Author Archives: Śmiałek Paweł

Drug created with help of AI

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Image: BBC

Treating illnesses and disorders is very important. Everybody wants to be healthy, but unfortunately treatments and drugs for certain illnesses do not exist yet. The scientists are doing everything in their power to push the researches forward. A British start-up Exscientia and Japanese pharmaceutical firm Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma have joined together in order to develop the first AI which can help scientists created drugs for those illnesses.

The fruit of their cooperation was the first drug developed with the help of AI. Typical development for a drug takes about five or more years, but this AI has done it in just 12 months. This drug is supposed to help people with obsessive-compulsive disorder and will soon enter clinical trials.

Finding a new medicine is very hard and time-consuming. Many hard decisions have to be taken, and test conducted. Scientists work tirelessly in order to help other people. There are still many illnesses without known means of treatment and finding them can take a very long time, during which many sick patients might die. This AI has learned from professionals and studied many scientific researches. It can work faster than any human and doesn’t need breaks. It can constantly work and decrease the amount of time needed to invent new drugs and medicine. This is a huge step in the direction of improving the medical field.

If the results of trials of this new drug are positive, it can open many new paths for scientists. The medical field might make great progress in a very small amount of time, leading to many new discoveries and improvements. Maybe in the future, more drugs will be invented with help of AI.

 

References:
[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51315462
[2]https://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Article/2020/01/30/AI-developed-drug-goes-to-trial

UK Police Will Soon Use Facial Recognition to Catch Criminals

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UK’s Metropolitan Police has announced that they will soon start using live facial recognition cameras for the first time on London streets. This controversial decision has been made in order to provide more protection and safety on the streets of the UK’s capital, but their main purpose will be looking for wanted criminals. Nick Ephgrave, a Met Police assistant commissioner, said: “As a modern police force, I believe that we have a duty to use new technologies to keep people safe in London.”. Unfortunately, the public isn’t sure about this new idea.

 

Image: Metropolitan Police Federation

The Met Police has already been testing this technology for the past two years and is happy with the results. According to their research the accuracy of this system, recognizing people by their facial features, is around 70%. It’s still a very new and risky way of surveillance and hasn’t been introduced in many countries. In the beginning, they will only install a few cameras in chosen communities, after consulting their inhabitants and other authorities, because, without their consent, they won’t be able to do so. They will cover only a small targeted area and work for the duration of only a few hours at a time. These limitations have been implemented because the system is still in the testing phase.

Image: The Mirror

 

The Met Police are very happy with their newest technological improvements, but what does the public think about that. At first, they weren’t very happy, but that’s not surprising. Most people would feel weird if they were to be observed by my cameras for most of their day. Many of them even objected against this idea, but after hearing how this concept can lower the crime rate in their neighborhood, they changed their minds. That’s why the consent and permission from the residents were needed, before the installation of the cameras.

The idea of cameras able to recognize people, by their facial features, is still very fresh. How does it work? After a person steps into the camera’s field of view, it precisely scans the geometry of the suspect’s face and creates from it a unique code called “faceprint”. Then, the faceprint is compared with those from the police’s database of suspects and if they match with a flagged person, a supervisor checks if the system didn’t make the mistake and if everything is alright, a special police patrol is dispatched in order to apprehend this criminal.

Image: The Guardian

The Met Police plans to increase the number of cameras in London and to extend their operating time during the day. They want to fully reduce the crime in their city, but they still have a long road before them. Maybe in the future, more countries will start using facial recognition surveillance. It has already proved its worth, and some say that it does the police job’s better than themselves.

 

References:
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51237665
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49726101
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/24/met-police-begin-using-live-facial-recognition-cameras

Circular Phone: The Future of Smartphone Design?

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In a world where the foldable phones might soon take over, one person opposes this. “A non-rectangular phone for non-rectangular people.” These are the words of Christina Cyr, the founder, and CEO of dTOOR and Cyrcle Phone. Back in august of 2016, she launched a campaign “The Cyrcle Phone” on Kickstarter and a month later the project was successfully funded with over $10,000.

The circular phone was an idea nobody really needed. Many people were at first confused about why this idea even existed. From the very beginning, mobile phones had a rectangular shape, so why is someone trying to change that? The people behind Cyrcle Phone want to change the idea that smartphones have only one shape. They think that the circle is a much better shape than the old and boring rectangle.

Image: BBC

The very first prototype of Circle Phone wasn’t impressive. It was just a small electronic device in a plastic round shell, but it was enough to get the needed funds and start working on the real one. For the next few years, it was very quiet about this project, but it returned back with new information at the CES 2020. Christine Cyr showed the world the newest version of the Cyrcle Phone and it actually looks better than one would expect. It’s now a fully functional phone in the testing phase. It features a large circular LED display, front and back camera and even two headphone jacks. On top, it has a protruding front camera and on the bottom, it’s flat, so it can stand by itself on a flat surface. Cyr says that because of its unique shape, it has many advantages. According to her, it’s easier to hold in hands and better fits in the pockets. Cyr also announces that the future versions of Cyrcle Phone will feature even more improvements, e.g. support for two SIM cards and a retractable camera.

Image: BBC

Christine Cyr says that this design was created with millennials and people from the generation z. Young people always look for new and interesting things and the Cyrcle Phone was made to look unique and stand out from the crowd. It uses the Android operating system, but there’s a problem with that. All modern operating systems and applications were made to work on rectangular phones and because of its specific UI, it can’t be properly used on Cyrcle Phone. Everything has to be changed to work with its unique design.

