Roboware E3 – The Open Source Robot
South Korea’s Roboware is close to completing development of their entertainment humanoid robot E3. The robot’s name derives from its function as an Emotional, Entertainment and Educational device. Clearly, Roboware has big plans for this open source robot equipped with sonar, sound, camera, and touch sensors including a touch screen on its chest. The robot moves around using a 3-wheel mechanism.
Aldebaran has big plans for their creation. They want to make it a true companion robot for families. They hope that in the future, Nao will be customizable (they have recruited two Parisian design school designers to give Nao its current form) with the ability to adopt to its environment and learn new skills.
. . . an evolutionary process from dinosaur robots to modern androids.
1,000 Paro Robots Migrating to Denmark
Paro, a human-interactive robotic seal developed by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), has scientifically demonstrated the ability to elicit emotions, activate the mind and calm nerves in patients at hospitals and nursing homes, earning it the Guinness title of “world’s most therapeutic robot.” Although the well-traveled Paro now resides at welfare institutions in more than 20 nations around the world, the Danish government is the first organization to make a large-scale purchase. Denmark aims to have the Paro robots in their new homes by 2011.
Sylvain Calinon and other researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland have used imitation learning and probabilistic models to teach HOAP to help make omelets. Through direct human guidance, it learns to whip eggs, cut ham and grate cheese, focusing on the most essential part of each task and ignoring irrelevant events. It automatically adapts when a mixing bowl is moved.
Robitc Ants Building Homes on Mars?
Recent discoveries of water and Earth-like soil on Mars have set imaginations running wild that human beings may one day colonise the Red Planet. However, the first inhabitants might not be human in form at all, but rather swarms of tiny robots.
DOD Wants Parent Bots to Fool Tots
The U.S. Department of Defense has a $2.3 billion program, Small Business Innovation Research, that comes up with projects to fund. Idea OSD09-H03? Develop an AI that fools young children into thinking they are talking to Daddy or Mommy when Daddy or Mommy are off on their 3rd deployment to Iraq and can’t come to the webcam.
Rise of the Rat Brained Robots
This is no ordinary robot control system – a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made – and continue to make – connections with each other.
Flying Drone Design Based on Prehistoric Reptile
“Since the discovery of a complete Tapejara in Brazil about 10 years ago, we’ve found they could actually sail on the wind for very long periods as they flew over the oceans,” he said. “They spent most of their time hunting for fish. By raising their wings like sails on a boat, they could use the slightest breeze in the same way a catamaran moves across water. They could take off quickly and fly long distances with little effort.”
Similarly, the drone will sail in the same manner.
Here are some of the friendly faces seen at the Robo Japan 2008 exhibition held at Pacifico Yokohama Hall. . .
Doctor Builds an Android Twin of Himself to Study the Soul
A Japanese inventor’s latest creation is a robot double of himself.
Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro tells CNN’s Tokyo correspondent Kyung Lah that he sees his creation, dubbed the Geminoid, partly as an opportunity to have a presence when not actually present, essentially being in two places at once, and also as a chance to study human behavior along with furthering his knowledge of androids.
Since Cyber Maid Alice is an Augmented Reality product, the maid is literally on your desktop. If you have a malicious bent, Alice can be made to cry but if you’re benevolent, gifts may be given to her so she’ll rejoice.
. . .
The webcam is used to project an image of Alice on top of the Cyber Cube. She’ll react to external stimuli provided by the Cyber Stick. For example, pouncing the Cyber Stick on her bosom will cause her to react in a convincing way. Alice can also talk, make gestures and show a range of emotions. (Link to Video. A similar Augmented Reality A.I. girl can be seen here and here.)
Pentagon Hires British Scientist to Help Build Robots that Will Not Commit War Crimes
The US Army and Navy have both hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine that murders indiscriminately.
By 2010 the US will have invested $4 billion in a research programme into “autonomous systems”, the military jargon for robots, on the basis that they would not succumb to fear or the desire for vengeance that afflicts frontline soldiers.
Woman Wants Webcam to Replace Lost Eye
I met Tanya at a film festival recently. During our conversation she said she was looking for help in turning her artificial eye into a eye-cam. You know, a mini web cam inside an eyeball. It would capture live video and stream it to a memory somewhere and also perhaps eventually assist her own vision in real time.
See also:
Robots and AI Continue to Evolve
The Golden-Skinned Japanese Robot from the 1920′s
Robots
