Alt-week 6.29.13: DARPA's robot finalists, the IRIS solar mission and empathetic computers

Alt-week 6.29.13: DARPA's robot finalists, the IRIS solar mission and empathetic computers data = {blogUrl: "www.engadget.com",v: 320};when = {jquery: lab.scriptBs("jquery"),plugins: lab.scriptBs("plugins"),eng: lab.scriptBs("eng")}; var s265prop9 = ('20642753' !== '') ? 'bsd:20642753' : ''; var postID = '20642753'; var modalMNo = '93319229', modalVideoMNo = '93320648', modalGalleryMNo = '93304207'; when.eng("eng.omni.init", {pfxID:"weg",pageName:document.title,server:"acp-ld39.websys.aol.com",channel:"us.engadget", s_account: "aolwbengadget,aolsvc", short_url: "",pageType:"",linkInternalFilters:"javascript:,",prop1:"article",prop2:"",prop9:s265prop9,prop12:document.location,prop17:"",prop18:"",prop19:"",prop20:"", prop22:"steve-dent", prop54:"blogsmith",mmxgo: true }); adSendTerms('1')adSetMOAT('1');adSetAdURL('/_uac/adpagem.html');lab._script("http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ads/adhesion/js/adhads-min.js").wait(function(){var floatingAd = new AdhesiveAd("348-14-15-14d",{hideOnSwipe:true});}); onBreak({980: function () { adSetType("F");htmlAdWH("93319229", "LB", "LB"); adSetType("");}}); EngadgetMenu NewsReviews Features Galleries VideosEventsPodcasts Engadget ShowTopics Buyers Guides Sagas Store Hands On More Betterer HD Mobile Alt Announcements Cameras Cellphones Desktops Displays Gaming GPS Handhelds Home Entertainment Household Internet Laptops Meta Misc Networking Peripherals Podcasts Robots Portable Audio/Video Science Software Storage Tablets Transportation Wearables Wireless Acer Amazon AMD Apple ASUS AT&T Blackberry Canon Dell Facebook Google HP HTC Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Nikon Nintendo Nokia NVIDIA Samsung Sony Sprint T-Mobile Verizon About UsSubscribeLike Engadget@engadgettip uswhen.eng("eng.nav.init")when.eng("eng.tips.init") onBreak({980: function () {htmlAdWH("93308280", "215", "35",'AJAX','ajaxsponsor');}});Alt-week 6.29.13: DARPA's robot finalists, the IRIS solar mission and empathetic computersBySteve DentpostedJun 29th, 2013 at 5:30 PM 0

Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.

Sure, DARPA is slightly sinister, but it's so into robots that we're willing to let that slide. In fact, last year it launched the DARPA Robotics Challenge, and it just announced the top six nine seven teams to advance. But if just the idea of figuring out robotics frustrates you, NC State's face tracking program literally gets that, and NASA just launched the IRIS solar probe from the belly of a transport jet. It's Alt-week, baby.

Remember DARPA's Robotics Challenge (DRC) launched to create 'bots that would look like humans and perform real world tasks? Well, the military's skunkworks division just announced that its winnowed down the original 26 teams to seven after completion of the Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) phase. To test them, DARPA created a cloud-based simulator, which teams used to simulate vehicle egress and driving, walking on rough, muddy terrain, attaching a hose to a spigot and turning a valve. While DARPA was planning on having six finalists, it turned out that JPL (which already has a DARPA-funded project and its own robot), decided to drop out and donate its resources Lockheed Martin's Trooper entry. At the same time, Team K from Japan and Case Western University pooled their resources and also received a donated ATLAS robot from Hong Kong University. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, DARPA decided after all that to keep seven teams, which will get an actual Boston Dynamics Atlas robot and more funding for the final DRC trials. Since that will no doubt produce the kind of entertainment we saw earlier this year at Engadget Expand, we can't wait.

NASA launches are always a hoot, even its so-called Small Explorer Missions. The IRIS solar observer is one of those, and was lofted into space on Thursday from an Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket, which itself separated from the underside of a converted Lockheed L-1011 jet at around 40,000 feet. Now that it's in orbit at about 400 miles, IRIS (Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) will begin observing solar material that transits a poorly understood region between the sun's photosphere and corona, causing solar winds and driving the million-degree atmosphere. It'll use an ultraviolet telescope built by Lockheed Martin to do that during its two year mission, which one day may improve solar forecasts and explain some of the bizarre tantrums occasionally thrown by our star.

