Designing Soft Robots: Ethics-Based Guidelines for Human-Robot Interactions
Soft-bodied robots offer the possibility for social engagement, and novel tactile human-robot interactions that require careful consideration of the potential for misplaced emotional attachments and personally and socially destructive behavior by users. The ethical challenges related to human-robot interactions and how these should contribute to soft robotics design in the context of social interaction are discussed in a compelling new article in Soft Robotics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
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Google Searches can be Used to Track Dengue in Underdeveloped Countries
An analytical tool that combines Google search data with government-provided clinical data can quickly and accurately track dengue fever in less-developed countries, according to new research published in PLOS Computational Biology by Shihao Yang of Harvard University and colleagues. The research builds on a methodology previously developed by the team to track influenza in the United States.
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Breathable, Wearable Electronics on Skin for Long-Term Health Monitoring
A hypoallergenic electronic sensor can be worn on the skin continuously for a week without discomfort, and is so light and thin that users forget they even have it on, says a Japanese group of scientists. The elastic electrode constructed of breathable nanoscale meshes holds promise for the development of noninvasive e-skin devices that can monitor a person's health continuously over a long period.
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Study Finds Most People Aren't as Happy as their Friends on Social Media
A study led by computer scientists at Indiana University has found that people with the most connections on social media are also happier. This may cause most social media users to not only regard themselves as less popular than their friends but also less happy. The recently published study is essentially the first to provide scientific evidence for the feeling many people experience when they log into services like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram: that everyone else looks like they're having more fun.
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Researchers Study Link between Pokémon GO and a Healthier Lifestyle
Pokémon GO's worldwide release sent crowds hiking through parks, meandering into streets and walking for miles in search of Pokémon, those cute little digital characters that appear in real locations on your smartphone. Capturing the little monsters isn't just fun for the players, it might be good for their health.
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Self-Driving Cars may Soon Be Able to Make Moral and Ethical Decisions
Can a self-driving vehicle be moral, act like humans do, or act like humans expect humans to? Contrary to previous thinking, a ground-breaking new study has found for the first time that human morality can be modelled meaning that machine based moral decisions are, in principle, possible. The research, Virtual Reality experiments investigating human behavior and moral assessments, from The Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück, and published in
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Digital Games Improve Mental Health & Educational Outcomes of Syrian Refugee Children
Digital games can effectively teach refugee children much-needed skills - including a new language, cognitive skills, and coding - while also improving their mental health, finds research by New York University, the City University of New York, and Turkey's Bahcesehir University. The study of Syrian refugee children suggests that digital games can be a cost-efficient and scalable approach to meeting the educational and psychological needs of refugee children.
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