Breaking News
Everything I Warned You About Just Happened... All in One Week
Your Grief, My Grief, Our Grief in the Loss of a Loved One
Vance: Federal Government Has Identified $230 Billion In Fraud Since March
Saudi Arabia's $5 Oil Detour Is Expensive... But Worth It
Top Tech News
What could possibly go wrong? Scientists use AI to design new viruses
Dual-motor suitcase drive underpins 3,000-hp hypercar
DoorDash Wins Federal Approval To Fly Its Own Delivery Drones
Shade-Resistant Solar Cells Retain 97% Efficiency After 2,000 Hours of Testing
20 Ancient Engineering SECRETS
Stonehenge Was Reanalyzed by AI -- And the Findings Are Hard to Explain
After Years Of Delays, Aptera Is Finally Preparing To Build Customer Cars
'When you kill it, it doesn't die': the jellyfish that has cracked the secret of immorta
Archer Aviation debuts Halo autonomous VTOL, Thunder's commercial twin
US Telecoms Slide On Starlink Mobile Threat; Bernstein Sees It As A "Jab, But No Knockout Yet**
Emotion-sensing robot launches to assist space station astronauts
The Crew Interactive Mobile Companion 2, or CIMON 2, is a spherical droid with microphones, cameras and a slew of software to enable emotion recognition.
The droid was among 5,700 pounds (2,585 kg) of supplies and experiments aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, whose midday launch had been delayed from Wednesday due to high winds.
"The overall goal is to really create a true companion. The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important," Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2, told Reuters. "It's trying to understand if the astronaut is sad, is he angry, joyful and so on."
Based on algorithms built by information technology giant IBM Corp (IBM.N) and data from CIMON 1, a nearly identical prototype that launched in 2018, CIMON 2 will be more sociable with crew members. It will test technologies that could prove crucial for future crewed missions in deep space, where long-term isolation and communication lags to Earth pose risks to astronauts' mental health.