This product doesn’t have a set release date, but the people behind it suggest a possibility of launching it later this year. Maybe in the future people will come out with even more bizarre ideas for smartphone designs.

 

References:
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-51043488/ces-2020-cyrcle-phone-is-round-and-has-two-headphone-jacks?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Ftechnology&link_location=live-reporting-map
[2] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1662021259/make-your-own-cyrcle-phone/description
[3] https://www.cyrclephone.com/cyrcle-phone

 

Personal Trainer in Your Smartphone

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In modern times, appearance is very important for nearly everybody. Most people want to look healthy and have a good body. In order to achieve this goal, many go to the gym, where they can use a variety of different exercise equipment to improve their appearance. Unfortunately, many people are too lazy and not motivated enough to work out hard on their own or keep up with systematic training. Some even don’t really know what they should do in order to enhance themselves. In this case, they seek out help from other people. The most specialized ones in this are the personal trainers, but their help isn’t free. The gym’s membership alone can be quiet expensive and the additional cost of hiring a personal trainer may turn some people down. Fortunately, modern technology is so advanced, that even AI can become a professional personal trainer. A mix of machine learning, image recognition, and motion tracking was used in order to create smartphone apps that can help you with your training.

 

VAY Fitness Coach

VAY is an app that uses image recognition and front camera of your phone in order to check if you’re doing exercises properly. At the start, you choose one of six trainers that will help you. Next, you put your phone facing yourself few meters away and start exercising. The app will use the image from your phone’s camera to check if you’re not making mistakes and if you are, it will provide voice feedback. Those vary from simply counting how many reps you have done, to giving instructions or even motivating with entertaining comments. Unfortunately, this app only works with body-weight exercises like squats, push-ups or lunges.

 

Gymfitty

Gymfitty is very similar to VAY but it doesn’t use image recognition to check if you’re exercising properly, but it works with weight training. This app only uses voice recognition to answer any of your questions related to the workout. However, it creates a work plan and changes it as you’re getting stronger. The more you use Gymfitty, the more it learns about you and your training. That information includes the amount and length of the exercises you do, hearth beat, your body type and many more. It processes that information in order to tailor special training plans just for you.

 

Yoganotch

Yoganotch is an app for as the names suggest only yoga. It works similar to VAY, but unlike it, it uses special motion-tracking sensors that are attached to your body to detect your position. Setting up the sensors is unfortunately time-taking, but the company says that by using them, the app can more accurately detect how your body is positioned.

 

Many professional personal trainers have commented on the subject of these apps. They were surprised how accurate and functional they were. Some of them have also expressed the fear of losing their jobs to these apps in the future.

These apps show us how helpful AI can really be in the quest for a healthy body. Maybe in a few years, when this kind of technology gets more popular and advanced, we will see how it revolutionizes the ways of working out. Unfortunately, it also shows us how more and more jobs are lost every year to AI.

 

References:
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-50988753/ces-2020-how-ai-fitness-apps-now-rival-personal-trainers?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Ftechnology&link_location=live-reporting-map
[2] https://www.vay-sports.com/
[3] https://www.gymfitty.com/
[4] https://yoganotch.com/

Skyhook: First prototype of the Space Elevator

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Expensive and limited trips into space

Traveling into space was one of the biggest achievements made by humans. Nowadays the trips to outer space are very expensive and need years of preparations and tons of specialized equipment. With each year the technology advances further and we are making big steps in the direction of easier exploration of the unknown. NASA and SpaceX are constantly improving their rockets and spacecrafts in hope to finally make a big breakthrough and achieve something, about what people in the past could only dream. But those types of space transportation need to reach the velocity of about 40,000 kilometers per hour to successfully launch from the Earth into space. In order to achieve this speed, rockets need giant amounts of fuel, and because of that the payload that can be loaded onto them is very limited. This restricts the amount of the necessary equipment that can be launched with each rocket. But what if there was a way to get into space by using less fuel and with more payload? The answer is the Skyhook.

 

What is the Skyhook?

200 km long non-rotating Skyhook, as proposed by E. Sarmont in 1990

The very first concepts for the Skyhook were presented back in 1966, but the version with the most potential was proposed to NASA by Giuseppe Colombo, an Italian scientist, in the early 1970s. It was the idea of attaching a stabilized cable to satellites orbiting the Earth. The concept was improved during the years and right now it was simplified to just a cable connected a weight. This structure would orbit around the Earth and function as a ladder for spaceships. Because the Earth’s atmosphere, the lower end of the tether would hang on the height of around 80 to 150 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. The specialized spacecrafts would launch from the Earth, attach to  the bottom end of the tether and then be transported to the upper end. This would allow to build spaceships that need less fuel and can transport larger amounts of payload to the satellites. This concept is know as the Non-rotating Skyhook. The scientist also work on the more advanced Rotation Skyhook. This construction wouldn’t be much different from it’s other version, but as the name suggests it would rotate around it’s center of mass. Because of this, we could use the Skyhook to send the spacecrafts off further into space, by using its rotation speed and less fuel. This could enable humans easier and faster travels between planets in the future. One Skyhook could orbit around the Earth and the second one around the Mars. The first one would launch shuttles in the direction of Mars and the second one could grab them and let them safely land. This would also work the other way around and would the first step to building a proper space infrastructure.

A rotating Skyhook as first proposed by H. Moravec in 1977

 

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_(structure)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqwpQarrDwk

https://space.nss.org/l5-news-the-rocket-skyhook-combination/

https://skyhooksandspaceelevators.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/hello-world/