Monthly Archives: October 2019

New Art

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Works generated by AICAN (https://www.aican.io)

Most people – by which I mean those who sometimes visit an art gallery on holidays – perceive art as arduous, labor-intensive paintings or sculptures with a great aesthetic. We usually associate it with renaissance beaux-arts, Italian mannerism, Rubenesque characters or baroque era. Needless to say, as art is a very subjective phenomenon, there is no particular definition of it. But we usually agree upon the definition of an artist: a person who creates the art.

But what if the art was created by artificial intelligence? Can we perceive a painting created by an algorithm as an art?

Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, Obvious

For the New York art scene, the answer to this question is yes. In October 2018, the auction at the New York auction house Christie’s changed the game. An algorithm-generated print, Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, was sold for an enormous price of $432,500. The upshot of this occurrence was creating the so-called “AI-art gold rush.” Many programmers found their artistic niche on the market and started creating various algorithms to generate art. Among their works, we can find such as Psychodelic Wisteria, Unity Rising and Divided Sunshine by AICAN, DeepDream algorithm by Alexander Mordvintsev, and many others. 

 

The main machine learning class systems to produce AI-art are generative adversarial networks (GANs). It works following way: an artist provides GAN with a training set (a database where he or she uploads for example 300 Medieval European paintings), and then the algorithm creates a new canvas imitating the data set. This way, the system can generate authentically looking medieval art in no time with only an algorithm defined by the algebraic formula. Of course, we can influence the final output by creating one more random painting or playing with the training set: adding our sketches or drawings. But in many cases, AI-art is very eccentric due to its face deformations, as an algorithm does not know how to imitate a human face accurately.

 

So the heated debate is about whether we can perceive these algebraically generated pixels as art? 

 

The critics of AI-art argue that painting with no intent and message cannot be art. Not only can’t it convey any profound virtues and values as the machine doesn’t know basic human emotions, but also we cannot identify with the system. But isn’t art also a process? A process of creation, reflection, and a bridge between creativity and reality? Behind each of the algorithms stands a person who created the generative model and gathered the data set. Many of them created heaps of distinctive artworks to upload them to the data set. Moreover, to tackle the originality part, there is an evolution to GAN – a new system CAN: creative adversarial network. This system creates smooth abstract images in order not to produce anything that could be recognizable.

 

Over the years, society was always intrigued by the collaboration between art and technology. Twenty and twenty-first-century enabled us to see the output of it, which in many cases can be compared to human-made art. Between DeepDream or Magenta, where everyone can create their AI-art and Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, sold at the New York auction house, is a striking disparity but, arguably, both of them can be perceived as copacetic, eccentric works of art.  

 

 

References:

  • https://aiartists.org/ai-generated-art-tools
  • https://www.americanscientist.org/article/ai-is-blurring-the-definition-of-artist
  • https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/ai-portrait-ap.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1033
  • https://www.aican.io
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network   (GAN)

 

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Microchips Are Getting Under The Skin of Swedes

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Our reality is starting to look more and more like a dystopian sci-fi novel by the day, and Sweden seems to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to that.

The Scandinavian country started implanting its residents with microchips that enable them to pay with a swipe of the hand (without credit cards or cash),  replace their national ID, enter offices or buildings (instead of keys and key cards), substitute gym cards and bus tickets, as well as monitor their health.

The cutting-edge technology has risen to popularity among Swedes, as thousands of them hopped on the microchipping train, even organizing and attending « Implant Parties » to have the insert done.

Although former tattooist and body piercer turned microchipping pioneer Jowan Österlund maintains that the technology and procedure are completely safe, it is deemed invasive enough and futuristic enough to cause concern.

Libberton, a British Sweden-based scientist, expressed his concerns, especially when it comes to the safety of the data the microchips can collect.

“People have shown they’re happy to give up privacy for convenience,” he stated. ” The chip is very convenient, so should we accept our data being shared very widely before we know the risks? ”

To gain a better understanding of said ‘risks’, we have to delve into how the technology actually works.

The microchips are about the size of a grain of rice and are deposited into the back of the hand, mostly above the thumb, through a syringe.

Using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology (also used in virtual collar plates for pets), when the small device is activated by a reader within a few centimeter’s distance, data is exchanged between the microchip and the reader through electromagnetic waves.

The implants themselves cannot read information, they are only able to generate it, which is why they are considered ‘passive’.

However, unlike other devices that generate the same type of data (Key cards, smartphones… etc), people who get the microchip implanted cannot easily separate themselves from it.

