📌 TOPINDIATOURS Breaking ai: Disney’s Robot Olaf Is a Straight Up Nightmare Hari I

Disney’s robot of its character “Olaf” is incredibly impressive.

It’s also kind of terrifying.

This weekend, engineers at Disney Research Hub published a paper describing how they brought the beloved talking snowman from the “Frozen” films to life as a walking robot — and boy did they succeed.

In a video explaining their work, you can see footage of the robot Olaf, true to its size in the movies, roaming around a Disney park and the lab.

To describe it as uncanny would be harsh, since it does near-perfectly emulate pretty much everything about the character, down to its subtle waddle. But you are left with the distinct impression that what you’re seeing shouldn’t be physically possible; you wouldn’t expect someone with the eyes and proportions of an anime character to step in the real world, and it’s much the same for a 3D-animated snowman. And yet here it is, waltzing before your eyes. You may no longer want to build a snowman ever again, for fear of it coming alive like this one has.

All that aside, it’s a remarkable feat of engineering. You couldn’t get something more true to the character if you shrunk a person and stuck them in an Olaf-suit. You can yoink off the robot snowman’s carrot nose, and it’ll gasp and cackle. It’ll casually smile and wave at you as it ambles by.

The robot posed an unusual challenge to the engineers, who were tasked with building no mere humanoid. It has a huge head the size of its torso supported by a tiny neck, and no visible legs — just feet. 

Nonetheless, they prevailed. With the legs, for example, the team concealed most of the lower limbs inside its snowball torso, leaving just the feet showing. 

But simply having the robot take short little steps wasn’t enough. They meticulously fine-tuned its gait to mimic Olaf’s from the movie, and in particular ensured it walked with a heel-to-toe pattern to make it as fluid as possible.  

To fine tune the robot’s movements, the engineer trained it in a virtual environment using a technique known as reinforcement learning, in which the robot’s AI is rewarded based on it achieving a specific objective across thousands of simulations.

Perfectionists through and through, the team used the technique to reduce the noise of the bot’s steps. No loud plodding for our stout snowman; after implementing some “impact reduction,” the bot’s footfalls dropped from nearly 82 dB in volume to just 64 dB. Even neck temperature was a consideration: since the neck contained a host of small actuators controlling the head, it was at risk of overheating. With reinforcement learning, the bot’s AI system learned to slightly adjust its posture to prevent a thermal buildup, thereby preventing the illusion of animation from melting before our eyes.

More on robots: Robots Tear Up Stage as Backup Dancers

The post Disney’s Robot Olaf Is a Straight Up Nightmare appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com

📌 TOPINDIATOURS Hot ai: 250 miles in 5 minutes: Viral video captures BYD EV chargi

The era of “charging anxiety” may be nearing its end as BYD’s ultra-fast charging technology moves from theoretical promise to real-world performance. 

A new video circulating on social media has confirmed the staggering capabilities of the automaker’s new Super e-Platform, showing an electric vehicle gaining nearly 250 miles (400 km) of range in just five minutes.

The footage, shared by X user Dominic Lee, captures a BYD EV charging at a peak rate of 746 kW. 

According to the demonstration, the vehicle reached a 70% state of charge in approximately 4 minutes and 40 seconds, a feat that puts EV charging speeds in direct competition with traditional gasoline refueling.

Tech behind the speed: “Full-domain 1000V”

This breakthrough is powered by BYD’s Super e-Platform, which debuted earlier this year. It represents the industry’s first mass-produced “full-domain 1000V high-voltage architecture.” 

Unlike standard EV platforms, this system integrates the battery, motor, power supply, and even the air conditioning into a unified 1000V ecosystem to maximize efficiency.

The core of this system is the newly launched Flash Charging Battery, which features a world-record charging rate of 10C and currents of 1000A.

From the positive to the negative electrode, BYD has engineered ultra-fast ion channels that reduce the battery’s internal resistance by 50 percent, allowing it to sustain incredible speeds without excessive heat buildup. This allows the setup to deliver up to 1 megawatt (1,000 kW) of charging power.

“1,000-kW flash charging that allows refueling and charging to have the same speed,” read a promotional poster released by BYD during the launch of the charging system in March.

Performance on the road

The first vehicles to showcase this technology, the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV, are already rolling out across China with starting prices near $30,000. 

BYD’s internal data for the Han L suggests that a charge from 10% to 70% takes just six minutes, while a full 100% charge can be completed in 20 minutes, as reported by Electrek. At peak performance, the platform can replenish range at a rate of roughly two kilometers per second.

While traditional high-end electric vehicles typically operate on 800V architectures with peak power between 250 and 350 kW, BYD’s new platform doubles or even triples these figures. 

The Super e-Platform provides 1,000V of voltage and 1,000A of maximum current, enabling it to add roughly 250 miles of range in five minutes, compared to the 60 to 100 miles usually added by existing high-speed chargers in the same timeframe.

Global expansion plans

BYD is already preparing to bring this “Flash Charging” technology to international markets. The company plans to install approximately 300 high-power charging stations across major highways in the United Kingdom by the end of next year. 

Similar expansion efforts are underway in Europe, with a focus on establishing a Network Operations Center in the Netherlands and deploying stations in South Africa starting in 2026. 

While these chargers will be open to other EV brands, only vehicles built on the Super e-Platform will be able to hit the maximum megawatt speeds.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com