UC Berkeley (Video)

Shruti Agarwal and her thesis advisor Hany Farid, an incoming professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in the School of Information at UC Berkeley, are racing to develop digital forensics tools that can unmask “deepfakes,” hyper-realistic AI-generated videos of people doing or saying things they never did or said. Their technique, which Agarwal presented at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference, could be used to help journalists, policy makers, and the public stay one step ahead of bogus videos of political or economic leaders that could be used to swing an election, destabilize a financial market, or even incite civil unrest and violence. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 35133]

If the sight of a skittering bug makes you squirm, you may want to look away a new insect-sized robot created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can scurry across the floor at nearly the speed of a darting cockroach. Small-scale robots like these could be advantageous in search and rescue missions, squeezing and squishing into places where dogs or humans can't fit, or where it may be too dangerous for them to go, said Yichuan Wu, first author of the paper, who completed the work as a graduate student in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley through the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute partnership Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Science] [Show ID: 35134]

A new 3-D printing technique shines light rays onto this yellow liquid, creating solid, 3-D objects. The syrupy liquid is light sensitive and hardens when exposed to a certain amount of light. Nicknamed the Replicator, the printer custom-makes objects like a model of a jaw, a mini-screwdriver, or even The Thinker. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Science] [Show ID: 35129]