References:

1-https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6306569/Thousands-Swedes-getting-microchip-IDs-inserted-hands.html

2-https://nypost.com/2019/07/14/swedish-people-are-getting-chip-implants-to-replace-cash-credit-cards/

3-https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/sweden-sees-microchip-implant-revolution-190221190206244.html

 

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Is Netflix doomed?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The subscription-based economy is nothing new for a typical consumer. We’ve all heard and some of us probably own an account on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime or Netflix. These are only a few of the biggest players that everyone knows about. The list of services that you can assign a part of wallet every month to goes on and on. However, this time we’ll focus just on the biggest video streaming platforms. That way from tens of thousands of companies we just narrow it down to 5, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV and Hulu.

Let’s start with the biggest and the first major player in that territory, Netflix. It started as a DVD rental store in 1997. Their innovative DVD mailing technology became a hit. Nowadays their idea seems simple. You go to their website, search a title that you desire, order it, and after a day or two, you find it in your mailbox. However, that wasn’t the case in the late ’90s. Then, after 10 years of a rental massacre on its competitor, Blockbuster, Netflix introduced streaming services. The first of its kind on such a large scale. From a comfortable point of your couch, you could surf through numerous titles of movies and tv shows. Later on, Netflix wanted its share of video producing and started an “Originals” category. Their creations are a huge hit across the globe.

Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania netflix vs disney vs apple

Netflix dominated video streaming for almost a decade with their list of customers booming to a whopping number of 117 million. Although that seems like an insane amount of accounts, the company itself is becoming scared. The first time in ten years they didn’t meet their forecast. In 3 months until September 2019, they projected to add 7 million new subscribers, but only 6.8 million started and paid for their account. The question is, should Netflix be worried? Well that depends, although they are still growing, the competition of Apple TV and Disney+ will probably want their share of customers. These two companies are starting their video streaming platform in November and some of Netflix’s subscribers will probably want to migrate.

The fact is, Netflix had a monopoly on streaming for a long time. The competition had to begin sometime. What will Netflix do? Well, for all ofyou parasites that are using someone else’s account I have some bad news. Their plan is to reduce or even eliminate account sharing tradition. How will they accomplish that? That is still unknown but fear the inevitable.

Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania netflix account meme

References:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/21/netflixs-q3-earnings-a-new-record-and-alarm-bells.aspx

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/255/041/0f4.jpg

https://www.geo.tv/assets/uploads/updates/2019-10-18/251710_7819512_updates.jpg

Multiple Realities

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Envision what it may resemble to live and work in our reality in 2030 and past. Maybe, on account of headways in broadened reality (XR), an umbrella term used to depict vivid advancements that can consolidate the physical and virtual universes, you may have the option to search for another home anyplace on the planet as though you were quite site or head to lunch in some faraway land. By 2022, the XR market is relied upon to reach $209 billion, which is multiple times what it is today. This gigantic development could mean the substances of our 2030 lives are past our creative mind’s capacity to get a handle on.

Different Types Of Realities

Extended Reality(XR)

XR is a rising umbrella term for all the vivid innovations. The ones we as of now have today—enlarged reality (AR), computer generated reality (VR), and blended reality (MR) in addition to those that are still to be made. Every single vivid innovation broaden the truth we experience by either mixing the virtual and “genuine” universes or by making a completely vivid encounter. Late research uncovered that over 60% of respondents trusted XR will be standard in the following five years. To show signs of improvement picture of XR, how about we survey every one of the current innovations that exist today.

Augmented reality (AR)

In aumented reality, virtual data and items are overlaid on this present reality. This experience upgrades this present reality with computerized subtleties, for example, pictures, content, and liveliness. You can get to the experience through AR glasses or by means of screens, tablets, and cell phones. This implies clients are not segregated from this present reality can even now cooperate and see what’s happening before them. The most outstanding instances of AR are the Pokémon GO game that overlays advanced animals onto this present reality or Snapchat channels that put computerized items, for example, caps or glasses onto your head.

Virtual Reality

Rather than augmented reality, in virtual reality, clients are completely inundated in a reenacted computerized condition. People must put on a VR headset or head-mounted showcase to get a 360 – degree perspective on a fake world that tricks their cerebrum into accepting they are, e.g., strolling on the moon, swimming under the sea or ventured into whatever new world the VR engineers made. The gaming and media outlet were early adopters of this innovation; be that as it may, organizations in a few ventures, for example, medicinal services, development, building, the military, and more are seeing VR as valuable.

Mixed Reality(MR)

In mixed reality, computerized and genuine articles coincide and can interface with each other progressively. This is the most recent vivid innovation and is some of the time alluded to as hybrid reality. It requires a MR headset and significantly more preparing force than VR or AR. Microsoft’s HoloLens is an extraordinary model that, e.g., enables you to put computerized objects into the room you are remaining in and enable you to turn it around or interface with the advanced article in any capacity conceivable. Organizations are investigating ways they can give blended reality something to do to take care of issues, bolster activities, and improve their organizations.

