Robots Manipulating Cables

Been at times responsible for cable rooms, and know of the messiness in manipulating cable.  Never thought of this being solved by robotics. In fact thought of it as a particularly difficult thing to do that way.   This particular example will be interesting to see, and what part of the problem it can address.

Letting robots manipulate cables
Robotic gripper with soft sensitive fingers developed at MIT CSAIL can handle cables with unprecedented dexterity.
Rachel Gordon | MIT CSAIL

For humans, it can be challenging to manipulate thin flexible objects like ropes, wires, or cables. But if these problems are hard for humans, they are nearly impossible for robots. As a cable slides between the fingers, its shape is constantly changing, and the robot’s fingers must be constantly sensing and adjusting the cable’s position and motion.
Standard approaches have used a series of slow and incremental deformations, as well as mechanical fixtures, to get the job done. Recently, a group of researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) pursued the task from a different angle, in a manner that more closely mimics us humans. The team’s new system uses a pair of soft robotic grippers with high-resolution tactile sensors (and no added mechanical constraints) to successfully manipulate freely moving cables.  ... " 

How the Internet Spans the Globe

Part of the power of the internet was the fact that there were multiple ways to get from A to B,   but this article makes it seem more vulnerable.  The stats are interesting.   My old wrong impression was that it was mostly transmitted by satellite.   Also the largest user of the internet seems not to be business,  but streaming by Netflix.

How the Internet Spans the Globe
By Logan Kugler

Communications of the ACM, January 2020, Vol. 63 No. 1, Pages 14-16
10.1145/3371411

Undersea cables are responsible for moving data between countries and continents at high speeds, making everything from photo sharing to financial transactions possible. These cables use fiber optics to move data at high speeds to land, where the data is then conveyed via fiber optics to homes and businesses.

Yet, despite the billions of people relying on the data moved by undersea cables, there are only about 380 of them worldwide as of 2019, according to CNN estimates, though they span more than 745,000 miles—or more than three times the distance to the moon.

Given the sheer scope of undersea cables, which often span entire oceans, The New York Times estimates an individual undersea cable project can cost up to $350 million. That is why these cables have historically been laid by global telecommunications firms with the deep pockets and technical expertise necessary to undertake these projects. However, tech companies are increasingly dominating both the use and implementation of undersea cables.

"Some of the main investors in new cables now are Google and Facebook," says Alan Maudlin, research director at TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm, because tech giants are increasingly the ones using all that undersea bandwidth. .... '

Cable Cutting Skill

Direct competition between companies using skills that include AI?   Interesting, but can this lead to some legal embattlement?

DirecTV encourages cable cutting with Alexa skill    Creative Works By Kyle O'Brien

For all the potential cable cutters who have been discouraged by the runaround they get from their cable companies when they try to cut the cord, DirecTV has come up with an easy, voice-activated alternative – the DirecTV Cable Cutter skill for Amazon Alexa.  ... "