A Row Bot that Loves Dirty Water

Row-bot/Robot Feeds on Rich Organic Matter in Dirty Water

Swimming in the sea or a pool of polluted water could be unsafe though aquatic organism like water boatman would need the nutrients in polluted water to feed on. Researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory – BRL have been motivation by the water beetles and other swimming insects and have developed the Row-bot, a type or a robot which tends to thrive in dirty water.

The Row-bot imitates the way the water boatman move and the way which it tends to feed on rich organic matter in the dirty water in which it swims. The purpose of the Row-bot project is focused to develop an autonomous swimming robot which is capable of operating indefinitely in remote unstructured areas by huntingits energy from the environment. When it tends to get hungry, the Row-bot opens it soft robotic mouth and rows forward to fill its microbial fuel cell – MFC, stomach with nutrient rich dirty water.

Thereafter it tends to close its mouth and the nutrients are gradually digested. The MFC stomach utilises the bio-degradation of organic substanceto generate electricity using bio-inspired mechanisms. When it has been recharged its electrical energy stores, the Row-bot then rows off to another new area for another drink of dirty water.

Row-bot – Environmental Clean-up Operation of Contaminants

The Row-bot had been developed at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in collaboration between the University of Bristol and UWE Bristol by PhD student, Hemma Philamore together with her PhD supervisors, Professor Jonathan Rossiter from the University of Bristol’s Department of Engineering Mathematics and Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos from the Bristol Bio-Energy Centre at the University of the West of England. Professor of Robotics at the University of Bristol and BRL, Jonathan Rossiter informed that the work shows a vital step in the progress of autonomous robots with the potential of long-term self-power. Several of the robots tend to need re-charging or refuelling and often need human assistance.

A PhD student, Hemma Philamore stated that they anticipate Row-bot to be used in environmental clean-up operations of contaminants like oil spills as well as harmful algal bloom and also in long term autonomous environmental monitoring of harmful environments, for instance those which were hit by natural as well as man-made disasters.

Combination of Two Systems – Bio-Inspired Energy Source/Bio-Inspired Actuation

The sample robot combines two systems namely a bio-inspired energy source and bio-inspired actuation. While the first subsystem portrays the power generations potential of the robot, the second duplicate system begins the refuelling process, moving the robot with an energy needed which is less than the energy that is generated by the first system.

 This has been achieved by feeding of the chemical energy contained in its surrounding liquid to support microbial metabolism within the MFC.Imitating the water boatman’s mechanism of feeding that works on a broad beaklike mouth to sweep in the liquid as well as suspended particulate matter, the Row-bot tends to feed its MFC stomach on opening and closing the mouth life orifice at each end of the MFC by bending of a flexible acetate envelope structure.

On utilising both of these systems, the robot tends to be totally independent in the water with the provision of enough energy available in the liquid.

YouTube Translation Tools Aim to Globalise Content

YouTubes – Set of Tools to Translate Titles/Description of Videos

In an attempt of expanding its global reach, YouTube had recentlyannounced a set of latest tools in order to translate the titles and the descriptions of its massive trove of videos in multiple languages. YouTube has estimated that over 80% of its videos are viewed outside the United States and over 60% of YouTube channels’ views are from outside the country of its origin.

However, according to Vladimir Vuskovic, product manager for YouTube Globalisation, numerous videos that may have been significant to viewers have not been viewed since the search process has been limited to a single language.

Vuskovic state that YouTube, with its new tools, provides the potential for titles as well as description of the videos on its site to be displayed in multiple languages that helps with the discovery of content. YouTube has been offering three new services and those who tend to make videos could translate their titles and description together with the subtitles for videos which contain them into 76 languages inclusive of French, Spanish and Mandarin. Besides this vendors who provide translation services to Google Play developers could do the translation which according to YouTube includes translation into 57 languages.

Translation Through Crowdsourcing

YouTube has stated that it would permit viewers to do the translating through crowdsourcing wherein it would screen various answers in determining the precise translation. It informed that it potentially enabled translation into any language. Video Partnerships Manager at Vice, Jordan DeBor states that the new features have the capabilities to change fundamentally the way Vice tends to distribute its YouTube content on a global scale.

 By eliminating the language barrier YouTube offers the opportunity of building new audience in local markets expanding from its existing ones’. With the support of more than 20,000 volunteer translators, TED, an important YouTube partner has experimented with crowd-sourced translations through thousands of video in over hundred languages.

