To gain insight into the type of occupations at a high risk of being affected by 4IR technologies, a team of
researchers from the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town analysed
the occupational structure of the manufacturing, engineering and related services (MER) sector labour
force.

Read more at:

https://www.nrf.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/05-NRF_SMM_Vol4Issue4_Jobs-at-High-Risk-of-Being-Displaced-by-4IR-Technologies-in-SAs-Manufacturing-Sector.pdf

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BY BRANDI VINCENT, STAFF CORRESPONDENT, APRIL 22, 2021

A scientist from the Army Research Lab gave a glimpse into its early work with biohybrid robotics.

Looking to pave the way for the production of nimble robots that can move more like living creatures than bulky androids, Army Research Laboratory scientists are embarking on fresh, high-risk studies in biohybrid robotics that could eventually fuse organic tissue with machines.

“This is wholly new to the lab, and the field itself is still relatively young. The publications associated with the first idea of successfully integrating muscle tissue or cells into some larger architecture to control motion with that same biological device didn’t really start until after 2000—and really spooled up in the early 2010s. So it’s very young, even as a discipline,” explained Dr. Dean Culver, a research scientist at the laboratory. “And that kind of gave us an opportunity to see how we could help move it forward and what expertise that we had that we could levy in that direction to really make an impact.”

In a recent interview, he briefed Nextgov on this future-facing research and the breathtaking applications it could spur.

A Potential Huge Step Forward

Culver studied mechanical engineering, and while in graduate school at Duke University, he became increasingly interested in energy management, and what he deemed the complicated ways beings get motion out of stored energy.

“After I graduated, one of the natural extensions of that is ‘Hey, how exactly do muscles work? How do organisms store energy and turn that into motion?’” he noted. “And it turns out that we knew less about the answer to that question than I had originally anticipated. So, there are obvious applications of that in robotics, and the design of mechanisms and new vehicles, for the Army. That brings us to today—I’m still working on that problem.”

It’s a complex pursuit that Culver has been tackling with the lab since about 2017. Ultimately, he envisions being able to give engineers the capability to design devices that last a long time, are really resilient, quiet—and don’t run hot. 

“And those are all things that biological systems offer,” Culver explained.

Some existing, state-of-the-art robots that the Army uses can carry things across various locations, or record what their surrounding environments look like. They typically have four wheels, are a foot or two in height, and move over paved terrain at about two miles per hour. But there’s an issue, according to Culver, who noted that researchers are reaching a point where they’re experiencing diminishing returns in the design of these robots with wheels as their primary locomotor, and batteries as their centralized power system.

“We look at a wolf in nature: It probably weighs about the same, can pull much more and can travel hundreds of miles without really eating, take a nap and do the same thing the next day,” he said. “There’s a huge performance disparity between those two things. And if we can offer the ability for robots to go out on these long missions, based on these design principles that we can understand from observing nature—that’s a huge step forward.”

Read more at: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/04/army-explores-equipping-robots-living-muscle-tissue/173559/

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Abstract

The recent digital revolution led robots to become integrated more than ever into different domains such as agricultural, medical, industrial, military, police (law enforcement), and logistics. Robots are devoted to serve, facilitate, and enhance the human life. However, many incidents have been occurring, leading to serious injuries and devastating impacts such as the unnecessary loss of human lives. Unintended accidents will always take place, but the ones caused by malicious attacks represent a very challenging issue. This includes maliciously hijacking and controlling robots and causing serious economic and financial losses. This paper reviews the main security vulnerabilities, threats, risks, and their impacts, and the main security attacks within the robotics domain. In this context, different approaches and recommendations are presented in order to enhance and improve the security level of robotic systems such as multi-factor device/user authentication schemes, in addition to multi-factor cryptographic algorithms. We also review the recently presented security solutions for robotic systems.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10207-021-00545-8

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The pandemic is forcing us to rethink everything, even how we teach. What if robots are the future of education?

This content was published on March 1, 2021 – 15:39

Sara Ibrahim

Christian Raaflaub

Thymio, Lexi, Elias, Pepper, Nao, Anastasia, Kaspar: they could be your child’s new classmates. They are diligent but not competitive, they know a lot but are not arrogant, they learn from others while helping them to learn. But instead of being flesh-and-blood children, they have a metal heart and an electronic brain. They are robots and are mainly used in education and schools.

According to forecasts, the market for educational robots is set to expand significantly in the coming years. The growing demand for collaborative robots in education and industry could also reverberate in the creation of new jobs.

In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic and school closures could significantly drive the long-term development of the educational robotics market.

But what’s special about these intelligent machines? Robots in schools and universities can act as responsive mentors and assist students and teachers through more interactive teaching that encourages sociability rather than isolation. A robot can become such a developed physical, social and emotional interface that it can read children’s facial expressions.

