AI & Robotics News and Discussions

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Japan startup taps AI to quadruple English manga translations in 5 years

May 7, 2024 02:03 JST

A Tokyo-based startup and a group of public and private investors aim to publish 50,000 new English-language titles of Japanese manga in five years -- over three times the current available total -- with artificial intelligence, Nikkei has learned.

Orange, the startup specializing in AI-assisted translation, announces the specifics of the 2.92 billion yen ($19 million) investment on Tuesday.

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The translated manga will be distributed overseas.

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Manga can be more difficult to translate than conference text, for example, and translating one volume through conventional means can sometimes take as long as a month. Orange's AI-assisted technology is able to cut the time and cost of translations by as much as around 90%, according to the startup.

Orange's process uses AI to read the manga through image analysis and character recognition, then to translate the words into English, Chinese and other languages. The technology is specialized for manga, meaning it is able to handle wordplay and other difficult-to-translate phrases.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Media- ... in-5-years

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China's home-grown general-purpose humanoid jogs out at 6 km/h
By Paul Ridden
May 07, 2024

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center has unveiled Tiangong, an electrically-driven general-purpose humanoid that's capable of stable running at 6 km/h, while also able to tackle slopes and stairs in "blind conditions."

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center was set up in November last year as "the first provincial-level humanoid robot innovation center in China," and is part of a new technology hub that's home to more than a hundred robotics companies – coming together to form a complete industrial chain for core components, applications development and complete robot builds.

The company is a joint venture from Beijing Yizhuang Investment Holdings Limited, UBTech Robotics, Xiaomi, and Beijing Jingcheng Machinery Electric. Its aim is to "undertake five key tasks, including the development of general-purpose humanoid robot prototypes and general-purpose large-scale humanoid robot models."

https://newatlas.com/robotics/china-tia ... -humanoid/

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[weatheriscool]

$16k G1 humanoid rises up to smash nuts, twist and twirl
By Paul Ridden
May 13, 2024
https://newatlas.com/robotics/unitree-g ... oid-agent/

Humanoid development at Chinese robotics company Unitree continues apace. Following its entry into the melee just last year, its fast-walking H1 bot recently got its backflip groove on. Now the faceless and hand-less humanoid is being joined by an impressive all-rounder.

Until fairly recently, Unitree's focus seemed to be on developing ever more capable robo-dogs like the Go2 and B2. Its commercially available quadrupeds have since been used as the basis for some rather worrying applications – such as the flamethrowing Thermonator and that time the US Marines strapped a M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon rocket launcher to its back, though we've also seen the company's robo-pooches put to good use since we first spotted one at ICRA 2019.

By the time the H1 scuttled its way into the humanoid party, development from other companies like Boston Dynamics, Figure, Sanctuary AI and Tesla was well underway. But Unitree has caught up pretty quickly, and has now released the first few details on its second model – the G1 Humanoid Agent.

[wjfox]