Robotic Chef Cooks Up Dinner

The ultimate kitchen gadget isn’t a Ginsu knife, it’s a robot.
Moley Robotics, headquartered in the U.K., working in partnership with London-based Shadow Robot and Masterchef Tim Anderson, have developed a smartphone-controlled robotic chef that can whip up gourmet dishes.

Flat Robots Can Tow or Park Your Car

Let’s take a ride into the future. You’re struggling to fit your SUV into that tight parking spot, so you call on a crew of robots to your rescue. From out of nowhere come eight flat robots, two for each wheel, and they maneuver your SUV dent-free into the tight space.

The technology exists today — although not so much for parking vehicles, yet. It’s called the Autonomous Vehicle Emergency Recovery Tool (AVERT), and it started as a European research project to offer law enforcement or military personnel a way to remove suspicious vehicles from vulnerable locations, such as tunnels, low bridges and underground parking garages.

Tesla unveils batteries to power homes

US electric carmaker Tesla Motors has unveiled batteries that can power homes and businesses as it attempts to expand beyond its vehicle business.

Chief executive Elon Musk announced the firm would build batteries that store solar energy and serve as a back-up system for consumers during blackouts.
The device would allow consumers to get off a power grid or bring energy to remote areas that are not on a grid.
Tesla plans to start shipping the units to installers in the US by this summer.
In a highly anticipated event near Los Angeles, Mr Musk said the move could help change the "entire energy infrastructure of the world".
"Tesla Energy is a critical step in this mission to enable zero emission power generation," the company said in a statement.
The rechargeable lithium-ion battery unit would be built using the same batteries Tesla produces for its electric vehicles, analysts said.
The system is called Powerwall, and Tesla will sell the 7kWh unit for $3,000 (£1,954), while the 10kWh unit will retail for $3,500 (£2,275) to installers.
To help comparisons, Tesla provided estimates of how much energy is used by different devices in the home. A flat-screen TV uses about 0.1kWh, a tumble dryer 3.3kWh and a laptop 0.05kWh.
Energy comparison firm USwitch estimates that a small family in a three-bedroom house in the UK uses about 3,200kWhs of electricity a year.
Mr Musk said the company would partner with SolarCity to install the home batteries, but there would be more companies announced.
Mr Musk is SolarCity's chairman and largest shareholder.

May Day: workers of the world unite and take over – their factories

A 19th-century slogan is getting a 21st-century makeover. The workers of the world really are uniting. At least, some of them are.
The economic meltdown unleashed by the 2008 financial crisis hit southern Europe especially hard, sending manufacturing output plunging and unemployment soaring. Countless factories shut their gates. But some workers at perhaps as many as 500 sites across the continent – a majority in Spain, but also in France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey – have refused to accept the corporate kiss of death.

This robotic chimp could one day roam the moon

(Optimum Gist)Could the next moon mission involve a small step for an ape, but a giant leap for all robots?

With renewed interest in moon exploration -- in particular the remote possibility that deposits of helium-3, believed to be in greater concentration on the moon, could one day power nuclear fusion power plants on Earth -- robots might be the ideal solution, especially to keep the costs down.

And a design from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (also known as DFKI) in Bremen, Germany, has landed on the chimpanzee as its model for unmanned lunar missions.

Quadruped stability

DFKI hopes its design -- called the iStruct Demonstrator and nicknamed "Charlie"- will capitalize on the inherent stability of the ape's quadrupedal stance without losing the chimp's versatility in climbing, grasping and moving over all types of terrain.

"We chose the ape because it allows us to study several locomotion modes," DFKI researcher Daniel Kuhn told CNN.

"For example, they have quite good quadrupedal walking abilities but they can also perform stand- up motion and walk on two legs -- their ability to do this is greater than other animals. This change in posture and walking form interested us," he said.

Four-legged locomotion, Kuhn explained, might be stable -- but for speed and agility on flat ground, bipedal walking has the edge. 

Bizarre' bat-winged dinosaur discovered in China

Story highlights

• Scientists discover new dinosaur with bat-like wings
• However, it might not have been able to fly well
• It would have glided rather than flapped

Chinese scientists say they have discovered a new dinosaur species, with bat-like wings, that sheds light on how dinosaurs may have evolved into birds.

Based on a fossil specimen discovered in China's Hebei province a decade ago, scientists estimate the bird-like dinosaur existed for a very short time 160 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, according to a new paper published in scientific journal Nature on Wednesday.

The flying creature weighed about 230 grams and was 63 centimeters in length.

Xu Xing, a paleontologist with China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, and lead author of the report, told CNN the dinosaur's fossilized remains highlighted the complexity of evolution.

Named Yi qi, or "strange wing" in Chinese, Xu said it was one of the earliest dinosaurs to show some capacity for flight -- even though it wasn't very successful.