The week's developments in AI, quantum, and biotech, explained | 24.01.24

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Welcome to this week's DeepTech update! In the world of VR, Disney's HoloTile may be the solution to restricted movement in the metaverse, offering users omnidirectional treadmills to explore virtual worlds. Plus, it’s also changing football, with top players using VR to improve their game performance, even when injured. Are we on the cusp of a VR revolution? 

Meanwhile, OpenAI is seeking billions to build semiconductor factories and AlphaFold’s psychedelic discovery could be DeepMind’s greatest leap yet in drug development.

Keep reading for the latest updates on AGI, insect robots, and origami motors — plus the coolest AI tools to build, boost, and track…

— Charlie and the Research & Intelligence Team 

P.S. You can now register your interest for CogX Festival LA 6-9 May, where we’ll be talking all things AI, Impact, and Transformational Tech!

Innovation and Releases

🔍OpenAI is seeking billions to establish a global network of semiconductor factories due to AI chip shortage concerns. Discussions are underway with investors G42 and SoftBank, and potential partnerships with leading chip manufacturers are being considered.

📱Move over Vision Pro, rabbit r1 may be the most exciting product launch this year. The Vision Pro is impressive, but boasts excessive UI. Contrastingly, the pared-back r1 can do everything a smartphone can do, with AI, and it’s nearly UI-free — a refreshingly different approach.

🕹️Disney’s elegant solution to VR's movement limitations. Disney’s new project HoloTile uses small round tiles as omnidirectional treadmills to keep users within a designated area. It also allows multiple people to walk independently in virtual reality.

⚽Is brain training the future of football? Arsenal's Martin Odegaard used VR to continue training, and improve after an injury. Various tech companies are developing tools for cognitive training in sports, and it's gaining traction, particularly among youth players.

AI Tools of the Week

⚙️Build: Lyzr AI offers integrated Agent SDKs for businesses to easily build advanced GenAI applications quickly and efficiently.

🍽️ Track: Calorieasy harnesses AI to automatically count and log your food’s calories and nutritional insights — from a picture alone. 

📈Boost: DeepTab is a suite of all the best AI productivity tools integrated into one easily accessible Chrome extension.

Latest Research

🧪AlphaFold has discovered thousands of potential psychedelic molecules that could aid in creating new antidepressants. Research suggests this may be just as useful for drug discovery as experimentally derived protein structures, which can take years to determine.

🤖Researchers have developed two insect-like micro-robots — a mini-bug and a water strider — they’re among the lightest, fastest micro-robots to date. Potential applications include artificial pollination, search and rescue, environmental monitoring and robotic-assisted surgery. 

🧬Scientists have created the world's first nano electromotor using DNA origami. This tiny engine is powered by hydrodynamic flow in a nanometer-sized pore and could have applications in molecular factories and medical probes for disease detection. 

🧠How neuroscience, and cognitive psychology can help us achieve AGI. While deep learning has made significant strides in AI, it isn’t quite AGI yet. This review combines many multidisciplinary approaches to understanding the brain, to find inspiration for AGI solutions.

In case you missed it

Want to get in on the customGPT hype? Here are 7 bots to try out, for productivity, and fun.

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