Last Wednesday we started this series of posts showcasing the plenary and keynote talks from the IEEE/RSJ IROS2020 (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems). This is a great opportunity to stay up to date with the latest robotics & AI research from top roboticists in the world. Bio: Frank Dellaert is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Research Scientist at Google AI. While on leave from Georgia Tech in 2016-2018, he served as Technical Project Lead at Facebook's Building 8 hardware division. Before that he was also Chief Scientist at Skydio, a startup founded by MIT grads to create intuitive interfaces for micro-aerial vehicles.

Israel-based BrainQ is a new nuerotech startup hoping to take on brain-computer interface (BCI) companies like Braintree founder Bryan Johnson's Kernel and Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk's Neuralink. It's not clear yet what Musk's startup intends to do with the computer chips it plans to put in our heads but Johnson's startup says it is focused on developing "technologies to understand and treat neurological diseases in new and exciting ways." Whatever sector each company goes for, both plan to insert chips in our brains to connect us to computers -- the consequences of which could have dramatic effects on human memory, intelligence, communication and many other areas that could rocket humanity forward, should they work out. But it's early days in this industry, including for BrainQ, which plans to use a non-surgically embedded EEG machine instead to gather data and help improve outcomes for stroke and spinal cord patients. Aside from the brain implant options, BrainQ faces quite a bit of competition in this area.