Tag Archives: Computing

AI could be the breakthrough that allows humanoid robots to jump from science fiction to reality

Dr. Daniel Zhou Hao is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in AI and Robotics, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Leicester. He is the founder of the Dynamics and Neural Intelligence (DANi) Lab and the Team Lead of the DriverLeics research-inspired education group in AI-powered robotics and autonomous systems.
Dr. Hao is the Leicester’s PI in the UK Space Agency (UKSA) funded PLATOR project. He is also the Robotics Lead for the ESA/NASA Mars Sample Return DWI Project (ESA Prog. ref: E/019A-02R – MSR SRP E3P2), affiliated with Space Park Leicester. Dr. Hao is the Co-I of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Transformation of Metals Industry (2024), working with School of Engineering.
Dr. Hao’s expertise encompasses Spacecraft AOCS/GNC, Robotics, and AI. His current research interests include autonomous GNC supporting in-orbit servicing and manufacturing, Large language and vision models driven robotics, Reinforcement Learning for Legged Space Robots, AI-driven Robotic Manipulation, and AI for Space Sciences.

Mandelbrot’s fractals are not only gorgeous – they taught mathematicians how to model the real world

Polina Vytnova is a Lecturer in Mathematics, University of Surrey

Polina received her MSc from the Independent University of Moscow and PhD from the University of Warwick. After temporary research positions at Queen Mary University of London, Brown University, and University of Warwick she joined the Department of Mathematics University of Surrey as a lecturer in pure mathematics.
Her research covers a broad range of topics in general area of Dynamical Systems. She enjoys bringing together different branches of mathematics such as Number Theory, Fractal Geometry and Analysis, applying methods from one of them to problems in another.

If we fully engage with how generative AI works, we can still create original art

Dr Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture (Birmingham City University), where his research and teaching focuses on practice-based research, Artificial Intelligence (AI), computer vision and machine learning, digital methodologies, and post-disciplinary models of knowledge production.
Anthony’s most recent book, ‘Trevor Paglen: Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations’ (Sternberg Press, 2024), outlines the extent to which so-called “hallucinations” reveal systemic biases in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Recent and forthcoming publications include ‘Decolonizing Vision: Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmic Anxieties & Aerial Warfare’ (MIT Press, 2026); ‘Creative Endings: Visual Cultures, Generative Artificial Intelligence, and the Return of the Uncanny’ (Routledge Companion to Visual Culture, 2026); ‘AI as Alibi: Algorithmic Models of Automated Death’ (Digital War, 2025); ‘Algorithmic Predictions and Pre-emptive Violence’ (Digital War, 2024) and ‘The Return of the Uncanny: Artificial Intelligence and Estranged Futures’ (Visual Studies, 2024). Anthony is currently co-editing the first Special Journal Collection on AI and Memory for Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press).
Anthony sits on the editorial boards of Third Text (Routledge), Digital War (Palgrave Macmillan), Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press) and is the founder and series editor for Research/Practice (Sternberg Press).

How the science of tiny timescales could speed up computers and improve solar cell technology

Professor Carla Figueira de Morisson Faria is a specialist in theoretical strong-field laser-matter interaction at the Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University College London (UCL). Since the mid-1990s, she has been developing theoretical models for several phenomena in this context, using both analytical and numerical methods. Dr. Faria has over 100 publications in this research area, in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and has participated in several conferences in Optical Physics, in many of which as an invited speaker. She is also a referee for several optics journals (Optics Communications, JOSA B, Journal of Modern Optics and Optics Letters), and has various collaborations with leading groups in the field. She also actively collaborates with scientists in other research areas, such as quantum optics and mathematical physics.

Contemplating Oblivion

Keith Wiley was one of the original members of MURG, the Mind Uploading Research Group, an online community dating to the mid-90s that discussed issues of consciousness with an aim toward mind uploading. He has written a previous book, ‘A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading’, about the philosophical interpretation of mind uploading, various invited book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, and magazine articles, in addition to several essays on a broad array of topics.

Quantum dots are part of a revolution in engineering atoms in useful ways – Nobel Prize for chemistry recognizes the power of nanotechnology

Andrew Maynard is a scientist, author, Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions, and Director of the Future of Being Human initiative at Arizona State University. His most recent books include Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies, and Future Rising: A Journey from the Past to the Edge of Tomorrow.
Dr. Maynard is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, serves as co-chair of the Institute for the Advancement of Nutrition and Food Science (IAFNS) Board of Trustees, is a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research President’s Research Council, has served on a number of National Academies of Sciences committees, and has testified before congressional committees on several occasions. Trained as a physicist, his work cuts across disciplinary boundaries as it focuses on the ethical and socially responsible development and use of new technologies.

Making the invisible visible

Paul Thomas is an Honorary Professor in Fine Art at UNSW Art and Design. He is a pioneer of transdisciplinary art practice. His practice-led research takes not only inspiration from nanoscience and quantum theory but actually operates there.

“This article discusses my research-led artwork, which visually expresses the atomistic world aiming to demonstrate the complexity of making the invisible visible.”

Visualizations of Energy

Carter Hodgkin fuses art, science and technology to explore a new language of abstraction through paintings, animations and large-scale mosaics. Approaching the modification of code as a drawing tool, she generates atomic particle collisions to create animated forms, which visualize energy. Her working process is an interplay between digital means woven into traditional media with an emphasis on the hand. She utilizes a range of media from animation and programming to drawings, paintings and large-scale mosaics.

‘QBism’: quantum mechanics is not a description of objective reality – it reveals a world of genuine free will

Ruediger Schack is a Professor at the Department of Mathematics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He obtained his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics at the University of Munich in 1991 and held postdoctoral positions at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, the University of Southern California, the University of New Mexico, and Queen Mary and Westfield College before joining Royal Holloway in 1995. His research interests are quantum information theory, quantum cryptography and quantum Bayesianism.

How to test if we’re living in a computer simulation

Dr Melvin M. Vopson is an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth. His previous appointments include two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of York, senior R&D scientist at Seagate Technology (a world leading high-tech company) and over six years as Higher Research Scientist at the National Physical Laboratory.
Melvin’s major scientific contributions are in the fields of solid state caloric effects, thin film growth technologies, multiferroic materials and their applications, optical techniques of characterisation of solids, development of novel metrologies and innovations based on ferroic materials, theoretical studies of non-equilibrium phenomena, fundamental physics, and information physics.
Melvin developed new optical techniques for the characterization of solids, novel metrologies for multiferroic materials, a non-equilibrium theory of polarization reversal in ferroelectrics, and novel technologies for digital memories, including the discovery of a 4-state anti-ferroelectric memory effect, the discovery of the multicaloric effect in multiferroic materials, the discovery of the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, or the 5th state of matter, and the discovery of the second law of infodynamics.