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01 / 05
Drone Deliveries, Slow to Take Flight, Come to Silicon Valley

NBC News | Air Transport

Drone Deliveries, Slow to Take Flight, Come to Silicon Valley

“The hype around drones may finally be starting to deliver.

Drone deliveries, first touted by Amazon more than a decade ago, are slowly taking off in some parts of the U.S. On Thursday, Matternet, a drone delivery startup, launched its service to Silicon Valley…

The announcement adds to signs of growth for drone delivery. In Fort Worth, Texas, which recently became the first major city in the United States to offer commercial drone deliveries, they’re being used to deliver groceries from WalMart.

In College Station, Texas, Amazon’s drone delivery service has become common enough for residents to see the service as a noisy nuisance. And, with recent FAA approval, the company seems set to expand drone delivery operations across the city and beyond. 

Experts say many of the obstacles to drone delivery, most notably the technology and regulations, have been hurdled.”

From NBC News.

New York Times | Communications

OpenAI Folds AI-Powered Search Engine Into ChatGPT

“OpenAI has folded a search engine into its ChatGPT chatbot.

On Thursday, the A.I. start-up unveiled what it called “ChatGPT search.” OpenAI said the latest version of its online chatbot could retrieve and deliver information from across the internet in real time, including news, stock prices and sports scores.

Other tech companies, including giants like Google and Microsoft, as well as start-ups like the San Francisco-based Perplexity, have offered similar technologies. These services augment traditional internet search engines with chatbot technology that generates text as a way of answering questions and summarizing online information.”

From New York Times.

New Atlas | Science & Technology

Incredible Generalist Robots Show Us a Future Free of Chores

“Emerging startup Physical Intelligence has no interest in building robots. Instead, the team has something better in mind: powering the hardware with the continuously learning generalist ‘brains’ of AI software, so existing machines will be able to autonomously carry out a growing amount of tasks that require precise movements and dexterity – including housework.”

From New Atlas.

Wall Street Journal | Health & Medical Care

Science Is Finding Ways to Regenerate Your Heart

“It is hard to mend a broken heart, but in a few years doctors might be able to do essentially that.

Scientists are closing in on ways to help patients grow new heart muscle after a heart attack, as well as new lung tissue to treat fibrosis, corneas to erase eye pain and other body parts to gain a new chance at life.

If the science works, it could represent a new approach to medicine: reversing rather than alleviating chronic illnesses.”

From Wall Street Journal.

Science | Computing

DNA “Printing Press” Could Quickly Store Mountains of Data

“The invention of the printing press and movable type—metal letters that can be arranged and inked—led to the Renaissance and an explosion of information that continues to this day. Now, researchers report applying the concept of movable type at the molecular level to dramatically speed up the ability to encode data in strands of DNA, an incredibly high-density medium for storing information. Although only demonstrated in the lab so far, the new approach, reported today in Nature, could energize the emerging DNA data storage industry by making it cost effective to archive vital information for decades and beyond, independent researchers say.”

From Science.