Read more at: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/robots-in-schools–new-teaching-methods-on-the-horizon-/46410282

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Source: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/army-wants-smaller-brigades-stronger-divisions-lots-of-robots/

By  SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on November 06, 2020

WASHINGTON: The Army wants the first casualty of the next war to be a robot, not a human being. But no amount of high technology will allow a bloodless victory, warned the new commander of the service’s Maneuver Center at Fort Benning, which runs tank and infantry training. So instead of devising some futuristic all-new force, Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe and his staff are reviving battle-tested Cold War concepts – like tank-infantry teamwork and robust division-level formations  – and updating them with a large dash of unmanned systems.

Read more at: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/army-wants-smaller-brigades-stronger-divisions-lots-of-robots/

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Source: https://www.professionalsecurity.co.uk/news/interviews/5g-question/

INTERVIEWS

5G question

14TH SEPTEMBER 2020

Can 5G make organisations more vulnerable to cyber-attacks? asks Ronen Shpirer, Director of Solutions Marketing at the cyber company Fortinet.

The roll-out of the 5G mobile network will offer the potential for download speeds of up to ten times faster than today’s, promising to change how we communicate, work and stream video. Gartner predicts that 66 per cent of organisations will take advantage of these benefits and adopt 5G by 2020 — with 59% of them planning to use 5G to support the Internet of Things (IoT) across their business. However, 5G does present a unique opportunity for cybercriminals to target more devices and launch attacks on a larger scale.

From a threat actor perspective, mobile operators weren’t all that interesting of a target, due to the fact that previous mobile generations were aimed at consumers and it was far more effective to target the users themselves, the smartphone or the content provider. But 5G has changed that outlook. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) can now offer a whole ecosystem of services, applications and content to enterprises and industries, becoming extremely critical for the economy and national infrastructure as well. Which is a far more financially enticing target for a cyber criminal. Therefore, MNOs must secure their infrastructure to maintain the service’s availability and continuity, but it’s security from an attack or even human error, as well.

If 5G is becoming an enabler for industries, these services are now an attack vector for criminals to bring down enterprises through financial means, espionage or activism. If MNOs and enterprises don’t take care of security today, it will become riskier and more complicated, if and when all critical infrastructure is run through 5G.

Take smart factories for example, all operations will eventually be supported through 5G and IIoT. Should an attacker successfully gain access to the 5G network that serves a factory, they can halt production or manipulate the application which manages robots on the factory floor, into doing things they aren’t supposed to. This becomes especially more sinister with autonomous transport and vehicles.

Read more at: https://www.professionalsecurity.co.uk/news/interviews/5g-question/

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Artificial intelligence has moved into the commercial mainstream thanks to the growing prowess of machine learning algorithms that enable computers to train themselves to do things like drive cars, control robots or automate decision-making.

But as AI starts handling sensitive tasks, such as helping pick which prisoners get bail, policy makers are insisting that computer scientists offer assurances that automated systems have been designed to minimize, if not completely avoid, unwanted outcomes such as excessive risk or racial and gender bias.

A team led by researchers at Stanford and the University of Massachusetts Amherst published a paper Nov. 22 in Science suggesting how to provide such assurances. The paper outlines a new technique that translates a fuzzy goal, such as avoiding gender bias, into the precise mathematical criteria that would allow a machine-learning algorithm to train an AI application to avoid that behavior.

“We want to advance AI that respects the values of its human users and justifies the trust we place in autonomous systems,” said Emma Brunskill, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and senior author of the paper.

Read more at: https://www.technologynetworks.com/informatics/news/bots-behaving-badly-can-we-trust-in-an-algorithm-controlled-society-327530?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79781295&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_TmdSunp6ClmtSsWTLS27Iqco6dBUdA9zJDockkECzhIYVZbiqColNIhKO-UalFMMBMUoFp5TZV5gQJEZLz1nUyv4nbg&_hsmi=79781295

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International Treaty Conference Identifies Spectrum to Make Innovative 5G Services a Reality for Consumers and Industry Globally

London: The GSMA today welcomed the international spectrum treaty adopted by the World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), which will unlock the potential for game-changing 5G services around the world. The conference, which has just concluded in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, has identified much-needed spectrum for a broad range of new ultra-high-speed and ultra-low latency consumer, business and government services.

Innovative 5G services that rely on the almost instantaneous delivery of large amounts of data are now possible through the identification of millimetre wave frequencies in the 26 GHz, 40 GHz and 66 GHz ranges. These include virtual and augmented reality applications, remote control of industrial robots, autonomous vehicles, as well as entertainment services, such as downloading 4K movies in seconds.

Read more at the link below:

GSMA: WRC-19 Opens Door to Exciting New 5G Services

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Snippet:

In 2018, a Russian state-run news agency announced that Russian forces had deployed a remote-controlled robotic tank to Syria.

Despite all this, Haner and Garcia found that there is little oversight or regulation when it comes to developing autonomous weapons, and even less public discourse about it.

“These things are happening now, and it’s really crucial that we start having conversations about what to do about it,” Haner says.

Click on the link below to read the article.

Autonomous weapons systems that utilize artificial intelligence are changing the nature of warfare, but where’s the public discussion?

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