6.29.2005

 

RoboVie soccer robot

This page has several good photos: Vstone and their Robot Football Player !!!

This page has specs and video, apparently for last year's model: RoboVie-V.

 

Bionic arm

`Bionic' arm brings back sense of touch

From the article:This same technology might also make teleoperated arms work better.

 

HOW-TO: Get the most out of your Sony AIBO

HOW-TO: Get the most out of your Sony AIBO

From the article:There are three different hacks to try on your AIBO.

The interesting thing to think about is, "What kind of 'unexpected' things might we be doing with humanoid robots in 10 or 20 years."

 

Robostix expansion board

From a press release:

Gumstix, inc., maker of the world’s smallest full function miniature computers (FFMC), today announced its robostix™ board, the company’s first expansion board specifically designed for robotics.

"The new robostix board meets so many of our design goals, and perhaps dreams,” said Professor Richard Vaughan of the Autonomy (Robotics) Lab in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University (SFU) near Vancouver, Canada, “The overall robotics solution from gumstix gives us complete freedom of movement and an efficient design at such a low cost. We will be using the gumstix in our design and testing of forty robots working together”.

The Autonomy Lab at SFU has standardized on the gumstix connex platform, robostix and cfstix (for WiFi). “These gumstix products have reduced the size, power consumption and student programming time while increasing the robot’s mobility and our control,” continued Professor Vaughan. “Additionally, we are able to use, and make available to everyone, our existing Player software on the gumstix”. Player is an open-source project for robotics interfacing.

In addition to signals from the gumstix motherboard, the robostix expansion board exposes 6 PWM Channels (2x8 bit, 6 programmable), 8 A/D, 24 GPIO, 2 UART at logic levels and an insystem programming port.

6.28.2005

 

TOP 500 List of world's most powerful supercomputers

TOP 500 List of world's most powerful supercomputers, 06/2005

IBM tops the list with 136 Teraflops.

Imagine this kind of power, paired with a petabyte hard disk, sitting on your desk for $1,000 in 2025. That is the power of Moore's Law.

 

Linux powers low-cost petabyte-level storage

Linux powers low-cost petabyte-level storage

From the article:The funny part is that, in 30 years, this gargantuan system will fit in the palm of your hand...

 

Quantum Calculation

Quantum Calculation

From the article:

6.27.2005

 

Robots pushing people out of jobs

Robots replace bodies at WKOW

From the article: Initially, one operator can handle, say, three cameras, so they need only half the people. But then the cameras get smarter, and one person can handle six cameras. Then one person can handle all the cameras. Then no people are needed to handle the cameras, because the cameras are smart enough to do everything themselves. At that point you won't need people to read the news either, because robots that look exactly like humans will be reading the news.

The pace of this kind of thing will be accelerating. For example, in not too long the opening sentence will be, "Though management told us in April it was an outcome they wanted to avoid, it's now clear that Wal-Mart's switch to robotic stores will result in one million pink slips." See also Robots in 2015 and Robots taking jobs.

6.26.2005

 

Robot teachers

This week in robots

From the article:See also: Outsourcing teachers.

 

NextFest

HoustonChronicle.com - It's 'NextFest,' where robots meet androids: "Meet the robot lobster and the android that not only smiles, frowns and blinks but also recognizes people and talks back. They're two of the spookier entries at Wired Magazine's annual 'NextFest,' the high-tech carnival at a Chicago convention hall this weekend showcasing futuristic, sometimes uncannily lifelike technology."

6.23.2005

 

Robot guards

Japanese robot guards to patrol shops, offices

From the article:See also Robots taking jobs

6.22.2005

 

Business opportunity: Robot detects runway debris

A very good use of robots:

Boy hailed for air safety gadget

From the article:See also Business opportunity: The Vienna dog dropping problem

 

Robots at the World Expo

World Expo Envisions Eco-Utopia

From the article: See also: Robots on parade

 

Robotic planes and helicopters

Tiny Linux Computer Has High Hopes For Robotics Apps

From the article: See also More on robot swarms and Gumstix.

 

Robot patients

Robot patients help train young doctors

From the article:See also Digitzed people and the end of doctors.

 

Robots underwater

Local students win U.S. robotics competition

From the article:

6.20.2005

 

Robots on the moon

PC World | Japan dreams of robot moon base in 2025

From the article:Autonomous humanoid robots by 2025 -- Sounds like Robotic Nation to me.

 

Robots reading every license plate

Wired News: Grand Theft Auto Meets Robocop: "An automatic license-plate reader that can scan 500 license plates an hour looking for stolen vehicles underwent its first field tests by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department last week. Using character-recognition technology developed for the Italian Post Office to read postal addresses, four robot eyes in the course of one night queried more than 12,000 license plates, recovered seven stolen cars and resulted in three arrests."

 

Constant surveillance

Your ISP as Net watchdog

From the article:"The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain records of their customers' online activities.

Data retention rules could permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs--that is, if logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates that such logs be kept."

Employers add staff to read workers' outgoing e-mail

From the article: "Employers are stepping up their efforts to monitor employees, in more cases adding staff whose job it is to read workers' outgoing e-mail."

 

Robot hands

US teams join hands to build dexterous robots

From the article: "After years of following increasingly isolated paths, robotics researchers in the United States have agreed on a common goal: making machines that are good with their hands. They hope that a unified scientific front will help them to compete against groups in Asia, where research into humanoid robots has been heavily funded while cash for US projects has dwindled."