They had joined the new translation tools pilot a few months back and have combined translated caption with translated titles with description for video in 11 languages for the first time.This gave rise to major growth in localized watch-time and the channel’s localized watch-time increased from 20% to 35% generally and in some cases up to 60%.

Options Important for Emerging Artists/Brands

Kristin Windbigler, Director of TED’s Open Translation Project mentioned that for over five years they have been working to remove the barrier of language from TED’s mission in extending ideas all over the world. YouTube, as one of the most important partners has pushed the boundaries in making the videos accessible as well as discoverable for viewers across the globe.

According to the company, the website Vice, in a test, translated videos in Spanish and Portuguese and observed viewing time had increase over 100%. TED director of global distribution, Deron Triff, stated that the company uploaded around 60,000 translated videos on YouTube on a single day in June, with provision of access to viewers speaking Farsi, Turkish, Russian and Vietnamese beside various other languages.

Triff has mentioned that for small associations like TED, YouTube develops an on-ramp for them to the parts of the world where they would be unable to set up relationships. A social media specialist at Digipendent Media, Daniel Aguayo mentioned that the option seems important for emerging artists as well as brands though a major steps also towards growing YouTube’s general audience.

The Computer That Knows what you are Thinking

Emotion Reading Computers

We as humans have the advantage of masking our innermost feelings whenever the need arises. However, there could be a change now since the computers have been enhanced with not only at recognising faces but also in comprehending what could an individual be thinking in fact. Daniel McDuff has been working ona project where he has been creating emotion reading computers, at the Massachusetts Institute.

 This could ultimately lead to machines which may have emotional intelligence or even everyday objects that have the potential to empathise with our moods, like a mirror that knows how one may be feeling about the way you look, a fridge which could offer food that may match one’s state of mind or a car which may recognises when they are stressed.

The method adopted by Dr McDuff has been progressing through a basic webcam which tends to detect a range of different facial movement from frowning to smiling. It then translates into seven of the most normally recognised emotional states namely, sadness, amusement, surprise, fear, joy, disgust and contempt.

The computer learns from a large database of four million video from volunteers as well as paid-for market researchers, in different emotional states and the procedures are regularly updated as well as tested against real world situations

Integrate Voice Analysis& Other Means of Physical Well being

The next step is to integrate the voice analysis and other means of physical wellbeing like the heart rate and the hand gestures. So far the data has revealed that there are huge differences in emotional responses among men and women and in the various age groups and demographics.

Dr McDuff informed BBC that there are significant differences in various countries in the way people tend to express themselves. He further added that `in collectivist cultures where the family group seems more important, people are expressive in small groups while in more individualistic cultures namely Western Europe, the stress is on building relationships with strangers and people get more positive around people who they are less familiar with’.

Besides this, he also observed that when people tend to mask their real feelings, the computer is capable in recognizing subtle difference. He states that if they are frustrated, they will often smile, however, that smile would be different from the smile when one is genuinely amused.

For Online Education

Another field which the system could be utilised is for the purpose of online education where it could provide advice to tutors on how students seem to be managing and understanding the work. The system which Dr McDuff together with his team has been researching had been tested with the BBC’s audience measurement group offering perceptions to the response to different shows.

 He revealed that among those tested was a prime time comedy show which went down differently with the different demographics, ethnicities and ages. He now intends to use the technology for mental health in partnership with Affectiva, a MIT by-product for which he is the research director.

He states that it could be scary to imagine that someone could measure one’s emotions without the person realising it and hence it could be important to think about the social impact of such technology. It is essential that everyone actively decides to share their data.

 Affective computing seems to be a growing area and companies like Creative Virtual are creating tools for customer service technology which enables a computer to tell the difference between a customer who seems to be upset and the one who is not.

Study-Words can Deceive, But Tone of Voice Cannot

Computer System Can Predict – Improved/Worsened Relationship

New Computer system can now predict if you and your spouse would be having an improved or worsened relationship centred on the tone of voice which one may use while speaking to each other with an accuracy of almost 79%. The system, in fact had done a better job of predicting marital success of couples with serious matrimonial issues than description of the therapy sessions that were provided by relationship experts which were reported in a study on September 6, 2015, in Proceedings of Interspeech.

Hundreds of conversations from more than one hundred couples have been recorded by researchers that were taken at the time of marriage therapy session over two years and later tracked their marital status for five years.

Led by Shrikanth Narayanan and Panayiotis Georgiou of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, an interdisciplinary team, together with doctoral student Md Nasir and collaborator Brian Baucom of University of Utah, created a system which broke the recordings into acoustic features utilising speech-processing technique. These comprised of pitch, intensity, `jitter’ as well as shimmer besides several other things like tracking warbles in the voice which could specify moments of high emotion.

