Researchers comprehensively summarize existing multi-modal fusion technologies, detailing their technical specifics and applications in several key fields. Through in-depth analysis, the study highlights current technical bottlenecks and offers guiding recommendations for the future development of multi-modal research.

Self-driving cars will soon be able to “think” like human drivers under complex traffic environments, thanks to a groundbreaking cognitive encoding framework built by a multidisciplinary research team from the School of Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). This innovation significantly enhances the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs), reducing overall traffic risk by 26.3% and cutting potential harm to high-risk road users such as pedestrians and cyclists by an impressive 51.7%. Even the AVs themselves benefited, with their risk levels lowered by 8.3%, paving the way for a new framework to advance the automation of vehicle safety.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts many industries and professions in different ways. A recent study looking at taxi drivers in Yokohama, Japan, shows that AI demand forecasting, which is unrelated to autonomous driving, can improve productivity in less-experienced drivers, helping close the skill gaps. This finding challenges the assumption that AI only favors high-skilled workers in technology-dependent industries.

The stem cell-based embryo model (SCBEM) takes advantage of the flexibility of pluripotent stem cells (non-reproductive cells that can give rise to many different types of cells) to resemble that of embryos. While this model has helped to advance research in diseases and develop therapies or treatments, it has also sparked international debate on what regulations should be placed on this type of experimentation. Researchers reviewed what countries are doing to regulate SCBEM and proposed what regulation should look like for this field of stem cell research to move forward in a manner that everyone can agree is ethically sound.

Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim and his team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Composite Materials Research Institute have succeeded in constructing the coil of an electric motor using only carbon nanotubes (CNTs) without any metals, and realizing it to the point where it can actually run.