The United Nations Children's Fund, perhaps better known as UNICEF, has recently launched a new initiative through which they will begin to invest more money into technology start-ups that have the potential to better the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable children all over the world. The new initiative, called Innovation Fund, has put a special focus on certain technologies that have the potential to help children, which include 3D printing, blockchain, wearables and sensors, artificial intelligence, and renewable energy. UNICEF, the United Nations program that has as its mandate the promotion of children's rights all over the world, has through its Innovation initiative put its focus on progessive projects and ideas that have the potential to help their cause. As stated on their website, UNICEF Innovation is "tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling technologies and practices that strengthen UNICEF's work." UNICEF is currently accepting submissions from various start-ups until February 26, 2016 through their website, though there are some requirements for being considered for funding.

Last week was a holiday, and we're at CES this week, but nothing can stop the robot videos. Things should be back to normal around here next week (we hope). Let us know if you have videos or events to suggest, and enjoy today's Video Friday selection! Teaching robots how to avoid destruction and despise humanity at the same time is never a good idea. The world's most advanced bat robot now has membrane wings, just like real bats: A microprocessor-based onboard computer, a 6 DOF IMU sensor package, five DC motors with encoder feedback for flapping and wing articulation (asymmetric wing folding and leg/tail control), power/comm electronics, carbon-fiber frame, 3D printed parts, and silicone based membrane wings -- all at 92 grams.

Velo3D, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has 22.1 million in venture investment to do something in 3-D printing: That makes it fourth among 2015's best-funded stealth-mode tech companies in the United States, according to CB Insights. This dollar number is about all the hard news that has come out of this startup, founded in 2014 by Benyamin Butler and Erel Milshtein. But job postings, talks at conferences, and other breadcrumbs left along Velo3D's development trail--has created a sketchy outline of this company's plans. Consider which 3-D printing technology is ready for disruption: metal. Printing of metal objects--done regularly in industry, particularly aerospace--uses a different, and, to date, far more expensive technology: selective laser sintering.

Motivated by the need for accurate frequency information, a novel algorithm for estimating the fundamental frequency and its rate of change in three-phase power systems is developed. This is achieved through two stages of Kalman filtering. In the first stage a quaternion extended Kalman filter, which provides a unified framework for joint modeling of voltage measurements from all the phases, is used to estimate the instantaneous phase increment of the three-phase voltages. The phase increment estimates are then used as observations of the extended Kalman filter in the second stage that accounts for the dynamic behavior of the system frequency and simultaneously estimates the fundamental frequency and its rate of change. The framework is then extended to account for the presence of harmonics. Finally, the concept is validated through simulation on both synthetic and real-world data.

John Deere (Moline, Ill.), a manufacturer of agricultural and industrial equipment, has adopted a genetic algorithm-based solution to solve its factory scheduling problems. John Deere is using genetic algorithms to streamline scheduling at its factories, Sarasota County Detention Center knowledge in a system model and balancing an increasing number of (Sarasota, Fla.) has incorporated The center will use the The Royal Sonesta Hotel Boston Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties new system to identify and confirm (Cambridge, Mass.) has deployed a (Woodville, Ohio), a producer of identities of inmates prior to being speech-driven automated attendant magnesia chemicals for industrial released from the facility. LucasArts Entertainment (San technology to automatically answer Primary objectives for the system Rafael, Calif.) has deployed a casebased and direct telephone calls, enabling are to increase production yet maintain reasoning self-service customer each caller direct access to a registered quality and decrease energy costs. This Report (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio; Shanghai PuDong International Airport resource-allocation application evaluates www.lionhrtpub.com), The react to unforeseen events in real time.