The current updates are only available to about 100,000 owners of 2021 model year F-150s, Mustang Mach-Es and the upcoming Bronco, but Ford plans to spread the tech across its entire lineup as models are updated. It plans to make 33 million vehicles with the capability by 2028.

According to Alex Purdy, the company’s connectivity business director, updates can fix software glitches in the vehicles’ computers and will be able to make recall repairs, offer new features and cut warranty claims. In addition, there are about 80 different computers in Ford’s most sophisticated vehicles that control everything from the infotainment centre to brakes and transmission shifts.

Ford already has sent out an update to fix a lighting issue that drained batteries. One of the next updates will be a new version of Amazon Alexa that allows vehicles to communicate with the home assistant without the use of a smartphone. Ford also will roll out touchscreen drawing software and simple games for the Mach-E electric SUV.

Alex Purdy said software can identify potential problems in vehicles and fixes can be sent out if the software can solve the problem. “That fix can be done remotely, it doesn’t require you to go into a dealership,” he said.

Nowadays more than 6 million vehicles have the modems and collect vehicle data, but only those with the latest generation of electrical systems can get full over-the-internet updates. According to Ford, vehicles equipped for its new “Blue Cruise” hands-free driver-assist system will get the software needed to run it over the internet.

Published today, the paper studied the progression of lung opacities in chest CT images of COVID patients and extracted insights about the temporal relationships between CT features and lab measurements. A better understanding of the progression of lung opacities in COVID patients could help inform clinical decisions in patients with pneumonia and yield insights during clinical trials for therapies to treat the virus.

Тhe researchers used an NVIDIA Clara AI segmentation model to automate the time-consuming task of segmenting the total lung in each CT scan. Expert radiologists reviewed the total lung segmentation and manually segmented the lung opacities.

To track the progression of the disease, the researchers used generalized temporal curves, which correlated the CT imaging data with lab measurements. Then they used 3D visualizations to reconstruct the evolution of COVID opacities in one of the patients.

Photo Credits: NVIDIA Developer, News Center

What they found was that lung opacities appeared between one and five days before symptom onset, and peaked a day after symptoms began. They also analyzed two opacity subtypes — ground-glass opacity and consolidation — the ground glass opacities appeared earlier in the disease and persisted for a time after the resolution of the consolidation.

In the paper, the researchers showed how CT dynamic curves could be used as a clinical reference tool for mild COVID-19 cases and might help spot cases that grow more severe over time. These curves could also assist clinicians in identifying chronic lung effects.

The deep learning models were developed using the NVIDIA Clara application framework for medical imaging.

Soft robots are a growing trend in the industry due to their versatility. Their soft parts can handle delicate objects and the soft bodies can help robots float or squeeze into tight spaces.

The soft robot is described online on March 25 in the following journal. The inspiration struck from the mind of Shyni Varghese, professor of biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science, and orthopaedic surgery at Duke. Vardhman Kumar, a PhD student in Varghese’s laboratory and first author of the paper commented:

“I got an email from Shyni from the airport saying she had an idea for a soft robot that uses a self-healing hydrogel that her group has invented in the past to react and move autonomously. But that was the extent of the email, and I didn’t hear from her again for days. So the idea sort of sat in limbo for a little while until I had enough free time to pursue it, and Shyni said to go for it.”

In 2012, Varghese created a self-healing hydrogel that reacts to changes in pH in a matter of seconds. Whether it be a crack in the hydrogel or two adjoining pieces “painted” with it, a change in acidity causes the hydrogel to form new bonds, which are completely reversible when the pH returns to its original levels.

Varghese’s idea was to find a way to use this hydrogel on a soft robot that could travel across water and indicate places where the pH changes. With the help of Ung Hyun Ko, a postdoctoral fellow, Kumar began designing a soft robot based on a fly. After several iterations, the shape of a dragonfly engineered with a network of interior microchannels was settled. This shape allows the soft robot to be controlled with air pressure.

The body of the robot was created to be about 2.25 inches long with a 1.4-inch wingspan—by pouring silicone into an aluminium mould and baking it. The team used soft lithography to create interior channels.

That’s how DraBot was born.

DraBot works by controlling the air pressure coming into its wings. Microchannels carry the air into the front wings, where it escapes through a series of holes pointed directly into the back wings. If both back wings are down DraBot goes nowhere but if both wings are up, it goes forward.

