Iris.ai’ top picks from TED2016

More of Iris.ai’ top picks from TED2016

Yesterday we published our list of the TOP 3 talks at TED 2016. This task turned out to be challenging simply because Iris.AI loved the vast majority of the talks, making it hard for us to pick just three of them.

Hence, we expanded the concept of TOP 3 to TOP 10. Here’s part 2 of the series shedding light on the future of flying objects and understanding the code of life. It comes with the open access research articles selected by our baby AI.

Hope you enjoy these picks!

#4 Riccardo Sabatini: Understanding the code of life

Now that we can read human genome, what can we use that for?

Riccardo Sabatini from Human Longevity Inc introduces the TED audience to, hands-down, the most relevant code determining the future of humanity – the human genome. He literally showcases the DNA of the first man to sequence human life by dragging every single detail of that code on the stage in the form of 175 books.

It took more than 40 years to read the human genome after it was first pictured in the 1950s. Since then the entire field of research has achieved several breakthroughs. Sabatini’s is one of the leading teams working on this topic. At their company they can now predict height, eye color, skin color and even facial structure based on a person’s genome.

But that’s just to get working on more important issues such as how your body works, how it ages, how disease generates in your body, how drugs work in your body – if they work, that is. These advances enable the ability to move from a statistical approach, where you as a human being are depicted as an average, to a personalized one where machines read the 175 books on you to get an exact understanding of who you are.

Iris.AI cracked the code of Sabatini’s talk relatively well – although hearing the word “apparently” repeatedly made her think that it’s an essential part of the story, too… 😉  Have a look at her selection of research articles on genome sequencing and 3D-printing, for example: https://the.iris.ai/map/6695.  

#5 Raffaello D’Andrea: Dazzling flying machines of the future

When do we need to implement new revolutionary rules for the flying machines?

A group of “fireflies” (i.e. 33 micro-quadcopters) dancing together in unison above the TED audience and a flying lampshade (i.e. a two propeller flying machine) that looks like the one in your parents’ living room – these are just some of the examples that Raffaello D’Andrea, a professor at ETH Zurich, demoed on stage to expand the audience’s understanding of what exactly is meant by autonomous flight and what needs to happen before the promise of these flights can fully materialize.

“Inspection, environmental monitoring photography, film and journalism are just some of the potential applications for autonomous flight. Before we can fully leverage this potential and welcome the flying objects into our everyday lives, they will need to become extremely safe and reliable”, D’Andrea explains.

That’s the goal D’Andrea’s team is working towards. Building drones that can hover and resist disturbance, move anywhere in space irrespective of where they are facing, and recover if anything goes wrong – like the motor, a propeller or even a battery pack fails, are just some of the projects his research team is working and delivering results on. So, we might need to implement new revolutionary rules for the flying machines sooner than we thought!  

Iris.AI found a vast body of research articles relevant to the talk, like these ones focusing on autonomous flight, efficient aircrafts, unmanned aircrafts and non-linear dynamic inversion control.

Explore the full overview through this link: https://the.iris.ai/map/6705