Gadgetory

so what's mother Google doing with its billions of dollars well it's all about research and in this case we're talking about research on the moon so what exactly is the Lunar XPrize well the Lunar XPrize is a competition in which 16 teams will try to land a rover on the moon the team whose Rover covers the farthest distance on the surface of the moon will win of course the rover also needs to record and transmit HD footage at least 720p of their exploits on the rocky surface of the moon but I hear you're already asking how big of the stakes well the grand prize is a cool 20 million dollars with a runner up taking 5 million dollars to put this into perspective the previous contests that Google had was for only 1 million dollars and deepmind one that deep mind is owned by Google so Google got to keep their own money now let's talk about the rules the rules of the contest only allow for ten percent in government funding for research and development this is probably to ensure that the competition remains as independent and balanced as it can be other rules include notifying Google of your attempted launch and landing dates your Rover also needs to cover at least 500 meters on the moon and should carry one percent of its weight the team also needs to send out at least a hundred kilobytes of data and receive the transmission of HD footage recorded on the moon by the rover all of this needs to be completed by the end of 2017 now competitors are coming from all over the world we have United States Canada Chile Malaysia India Brazil hungry all over the place and one of the teams that caught our eye was a German team that's partnered with the highly innovative automotive giant Audi to design what they're calling the lunar Quattro it looks like Audi is taking this competition seriously as it's planning to be the first luxury brand on the moon now which company will be the first smartphone brand on the moon let's watch for that now what's really exciting here is that the Lunar X competition could be one of the best stepping stones towards achieving the dream of lunar colonization perhaps when one day we use a Google App to navigate to the surface of the Moon will remember the Lunar X competition is one of the projects that pioneered this into a reality now if you really want to geek out we got to talk about machine learning and what it could do for the Lunar X competition machine learning will play a big role for lunar Rovers as well as similar robots that are sent to hostile environments here on earth on a related note a recent study published in nature shows how machines can recover from damage without any help from humans this is the kind of thing Android robots are going to need to be able to do in the future if they are to survive in hostile environments where it's just too dangerous for human beings look at this one here it is acting like a wounded animal it's going to be able to maneuver into places that humans just can't go the possibilities are really exciting and endless what do you guys think let me know in the comments below well maybe you're now one of those people who don't want to just watch videos about technology but help actually make new technology while our beloved sponsor full sail university offers degree programs to help you reach those goals in their mobile development undergraduate degree program you'll learn how to create and distribute apps and if you're ready to advance your development skills check out the mobile gaming graduate program if you're ready to compete in this rapidly growing industry visit Full Sail edu /a thority to learn more about these degree programs you