Four Short Links: 19 July 2018
Microrobotics, Adaptive Chips, ACM Ethics, and Data Journalism
- DARPA’s Insect-Scale Robot Olympics (IEEE) — Yesterday, DARPA announced a new program called SHRIMP: SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms. The goal is “to develop and demonstrate multi-functional micro-to-milli robotic platforms for use in natural and critical disaster scenarios.”
- DARPA Changing How Electronics Are Made (IEEE) — Step two, to be kicked off at the summit, is something we call “software-defined hardware.” That’s where the hardware is smart enough to reconfigure itself to be the type of hardware you want, based on an analysis of the data type that you’re working on. In that case, the very hard thing is to figure out how to do that data introspection, how to reconfigure the chip on a microsecond or millisecond timescale to be what you need it to be. And more importantly, it has to monitor whether you’re right or not, so that you can iterate and be constantly evolving toward the ideal solution.
- ACM Updates Ethics Code — ACM revised their code of ethics to include references to emerging technology, discrimination, and data policy. They’re also releasing case studies and an Ask An Ethicist advice column to help people understand how to apply the principles.
- Data Journalism Workshop Notes — Harkanwal Singh gave a workshop on data journalism, which yielded these excellent notes via Liza Bolton.
