⤴⤵ Up Wing/Down Wing #50

A curated selection of pro-progress and anti-progress news items from the week that was

In case you missed it ...

🎇💥 Strike on Iran shows why US doesn't want to lose the AI race (Monday)

🤖🚗 Self-driving cars are finally shifting gears (Tuesday)

👶📉 3 long-shot ways to solve the global baby bust (Wednesday)

✨ 🧬 When AI meets biotechnology: My chat (+transcript) with techno-futurist Jamie Metzl (Thursday)

⤴🎞 The most Up Wing films of the 21st Century (Friday)

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⤴ Up Wing Things

🚛 Truck unloading enters the age of automation. Until recently, truck loading and unloading has remained one of the few warehouse jobs not yet automated. DHL and others are rolling out robots like Boston Dynamics’ Stretch, which uses suction grips and AI to move up to 580 packages per hour, nearly twice the rate of a human. These machines navigate the tight, hot spaces of trailers and handle boxes of varying sizes, shifting physical strain from people to technology. As adoption expands, companies are already seeing faster throughput, fewer damaged goods, and reduced workplace injuries. (WSJ)

🦾 Google unveils new offline robot. Google DeepMind has unveiled a powerful new AI model for robots as part of its Gemini Robotics platform. Unlike previous versions, this model operates fully offline and is able to perform complex tasks like tying shoes with speed and reliability. The head of robotics highlights its adaptability — stating “When we play with the robots, we see that they're surprisingly capable of understanding a new situation." The release also comes with everything needed to build and customize robot behaviors. (Ars)

☢️ New York launches ambitious nuclear power project. New York is moving ahead with one of the first new US nuclear-power plants in over 15 years, aiming to add at least one gigawatt of clean, reliable energy — enough to power a million homes. Governor Kathy Hochul has tasked the state’s public utility with leading the project, which could feature advanced small modular reactors to reduce costs and speed up construction. She said of her goals:

I’m going to lean into making sure that every company that wants to come to New York and everyone who wants to live here will never have to worry about reliability and affordability when it comes to their utility costs

Partnering with Constellation Energy and seeking federal support, the initiative reflects growing demand from industries like AI and a broader push to cut emissions. It also signals a renewed national effort to make nuclear development faster and more feasible. (WSJ)

🛠️ New surveying robot speeds up construction. Civ Robotics is bringing automation into the early stages of construction with its site-surveying robot, CivDot. The bot reads a simple file of coordinates, then moves across the site marking key points with spray paint or a laser. A crew member follows behind to place flags or stakes where needed. CivDot can lay out up to 3,000 points a day while maintaining a high level of accuracy. With its speed and precision, CivDot is helping construction projects get started up to eight times faster and more efficiently than traditional surveying teams. (NA)