Month: June 2022

Robots have long been used in manufacturing and other applications that need precise, fast and repeatable tasks. But making smart robots takes software. From Boulder, Colorado, Shelley Schlender reports.
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Elon Musk accused Twitter of “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights,” as the Tesla founder attempts to get information about fake and spam accounts on the platform.

The accusation came in a letter Musk sent to Twitter Monday in which he warned he could walk away from the $44 billion deal to take over the company should Twitter not provide the information he seeks.

Musk further accused Twitter of a “clear material breach” of its obligation to provide the data.

“Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover,” according to the letter.

“Twitter has, in fact, refused to provide the information that Mr. Musk has repeatedly requested since May 9, 2022, to facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the company’s platform. Twitter’s latest offer to simply provide additional details regarding the company’s own testing methodologies, whether through written materials or verbal explanations, is tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk’s data requests,” the letter said.

The social media platform has not commented on Musk’s letter. Twitter stock tumbled over 5% in early trading Monday.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.  
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A crewless robotic boat that had tried to retrace the 1620 sea voyage of the Mayflower has finally reached the shores of North America — this time in Canada instead of the Massachusetts coast where its namesake landed more than 400 years ago. 

The sleek autonomous trimaran docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sunday, after more than five weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean from England, according to tech company IBM, which helped build it. 

Piloted by artificial intelligence technology, the 50-foot (15-meter) Mayflower Autonomous Ship didn’t have a captain, navigator or human on board — though it might have helped to have a mechanic. 

“The technology that makes up the autonomous system worked perfectly, flawlessly,” said Rob High, an IBM computing executive involved in the project. “Mechanically, we did run into problems.” 

Trouble at sea

Its first attempt at the trans-Atlantic crossing to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in June 2021 was beset by technical glitches, forcing the boat to return to its home port of Plymouth, England. 

It set off again from England nearly a year later on April 27, bound for Virginia — but a generator problem diverted it to Portugal’s Azores islands, where a team member flew in to perform emergency repairs. More troubles on the open sea came in late May when the U.S.-bound boat developed a problem with the charging circuit for the generator’s starter batteries. 

AI software is getting better at helping self-driving machines understand their surroundings and pilot themselves, but most robots can’t heal themselves when the hardware goes awry. 

Nonprofit marine research organization ProMare, which worked with IBM to build the ship, switched to a back-up navigation computer on May 30 and charted a course to Halifax — which was closer than any U.S. destination. The boat’s webcam on Sunday morning showed it being towed by a larger boat as the Halifax skyline neared — a safety requirement under international maritime rules, IBM said. 
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