Google I/O is all about the latest in what developers are capable of building next, so it’s no surprise that even the bartenders serving up cocktails are a product of some complex computing. No, these guys didn’t need to take some bartending class or wait until they’re 18 years of age. The Makr Shakr robot, unveiled today at Google I/O, will mix the perfect cocktail – provided you give it the desired recipe.
Designed by MIT’s Senseable City Lab in partnership with Coca-Cola and Bacardi, the Makr Shakr is a series of large, orange arms designed to put on a show while it’s making your drinks. The robot, controlled by a smartphone app, will crowdsource drink requests and shake up liquor combinations of the guest’s choice. This means visitors can choose a classic Bacardi and Coke, or try something a little stranger, like Diet Coke, coconut, rum, and lime. Odd. Makr Shakr offers up to 100 types of flavors from fruit juices, liquor, syrups, soda, and more. Its arms, modeled after ballet dancer Roberto Bolle, are also supposed to replicate some very intricate human movements, from shaking up the mixer to slicing lemon and lime wedges.
Via the Makr Shakr app, guests can also check out other recipes those surrounding them are creating, giving them an opportunity to rate the drinks, get social, and break the ice. Google I/O may not be your idea of a bar, but nothing’s better than some liquid courage to get you talking to some new friends. Additionally, the app will monitor your blood alcohol level depending on what you ordered and how often you ordered it, calculating your rough drunkness estimate. Which could be useful, considering that the National Transportation Safety Board may soon lower the blood alcohol level that constitutes drunk driving.
Makr Shakr may not be your new favorite neighborhood bartender or give you an extra shot for being awesome, but it sure is fun to watch. Just give it a black vest to add that speakeasy bartender attire.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.