 

Applications Of Extended Realities(XR)

There are numerous reasonable uses of XR. Here are a couple:

· Retail: XR enables clients to attempt before they purchase. Watch maker Rolex has an AR application that enables you to take a stab at watches on your genuine wrist, and furniture organization IKEA enables clients to put furniture things into their home through their cell phone.

· Preparing: Particularly throughout everyday life and-demise conditions, XR can give preparing apparatuses that are hyper-practical that will help troopers, human services experts, pilots/space travelers, physicists, and more make sense of answers for issues or figure out how to react to hazardous conditions without putting their lives or any other person’s in danger.

· Remote work: Laborers can associate with the home office or with experts situated the world over such that makes the two sides feel like they are in a similar room.

· Advertising: The conceivable outcomes to connect with planned clients and purchasers through XR will have promoting experts contemplating all the capability of utilizing XR to further their organization’s potential benefit.

· Land: Discovering purchasers or occupants may be simpler if people can “stroll through” spaces to choose on the off chance that they need it in any event, when they are in some other area.

· Excitement: As an early adopter, media outlets will keep on finding better approaches for using vivid advancements.

Disadvantages of XR

Those creating XR advancements are engaging with a portion of the difficulties to standard reception. To start with, XR advancements gather and procedure enormous measures of definite and individual information about what you do, what you take a gander at, and even your feelings at some random time, which must be secured.

What’s more, the expense of executing the innovation needs to descend; something else, numerous organizations will be not able put resources into it. It is basic that the wearable gadgets that permit a full XR experience are chic and agreeable just as constantly associated, savvy, and vivid. There are critical specialized and equipment issues to explain that incorporate however are not restricted to the showcase, power and warm, movement following, availability and basic enlightenment—where virtual articles in a genuine world are indistinct from genuine items particularly as lighting shifts.

As every day passes, we are one bit nearer to settling these issues so we will see a lot more standard utilizations of all XR advancements over the coming years

Reference:https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/08/12/what-is-extended-reality-technology-a-simple-explanation-for-anyone/#66f64e4e7249

Is Minecraft going to revolutionise education?

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Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania minecraft classroom

Remind Yourself about lessons in Your primary or secondary school. Some of them were presumably boring and even if they took place only once a week, You did not want to participate in them at all. Such a phenomenon occurs because how the information is delivered, for instance, boring lectures, during which no one except a teacher is permitted to say anything. Nowadays it became very difficult to make young students interested in a subject with traditional teaching methods. That’s why more and more apps and educational platforms are being developed to help teachers to make their lessons impressing.

Following the trend of a growing number of interactive tools, which help to teach, Microsoft decided to get into the market introducing “Minecraft: Education Edition”. Most of today’s children know what Minecraft is and probably have played it. For those, who don’t know it, Minecraft is a computer game, with infinite possibilities to discover the world by building things and completing achievements. More and more teachers around the world start using this method.  All of them could easily introduce this approach on their lessons because there are special guides and scenarios of classes on the Internet and also everyone can consult a professional mentor, who will help to implement Minecraft Edu in real life.

Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania minecraft education

“It is better to build it and understand it than write it on paper and understand it”

Some people would probably doubt if Minecraft is appropriate for every school subject, but the idea is admired by teachers of various subjects, from all around the world. On the website of Minecraft: Education Edition there are special materials for teachers uploaded. Subject kits for Language Arts, Science, History and Culture, Computer Science, Math, Art and Design can be found there.

It has been proven that children, whose teacher implemented Minecraft Edu, tend to learn more efficient, but on the other hand, such way of learning cannot be introduced in every case. The first and main reason is that in some countries, schools have not enough money to provide their students with such facilities as computer labs and they cannot require children to have their laptops. Secondly, would old teachers, who have been teaching traditionally for all of their lives introduce such an innovative method? Probably most of them would not do that. Finally, teachers and parents are not always able to monitor how much time do children spend in front of the screen, so if this was neglected, young students could be exposed to “screen addiction”.

References:

1)https://minecrafteducation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

2)https://www.microsoft.com/pl-pl/education/minecraft

3)https://education.minecraft.net

4)https://www.educationandbehavior.com/how-does-minecraft-education-edition-work-is-it-good-for-students/

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FACEBOOK’S NEW ACQUISITION OF TECH START-UP

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On 23rd of September this year, Vice President of augmented and virtual reality
announced Facebook’s agreement of acquiring CTRL-labs.