The team also designed balloon actuators under each of the back wings close to the robot’s body so that they can control it. When inflated, the balloons cause the wings to curl upward. By changing which wings are up or down, the researchers control the robot movements.

“We were happy when we were able to control DraBot, but it’s based on living things. And living things don’t just move around on their own, they react to their environment.”

Here comes the self-healing hydrogel. By painting one set of wings with the hydrogel, the researchers were able to make DraBot responsive to changes in the surrounding water’s pH. If the water becomes acidic, the front wing fuses with the back wing. Instead of travelling in a straight line, the imbalance causes the robot to spin in a circle. Once the pH returns to a normal level, the hydrogel “un-heals,” the fused wings separate, and DraBot once again becomes fully responsive to commands.

The researchers also created sponges under the wings and doped the wings with temperature-responsive materials. When the robot skims over the water with oil floating, the sponges will soak it up and change colour. And when the water becomes overly warm, DraBot’s wings change from red to yellow.

The team believe these types of measurements could play an important part in an environmental robotic sensor in the future. The team also sees many ways that they could improve their work in the future.

More than a year ago Jim Breyer left the Bay Area for Austin, Texas. It wasn’t an easy decision by himself. He has spent three-plus decades embedded in Silicon Valley, investing in some of the region’s top tech companies. In his opinion, there wasn’t a better place in the world than the Bay Area to be an investor.

Jim Breyer, Photo Credits: Wikipedia

After lots of planning and due diligence, Jim thought that Austin was the best place for the next era of his venture capital and venture philanthropy career. With early signals that Austin is emerging as the next great tech hub, Jim was so excited to play a role in helping another part of the country reach its potential.

But instead of focusing on the positives of Austin, many narratives have focused on its problems. While critics make some points about rising living costs and government overreach, Jim would argue that Silicon Valley and Austin both have bright futures ahead. The things that made Silicon Valley special are not going anywhere. The Bay Area will continue to be a global hub of innovation that attracts courageous entrepreneurs, benefits from world-class institutions and nurtures talent from leading tech companies even as Austin offers a remarkable new frontier of opportunity.

New Austinites all have different reasons for why they moved here, of course. Jim’s decision to start Breyer Capital Austin has more to do with Austin’s strengths than any of the Bay Area‘s flaws.

For starters, Austin encourages a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration. Because the city has catered to so many types of professionals, and not just technologists, the depth of talent there is unique. Artists, entrepreneurs, doctors and professors, all at the top of their trade, frequently choose to build things together. Austin’s diverse entrepreneurs will usher in a new era of growth for the city, state and country.

Jim started investing in health care AI companies and fintech companies that have a consumer media backbone. The best founding teams are multifaceted and versatile, and Austin has every type of entrepreneur that a great company needs. Jim Breyer also added:

“Austin has attracted and will continue to attract young, brilliant talent because of its comparative affordability, outdoor culture and professional development opportunities. This vast pool of expertise is contributing to a remarkably robust climate of innovation. With Tesla, Facebook, Apple, Google, Oracle and other leading companies moving to or expanding in Austin, the entrepreneurial ecosystem will be bolstered when talent from these companies breaks away to start new ventures.”

Austin also has impressive educational institutions. The University of Texas has a history of attracting great minds. Strong academic institutions have an outsized role to play in tech hubs that will definitely help the city prosper and grow.

Lastly, Austin entrepreneurs are among the most impact-driven in the world. The city, in a push to “Keep Austin Weird,” emphasizes thinking outside the box. It encourages a frontier spirit where founders take big problems into their own hands. According to Breyer:

“Austin founders and investors understand that we have an opportunity to make female and racially diverse leaders part of the next generation of entrepreneurial success. Furthermore, the majority of people at startups here are determined to make the world a better place. Whether that means starting and maintaining a B-Corp or attacking a problem like a climate change, Austin entrepreneurs are eager to make a positive difference. I think Austin founders will offer indisputable proof that companies can simultaneously earn money for shareholders and improve society.”

Since Jim Breyer arrived in early 2020, he has backed more than 10 Austin-based companies, and Breyer Capital Austin is just getting started. At the same time, he continued investing in world-changing Silicon Valley companies.

