Quest Pro Tracks Eyes and Face

Quest Pro headset has a few advanced features including five cameras facing inward, towards the user’s face. The cameras can track eye movements and facial expressions. Such features aim to create digital avatars for the VR world that can mimic human expression with incredible accuracy. 

Quest Pro will not use face-tracking information to predict emotions, but it will process raw images and pictures locally. Also, the images are stored on the device rather than reaching Meta’s server. And the operating system should delete the data after it’s done processing it.

More information:

https://bgr.com/tech/metas-new-vr-headset-can-track-your-eyes-and-face-but-what-about-your-feelings/

Not Weaponizing Robots

Boston Dynamics and five other robotics companies have signed an open letter saying what many of us were already nervously hoping for anyway: Let's not weaponize general-purpose robots. The six leading tech firms (Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics and Unitree) say advanced robots could result in huge benefits in our work and home lives but that they may also be used for nefarious purposes. The firms pledged not to weaponize their advanced-mobility general-purpose robots or the software that makes them function. They would try to make sure their customers didn't weaponize the companies' products. They companies said they don't take issue with existing technologies that governments use to defend themselves and uphold their laws.

According to Boston Dynamics' website, police and fire departments are using the company's dog-like robot Spot to assess risky situations, but the firm says Spot is not designed for surveillance or to replace police officers. There have been growing calls across the globe to curb the use of autonomous weapons systems and the Stop Killer Robots campaign says nearly 100 countries and most people oppose autonomous weapons. But a meeting of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons last year failed to reach a consensus governing the use of so-called killer robots, due in part to objections from countries working on such technologies including the U.S, the UK and Russia, CNBC reported.

More information:

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/06/1127227605/boston-dynamics-robots-pledge-against-weapons

Turtle Robot Walks and Swims

The Amphibious Robotic Turtle (ART) created by researchers at Yale and West Chester universities can shape-shift its limbs and gait to crawl on land and swim in water. ART's four morphable limbs each feature two pneumatic actuators and polymer layers that can be softened by heaters, boosting their cross-sectional area by up to four times.

The turtle bot performed three times better than a bipedal robot developed by the MIT in terms of the cost of transport, which quantifies the amount of energy expended when moving between two points. ART could be helpful in ocean farming and environmental monitoring, or could transport parts or tools from land into the water to divers working on repairing a submerged structure.

More information:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2341273-transforming-turtle-robot-can-walk-on-land-and-swim-through-water/