CTRL-labs is tech start-up that is still in process of developing wristbands that
would allow us, human beings connect and control digital system just by using
our intuition.
It’s quite fascinating how our brain signals would have conduct computers without
any physical interaction.
I won’t bore you with intricacies of detailed structure and function of it, but those
who are interested can click here and see the start-up CEO’s presentation.
He explains how these bracelets would actually work(go to 5:40).

As you would expect, some people are not so happy about the idea of
Facebook having access to the data of people’s thoughts after platform’s
scandal involving their unethical behavior by sharing Facebook users data with
third parties without permission.

Please leave your opinion about platform’s new acquisition.
How Facebook’s access to our nervous system can affect the reality?

References:

  1. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/23/facebook-buys-startup-building-neural-monitoring-armband/
  2. https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/facebook-acquires-mind-reading-startup-ctrl-labs/
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8pB8sNBGlE
  4. https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10109385805377581
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The future of gaming with Augmented reality

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You may have heard of a popular game called Pokémon Go or even might have played it, the main component of their game was using Augmented reality. Coined in 1990 by Tom Caudell [1] Augmented reality is the result of using technology to superimpose information — sounds, images, and text — on the world we see [2]. AR is quite different from Virtual Reality (VR) because in VR there are computer-generated environments whereas in AR it adds something to reality.

First created in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull at the University of Utah. It was a head-mounted display system suspended from the ceiling, The system was primitive both in terms of user interface and realism, and the graphics comprising the virtual environment were simple wireframe rooms [3]. Since then it has been used in military, flight navigation, and entertainment such as theatre production [4].

The first video game which incorporated augmented reality was The Eye of Judgment (SONY, 2007). Played on PS3 the console’s PS Eye camera gathered real-world images and read the coded information on small physical trading cards. This information allowed the game to bring the characters on the trading cards to life on the screen[5]. The biggest hit was Pokémon GO developed and published by Niantic. According to Sensor Tower in the first three years, it had earned a total of $ 2.65B [6].

By 2021, experts predict that there will be a major advancement in this industry with gaming companies mainly focusing on AR-based products. This year, Apple, Google, and Snapchat released their AR platforms and opened the door wide for gaming developers to produce a variety of apps, games, and features [7]. Some areas of AR which can be improved are a better field of view (FOV), better brightness, battery life, and 3D sensing capabilities [7].

Ultimately AR will continue growing as it has improved the gaming experience such as allowing the player to play for themselves rather than seeing an avatar running around and performing various actions.

Another game like Pokémon GO is Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The Developers are Niantic, Portkey Games, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, WB Games San Francisco and it was released on June 21, 2019

References

  1. Rauterberg, M. (2002, July 10). History of HCI, Slide no. 96 of 114. (c) TU/e, Eindhoven. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/presentations/hci-history/sld096.htm
  2. Emspak, J. (2018, June 01). What is Augment reality?. LiveScience. Retrieved October 20,  2019, from https://www.livescience.com/34843-augmented-reality.html
  3. Last updated October 8th, 2019. (C) 2004–2019 Jeremy Norman & Co., Inc. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from http://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=861
  4. Williams II, D. (2016 May 05). The History of Augmented Reality. HuffPost. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-history-of-augmented-_b_9955048
  5. First augmented reality game for a console. Guinness world records. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-augmented-reality-game-for-a-console/
  6. Nelson, R. (2019, July 18). Pokémon GO Grossed More Than Candy Crush In Its First Three Years, On Track to Cross $3 Billion in 2019. Sensortower. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from https://sensortower.com/blog/pokemon-go-revenue-year-three
  7. Wallace, F. (2018, November 25). The future of AR gaming after Pokémon GO. Headstuff. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from https://www.headstuff.org/entertainment/gaming/the-future-of-ar-gaming-after-pokemon-go/
  8. For the video: Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. (2019, June 17, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite | Gameplay Trailer. Retrieved October 20,2019 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=22&v=ngHLSmAvCMQ

 

Cancer Vaccines

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It is not a surprise for every each of you, that the most common disease nowadays is cancer. It kills over 600, 000 people every year.

We cannot predict it, we cannot avoid. Believe me, one of the most heart-breaking news you can receive today is that you, or somebody from your close circle of communication( family, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend) caught such an illness. Why? We have no medicines to stop it. Humanity is powerless, when it concerns to cancer.

Was powerless.

Surprisingly, but not so much time ago, scientists invented a vaccine, which can destroy (only) cancer cells by identifying mutations, which are unique to every type of the disease. This treatment is used only in case of experiment now, but let’s hope it goes well.