Confused? That's a common issue for students learning computer science, and while in-the-flesh profs can easily see your anxious state, machines have no such empathy. Researchers from North Carolina State University want to change that, so they developed software that tracks facial expressions in order to predict the emotions of students during online tutoring sessions. Called JavaTutor, the program correctly sussed out moods 85 percent of the time and "will not only respond to what a students knows, but to (his or her) feelings of frustration or engagement," according to assistant professor Dr. Kristy Boyer. That'll lead to the next stage of research -- providing both "cognitive and emotion-based feedback to students" during learning sessions, which the scientists claim could have a dramatic effect on retention. Sounds good, but if you put that together with DARPA's project above, the result could be a scary-looking robot that senses your fear.

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Tags: Alt Week, alt-week, AltWeek, DARPA, FaceTracking, IRIS, video

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Building Solar in Spain Instead of Germany Could Save Billions

Kevin Bullis for MIT Technology Review 2013-05-17 16:22:58 UTC

Building solar and wind projects in the wrong place is wasting billions of dollars in Europe.

Siemens says it would make sense to build solar power plants in sunny countries in Europe rather than in cloudy ones. And wind turbines should be built in windy places.

These blindingly obvious suggestions run contrary to what’s actually happening. For example, a solar panel in Spain generates about twice as much electricity as the same-size solar panel in Germany because the sun shines on it more. But last year nearly half of all solar panels installed in Europe were installed in Germany, and only a small fraction were installed in Spain (see "The Great German Energy Experiment").

Siemens calculates that if you were to install solar panels and wind turbines where the natural resources are best, and then string power lines to convey the power to where it’s needed, you could save about $60 billion dollars by 2030 because you could install fewer of them. That savings figure accounts for the cost of the power lines (see "Supergrids").

Europe isn't the only place where solar is taking off in strange places. One of the major markets for solar power in the U.S. is New Jersey, which gets far less sun than the southwest U.S., but has policies that favor solar power.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Wayne National Forest

This article originally published at MIT Technology Review here

Topics: europe, germany, solar, solar power, Spain, US & World, World MIT Technology Review is a Mashable publishing partner that identifies emerging technologies and analyzes their impact for technology and business leaders. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Biggest Solar Flares of the Year Erupt From Sun

Tariq Malik for Space.com 2013-05-13 20:33:20 UTC

A hyperactive sunspot on the surface of the sun has fired off two of the most powerful solar flares of the year in just 24 hours, and promises to unleash more solar storms over the next several days, space weather experts say.

The active sunspot went into overdrive on Mother's Day when it erupted late Sunday night with an X-class solar flare, the strongest type of solar storm possible, NASA scientists said in an update. That first eruption registered as an X1.7-class event on the space weather scale, and was followed midday Monday by an even more powerful X2.8 solar flare, which is the third-strongest solar storm in recent years.

You can see a video of the huge solar flares together here as seen by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and other spacecraft.

The Mother's Day solar flare sent a super-hot wave of solar plasma, called a coronal mass ejection, hurtling through space at about 2.6 million mph (4.3 million km/h). The solar eruption was not aimed at Earth, so should pose no threat to satellites and astronauts in orbit, NASA officials said.

The solar storm could deliver a glancing blow to NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope and sun-watching Stereo-B spacecraft, according to NASA's update.

"If warranted, operators can put spacecraft into safe mode to protect the instruments from solar material," NASA officials explained in a statement. "There is some particle radiation associated with this event, which is what can concern operators of interplanetary spacecraft since the particles can trip computer electronics on board."

The back-to-back solar storms erupted from an active sunspot region that is just out of sight over the left side of the sun. The region has been active in recent days, spouting off two medium-strength M-class solar flares, but the two X-class solar storms are its most powerful events yet.

The region "will soon rotate into view" as seen from Earth, NASA officials said. When it does, any major solar flares and eruptions could be aimed squarely at Earth.

"Increased numbers of flares are quite common at the moment because the sun's normal 11-year activity cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum, which is expected in 2013," NASA officials said in the update Monday.

When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can pose a serious risk to astronauts and satellites in space, and interfere with GPS and communications signals. The strongest solar storms can even affect ground-based power system infrastructure. Moderately strong solar flares can supercharge the Earth's northern lights to create spectacular aurora displays.

The sun's current space weather cycle is called Solar Cycle 24 and began in 2008. A fleet of spacecraft, including NASA's powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory, keep constant watch on the sun for signs of solar flare activity.

NASA and the Space Weather Prediction Center operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are providing updates throughout today on the recent solar flares.

Image courtesy of NASA

This article originally published at Space.com here

Topics: astronomy, NASA, Science, space, sun, U.S., US & World, World Space.com is a Mashable publishing partner that is the world's No. 1 source for news of astronomy, skywatching, space exploration, commercial spaceflight and related technologies. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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