All the internal tests show a wide range of features running an average of 1.5X the speed of similarly configured previous generation systems. The tests covered a broad scope of activities, including opening and saving files, running filters, and compute-heavy operations like Content-Aware Fill and Select Subject, which all feel noticeably faster.

As part of their mission to provide their clients with the best tools quickly, Adobe distributed public beta builds of Photoshop through the Creative Cloud Desktop application as soon as Macs with M1 chips became available. This allowed them to share their progress and gather critical feedback from customers to help them extend Photoshop to this new architecture.

However, there are still a few features Adobe haven’t finished porting to run on the new M1 chip. However, their performance gains across the rest of the application were so great they didn’t want to hold back the release for everyone while the team wraps up work on these last few features.

Photoshop on iPad

Today, Adobe released two big features for Photoshop on the iPad:

1) Cloud Documents Version History

Because Cloud Documents are auto-saved, every document also has a version history. Now you can browse and revert back for up to 60 days of your history. Versions can be bookmarked so they don’t expire, renamed and saved permanently.

Photo Credits: Adobe Blog

Photo Credits: Adobe Blog

2) Make Cloud Documents while available offline 

Now customers can select the Cloud Documents they want to store locally and access while they are offline.

Download Cloud Documents from the home screen. Or, to free up space on your iPad, you can also remove the document from your local cache by selecting “Make online only.” If you change your mind, you can always download it again.

Super Resolution in Adobe Camera Raw Plugin

Imagine turning a 10-megapixel photo into a 40-megapixel photo with one click that produces very high-quality results.

Today, the new Super Resolution feature is released in the Adobe Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop, which does just that. Soon, it will also be available in Lightroom and Lightroom Classic.

Photo Credits: Adobe Blog

Enlarging a photo often produces blurry details, but Super Resolution uses an advanced machine learning model trained on millions of photos. Backed by this vast training set, Super Resolution intelligently enlarges photos while maintaining clean edges and preserving important details.

Epic Games has announced a new, browser-based software tool powered by its Unreal Engine. It is called the MetaHuman Creator and allows creating highly realistic human faces and more realistic body movements. 

Now you can directly manipulate facial features, adjust skin complexion, and select from preset body types, hairstyles, clothing, and more with the help of this new software tool.  You can even edit your character’s teeth. The possibilities for creators are limitless!

But what exactly is the MetaHuman creator?

This is a cloud-streamed app that takes real-time digital human creation at an unprecedented standard of quality, fidelity, and realism. When your character is finished, you can export and download it, rigged and ready to animate in Unreal Engine.

Credits: Unreal Engine

Over the last several years, Unreal Engine has shown numerous real-time digital humans of increasingly realistic quality. 3Lateral and Cubic Motion have led the field in creating performance capture-driven 4D animation. These companies are now part of the Epic Games family. Characters with next-gen makeovers, convincing real-time performance, who can even recite lines from Macbeth are breakthroughs in real-time human-driven digital tech.

What is more, the Co-Founder and researcher Mike Seymour, together with a team of experts showcased MEETMIKE, a real-time performance-captured VR version of himself, rendered at 90 FPS in stereo in Unreal Engine. You can check the MEETMIKE showcase from here.  

You can get the sample project and find out more about these high-fidelity digital humans from here. 

This tool is believed to be able to determine whether an uninfected person who later catches the virus will die from the disease with up to 90% certainty. It also claims to predict whether someone who’s admitted to hospital with COVID-19 will need a respirator with 80% accuracy.

It can also help identify who to prioritize for vaccines and how many respirators a hospital will need. Professor Mads Nielsen from University of Copenhagen added:

“We are working towards a goal that we should be able to predict the need for respirators five days ahead by giving the computer access to health data on all COVID positives in the region. The computer will never be able to replace a doctor’s assessment, but it can help doctors and hospitals see many COVID-19 infected patients at once and set ongoing priorities.”

The study showed that the most decisive indicators were unsurprisingly BMI and age. Males and people with high blood pressure or neurological disease also have an elevated risk. The other most influential factors were having chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. Professor Nielsen also added:

“For those affected by one or more of these parameters, we have found that it may make sense to move them up in the vaccine queue, to avoid any risk of them becoming infected and eventually ending up on a respirator.”

You can check the whole study journal from Scientific Reports.