Voice Acoustic Features

Nasir mentioned that `what one says is not the only that tends to matter, it is very essential how it is said. The study confirms that it holds for a relationship of couple also’. The voice acoustic features takentogether provided the team’s program, a substitute for the subject’s communicative state and the changes to the state over the course of an individual therapy as well as across therapy sessions.

Significantly, the features were not scrutinized in isolation but the effect of one partner on the other and longitudinally over various therapy sessions was considered. Narayanan commented that it was not around studying the emotions but it was about studying the effect of what the partners says on one’s emotions.

Georgiou stated that looking at one instance on the behaviour of a couple limits their observational power. But observing at numerous points of time and looking at both individuals as well as the dynamics of dyad could be helpful in identifying courses of their relationship. At times it could for the best or at times they could be heading towards deterioration of relationship.

Behavioural Codes – Positive - Acceptance/Negative – Blame

Controlling of such method is to aid in identifying how domain experts could advise couples in a better manner in improving relationships, according to Georgiou. Baucom on his part commented that psychological practitioners as well as researchers have known for long that the way partners tend to talk and discuss issues has important implication with regards to the health of their relationships.

 But the absence of efficient and reliable tools for measuring important elements in those conversations seems to be a major impediment in their widespread clinical use. The findings signified a main step forward in making objective measurement of behaviour practical as well as feasible for couple therapists. Once it was modified, the program was later tested against behavioural analysis made by human experts who had studied the couples, behavioural codes namely, the positive qualities such as acceptance or negative qualities like blame.

Moreover the team also observed that studying voice directly instead of the expert created behavioural codes provided a much accurate sight on the future of the couple. Thereafter utilising behavioural signal procedure, a framework to understand human behavioural computationally, the team intends to use language, for instance spoken words and nonverbal information like body language in cultivating the prediction of how effective would the treatment be.

Yahoo Stops Some Users Accessing Emails in Ad-Blockers Row

Yahoo – Stopped Users from Accessing Emails, Using Ad-Blocking Software

Yahoo has confirmed that it has stopped some of it customers from accessing their email if they tend to be using ad-blocking software in their browser. Some of the users in the US had reported that Yahoo mail had been displaying message requesting them to disable their ad-blocker prior to accessing their inbox.

A Yahoo spokesperson has commented that `at Yahoo, they are constantly developing and testing new product experiences. Members from an ad-blocking forum had informed that they had managed to evade the limit already. It is said that ad-blocking has turned out to be controversial and the technology companies have responded in various ways.

Apple had updated its mobile operating system iOS, in September to enable third party ad-blocker to be installed though they did not remove Apple’s own ads that serve up in apps. On the other hand Google introduced a paid subscription version of YouTube enabling viewers to remove ads for a monthly fee, on the video streaming site.

Ad-blocking advocates state that disabling advertisements could increase the battery life of smartphone as well as reduce the usage of mobile data. It could also avert users from being tracked by advertisers online as well as protect devices from malware which could be served up when an advertising network tends to get compromised.

Test – A New Product Experience

Yahoo had acknowledged adverts on its homepage in 2014 that it had been infected with malware for four days. However, the company presently tends to rely on advertising to earn revenue from its Yahoo Mail service that is available for use, free of cost.

Yahoo has not disclosed how long the test would be running or if it would ultimately roll out the new feature to its Yahoo Mail users. It was observed that they were unable to access Yahoo Mail through Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox when the browser had installed the ad-blocking extension. As per BBC, Yahoo states that it is progressing the testing which is a new product experience focused for users in the U.S.

Though it is unknown how many users tend to get affected by this test, Yahoo has informed that this test will be running for a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the USA. Few users of USA had reported that a message in Yahoo Mail has asked them to turn off their ad blocker in order to access their inbox.

Users Barred from Viewing the Site

A member on an ad-blocking forum had informed that they have found a way of bypassing the restriction of Yahoo and in September, internet users trying to access the Washington Post’s website on using the software noticed that they were barred from viewing the site and were navigated to a subscription page and requested to enter their email address in order to unlock the content they intended to read.

This is about a significant discussion regarding customer choice; controls and the level of ads which customers tend to receive. This change was met with contempt by the users most of whom were keen to stop utilising the service and accepting its services however does not mean that users need to agree to the statement – Yahoo may include advertisements and these advertisements seems necessary for Yahoo to deliver the Yahoo Services.