The Deep End #46

NSA x OpenAI?

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Former head of NSA joins OpenAI board

OpenAI says Nakasone will join its Safety and Security Committee, which was announced in May and is led by CEO Sam Altman, “as a first priority.” Nakasone will “also contribute to OpenAI’s efforts to better understand how AI can be used to strengthen cybersecurity by quickly detecting and responding to cybersecurity threats.”

Read more.

Robots are suddenly getting cleverer. What’s changed?

The new models being used in robotics take this idea one step further. These “vision-language-action models” (vlams) take in text and images, plus data relating to the robot’s presence in the physical world, including the readings on internal sensors, the degree of rotation of different joints and the positions of actuators (such as grippers, or the fingers of a robot’s hands). The resulting models can then answer questions about a scene, such as “can you see an apple?” But they can also predict how a robot arm needs to move to pick that apple up, as well as how this will affect what the world looks like.

Read more.

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Other deep tech stories

Future Mobility

• AVX Aircraft and XTI Aerospace are teaming up to develop a fixed-wing VTOL aircraft (AerospaceEletronics)

• Project Alta lifts off with goal of putting passenger drones in the sky by 2034 (Deseret News)

• Piasecki Aircraft was tapped by the Department of Energy to study the feasibility of hydrogen fuel cells for urban mobility (AerospaceElectronics)

• Airbus partners with Avincis on Advanced Air Mobility (Airbus)

Defense Tech

• Airbus unveiled a stealthy fighter-like drone mockup (TheWarzone)

• Welcome to the Laser Wars (Wired)

• AI-powered 'auto-aiming' defense tech startup ZeroMark raised a $7M seed round (BusinessWire)

• Roboteam is supplying the Marine Corps with 200 tactical robots in a $30m deal (BreakingDefense)

• North Wind is a new company spun off from Calspan Aero to focus on delivering hypersonic test infrastructure and services (GovConWire)

Space

• DARPA and Slingshot build system to detect ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ adversary satellites (TechCrunch)

• Planet’s first hyperspectral satellite is ready to launch (SpaceNews)

• Basalt Technologies, a spacecraft OS company, raised a $3.5M seed round (Finmes)

• MDA Space joined Starlab Space LLC as a partner and equity owner to build a next-gen commercial space station (SpaceQ)

• China’s secretive spaceplane released an object into orbit (SpaceNews)

• DoD forecasts about $1.7 billion in commercial satcom buys over the coming year (SpaceNews)

Advanced Computing

• Former head of NSA joins OpenAI board (The Verge)

• Robots are suddenly getting cleverer. What’s changed? (TheEconomist)

• Eyebot raised $6M for AI-powered kiosks that provide 90-second vision exams without an on-site optometrist (TechCrunch)

• Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI (VentureBeat)

• Quantum computers could soon speed the development of novel materials, catalysts, and drugs (Science)

• Tech giants form an industry group to help develop next-gen AI chip components (TechCrunch)

Energy

• US clean energy investment reaches record quarterly high of $71B (UtilityDive)

• Nuclear fusion startup Xcimer raises $100M to chase laser-based power. (CanaryMedia)

• How Clean Energy Ventures avoided the pandemic bubble and raised a $305M fund (TechCrunch)

• Quidnet Energy gets $10M to pump more energy into Texas grid (CleanTechnica)

• White House Launches Initiatives to Bolster New Nuclear Deployments (Power)