Scientists created a ‚smart treatment‘, which «unlike conventional chemotherapies, limits damage to healthy cells. The attacking immune cells could also be vigilant in spotting any stray cancer cells after the initial treatment.» They used a big amount of specialized equipment while doing researches . It helped them made vaccine destroy only cancer cells by providing medicine with copies of the mutations.

Once Bill Gates said that «the possibility of cancer vaccines began to develop in 2008 when geneticists first published the sequenced genome of a cancerous tumor cell.» But now, this is our obligation to use these knowledge in the right way and help hundreds of thousands people yearly.

Refferences:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/bill-gates-custom-cancer-vaccineshttps://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2019/
https://www.currenttime.tv/a/vaccine-against-cancer/29954838.html

Web Conferencing in business

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WEB CONFERNCING

What a great age we are living in now! There are so many different kinds of technologies that make our life easier. Washing machine makes washing process easier and simple, so that everyone can do it without spending energy and time. The same in business, new apps and devices allow entrepreneurs to spend less amount of money and time on performing important tasks of the company. The best example of such technology is a web conferencing.

Web Conferencing – it’s a new way of organizing formal meetings using an internet and a computer.

The main benefit of a virtual conference is that company don’t need to pay almost anything to organize a perfect meeting. For example, to organize a usual conference you need to order a conference hall ( if your office doesn’t have one ), pay for tickets ( if you was invited on a meeting in another city or country ) and of course bring some materials with important information that are not really comfortable to carry sometimes. But in case of virtual conference, all you had to do is just setup a special software, get yourself a headset and some basic computer skills to be able to download important files.

Another not less important benefit of web conferencing is that its saves a big amount of business time. Time is the most irreplaceable resource and its plays a big role in completing a company mission, so entrepreneurs must save it as much as possible using all kinds of tools.

On the other hand, web conferencing has some disadvantages:

1)Сonnection problems with overseas conferences. If you are living in Ukraine and your partner living in USA most likely that lags will occur sometimes and it will interrupt your conversation.

2)Pretty modern hardware needed, because conference program system requirements are really high.

3) Basic computer skills required to deal with the files that conference members will be sending.

The best example of web conferencing tool can be Zoom. Zoom– cheap and pretty easy in usage, allows us to collaborate with coworkers and clients through using fast file sharing system, video chat and ability to stream your screen.

To sum up, I will say that Web Conferencing is a pretty attractive kind of making  formal meetings. But if your company has the ability to organize conference or fly on the conference to another country, I think you would better do it, because live communicating is much more effective than speaking through the webcam.

 

References:

https://arrowvoice.com.au/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-web-conferencing/

https://blog.clickmeeting.com/videoconferencing-helps-business-communication

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-conferencing-businesses-165.html

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-using-conferencing-business-3093.html

 

 

 

Lightning fast MIT Robot

Reading Time: 2 minutes

MIT is worldwide known for its robotics research. In the past, they managed to create a robot breaking the world record in solving a Rubik’s Cube in only 0.38 seconds, the first four-legged robot to do a backflip, etc.
Sounds impressive, but with their newest development, they can’t just look cool, but it can be used in many ways and bring the robots on to the next level of productivity.
Picking up objects and flipping them around is easy for people. We do it every day, e.g., when we are trying to take notes at University, work, or at home. We pick up the pen and bring it into the right position and start writing. The same scenario is when we are eating a sandwich: We move it a little bit to bite from the other corner.
For our robot friends, however, it is tough to pick up things without either dropping them or destroying them and then to add the factor of turning the object they just mastered to hold? It sounds like a difficult task.
Therefore it took robots a long time to plan and calculate all the factors like geometry, friction, all the possibilities of how the object can be turned, etc. This whole process took tens of minutes previously, which sounds still impressive, bearing in mind that if we measured and calculate these numbers, we would sit there for hours and probably still fail.
MIT mastered to bring down the planning time of the robot to less than a second.
How is that possible? The robot is pushing the object against a stationary surface and slides its claw down the object until it has it in the right position.

For the future, this can mean that instead of a specialized tool like a screwdriver, machines would have more something like a hand, giving them the ability to pick up different kinds of tools and do various tasks.
This improvement would most likely save the companies space and also money since, for multiple steps, they would need one robot.

This is another case were thinking out of the box, by simply using the surroundings, has a huge effect.

References:

https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/rubiks-cube

http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-mini-cheetah-first-four-legged-robot-to-backflip-0304

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/17/mit-develops-a-way-for-robots-to-grasp-and-manipulate-objects-much-faster/

http://news.mit.edu/2019/robotic-faster-grip-adjust-1017

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