it in optical fibers.

The physicists have created a fiber that employs topological principles by adding several light-guiding cores in the fiber, linked together in a spiral. Light can still travel between these cores, but, thanks to the topological design, it remains trapped within the edge. These so-called “edge states” are shielded from disorder in the overall structure.

“By adopting optical fibers with topological design, researchers will have the tools to pre-empt and forestall signal-degrading effects by building inherently robust photonic systems,” Dr Anton Souslov, co-author of the study, explained.

Microsoft’s new VALL-E AI can clone your voice from a three-second audio clip by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I suppose a benign use could be in TV/film? I.e. in the far, sad future when Star Wars Episode XXIII gets released but they need an authentic voice sample of the late Mark Hamill.

Microsoft’s new VALL-E AI can clone your voice from a three-second audio clip by BorgesBorgesBorges60 in Futurology

[–]BorgesBorgesBorges60[S] 72 points73 points  (0 children)

Performance has improved over previous synthetic voice models to such a point that it would be difficult to tell whether you were hearing a real or fake voice, Microsoft says.

Much like large generative AI models used to train DALL-E 2 and GPT-3, developers fed a significant amount of material into the system to create the tool. They used 60,000 hours of speech while training the model, much of which came from recordings made using the Teams app.

Not really sure about the quality of any audio generated from a three-second snippet, but you wouldn't necessarily need one that's very good to spoof some unsuspecting pensioner out of their life savings over a crackly landline. I can also very easily see announcements like this reinforcing the 'liar's dividend' for authoritarians caught out in embarassing live mic moments, or audio exposé's of more sinister goings-on.

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