Figure’s Helix is a new Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model that can help the company’s robots pick up nearly any small household object, including various items they have never encountered before, simply by following natural language prompts. This model basically unifies perception, language understanding, and learned control to overcome multiple longstanding challenges in robotics.
Photo credit: USSF 30th Space Wing | Alex Valdez
NASA’s PUNCH mission is set to explore the mysteries of the Sun’s corona and most importantly, solar wind. It will launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California no later than Feb. 28, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and provide scientists with new information about how potentially disruptive solar events form as well as evolve.
Photo credit: David Jara Boguñá
Photographer David Jara Boguñá captured a rarely seen black seadevil anglerfish swimming near the surface off the coast of Tenerife, Spain last week. What makes this so odd is that these creatures are typically found at depths of 650 to 6,500 feet below the ocean’s surface, inhabiting the deep sea region known as the bathypelagic zone or “midnight zone”.
NVIDIA engineers have developed an AI-powered neural network capable of generating ultra realistic virtual characters in real-time. Technically speaking, a neural network-based simulation super-resolution framework that can efficiently and realistically enhance a facial performance produced by a low-cost, real-time physics-based simulation.
We know the Tesla Cybertruck can take a full bullets, but how well does it fare in accidents? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) put the Cybertruck through several front / side crash protection and rollover risk tests to find out.
Clone Robotics unveils Protoclone, a slightly creepy, faceless bipedal musculoskeletal android. This anatomically accurate robot is essentially a synthetic human with 200+ degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and more than 200 sensors.
Photo credit: Andrew McCarthy
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy captured this 400-megapixel photo of the Andromeda Galaxy using two 12-inch telescopes, with one of them being set up at a remote location in central Texas, far from light pollution. That one worked for about three months shooting around the phases of the Moon when skies were darkest, and when the galaxy was highest in the sky for maximum clarity.
The Sennheiser ACCENTUM wireless headphones are a great alternative to the pricier options, without sacrificing sound quality, and you can get a pair for $99.95 shipped today, originally $199.95. Its 37mm drivers were engineered in Germany and deliver a superior audio experience, with crisp, deep bass and brilliant highs. Product page.
Microsoft’s Muse is a generative AI video game model that can generate gameplay and controller actions in real-time. It’s claimed to be the world’s first World and Human Action Model (WHAM) and will help developers learn as well as experiment with the weights, sample data, etc.
Measuring just 8.93mm thick when folded (4.21mm unfolded), the OPPO Find N5 is now the world’s thinnest foldable smartphone. Featuring a brilliant 8.12″ LTPO OLED main screen with FHD+ resolution, 2,100 nits of brightness, as well as a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, along with a 6.62″ LTPO OLED external screen.