See also An advanced robot hand.

6.18.2005

 

Korea and robots

Korea Seeks Global Leadership in Robotics

From the article:The article briefly discusses Korea's Hubo and Maru humanoid robots. See also: An overview of Samsung.

6.17.2005

 

Wal-mart moves one step closer to Manna

Wal-Mart store tells workers to be ready to work any shift

From the article: Think about what this means. If you have children who you take care of when they are out of school, you cannot work at Wal-Mart. You cannot abandon your children at home if Wal-Mart calls one day and orders you to come to work. If you are taking a class to try to get the education you need to stop working at Wal-Mart, you cannot simply walk out of class if Wal-Mart happens to call. Therefore you cannot work at Wal-Mart. If you have a medical condition that requires you to receive treatment on a weekly basis, you cannot work at Wal-Mart - you cannot walk out of the dialysis center just because Wal-Mart has called.

And yet, the move in this direction is completely obvious and predicted in the book Manna. Here is what the book says in Chapter 2:Also:This is exactly the trend that we are witnessing. Wal-Mart is the nation's largest employer, so its policies are replicated at thousands of businesses. Employees become, in essence, slaves.

 

Octopus robots

Octopuses inspire next-generation robots

From the article:

6.16.2005

 

Search robots getting smarter

Enough Keyword Searches. Just Answer My Question.

From the article:

6.15.2005

 

Ultra-Lifelike Robot Debuts in Japan

Photo in the News: Ultra-Lifelike Robot Debuts in Japan

From the article: Videos are available to see just how lifelike this robot is:See also Robots on parade and Robots that look human.

 

Robot cops

Robot cops for German stadiums?

From the article:

6.14.2005

 

The tiniest transitors show Moore's law on the move

Wired News: Honey, I Shrunk the PC

From the article: See also Moore's Law and Moore's law and hard disks.

6.13.2005

 

Poker robots

Another example of how robots will soon replace humans in nearly every aspect of our society:

POKER-FACED

From the article:See also Robots taking jobs.

 

914 PC-Bot Reviewed

914 PC-Bot Reviewed

From the article:

6.12.2005

 

Robots on parade

Japan drums up robot support

From the article: Also:See also Robots taking jobs

6.11.2005

 

Robot suit to create 'super' men and women

Japan unveils "robot suit" that enhances human power

From the article:

6.10.2005

 

Catoms

Scientists unveil 'clay' robots that will shape our world

From the article: See also Programmable matter.

 

Robot pitchers taking to the field

Robot to throw out first pitch at Pirates-Orioles game tonight

From the article:See also Managing a baseball team with a robot. It would appear that the entire baseball team will be unnecessary in just a decade or so. See also Robots taking jobs.

 

Russian thought police

'Thought police' patrol Russian transport hubs :

From the article:How long will it be before robots can do this sort of visual analysis?

6.09.2005

 

Robotics: Grow Up!

Robotics: Grow Up!

From the article: The roomba is blind, it has no hands, and it has no idea what it is doing. It solves one specific problem in a very simple way, making it inexpensive enough for many people to afford.

The thing that is holding robots back is the fact that, to do most "normal" problems around the house that people would like to do (e.g. doing the laundry, washing the dishes, dusting, painting, picking up the kid's toys, vacuuming the stairs, etc.) you need to have a good vision system, good hands and a certain amount of intelligence/trainability (e.g. - put Bobby's shirts on hangers in this closet).

Right now, we don't have the processing power for the vision system, and we are still working on the notion of intelligence. In 20 to 30 years we will have all the processing power we need, and at that point robots will explode. See Robotic Nation for details.

6.08.2005

 

Firms tag workers to improve efficiency

This seems to be an article straight out of the book Manna:

Firms tag workers to improve efficiency

From the article: Another article on the same topic: This is the wrist tag that makes your time at work more productive - or turns you into a robot.

Read the book Manna to see exactly where this trend takes us.

 

40 robot hopefuls picked for DARPA Grand Challenge

DARPA picks 40 robot hopefuls for $2m race

From the article: See also: Robots are unable to meet DARPA's Grand Challenge for a perspective on how fast things are advancing.

6.07.2005

 

Simulating a complete human brain

As more and more computing cycles become available and we start to approach computers able to handle one quadrillion operations per second, this makes complete sense:

IBM links with Swiss team to build model of brain

From the article:See also: Mission to build a simulated brain begins

See Robotic Nation for complete details.

6.05.2005

 

Self-copying machine

The machine that can copy anything

From the article:

 

Robots to become guard dogs of the future

Robots to become guard dogs of the future: "By activating the 'house-sitting' mode, the robot is set to call its master as soon as it detects an intruder by means of its infrared cameras, which can monitor the space around the robot at 360 degrees. "

 

Robots offer a hand on the ballroom floor

Robots offer a hand on the ballroom floor

From the article:See also: Robot companions in Japan.

6.04.2005

 

Cool and compact supercomputer

Self-wiring supercomputer is cool and compact

From the article:

6.03.2005

 

U.S. Economy Added Only 78,000 Jobs in May

U.S. Economy Added Only 78,000 Jobs in May

From the article:See also:

6.01.2005

 

Helper robots

Toyota aims to sell service robots by 2010

From the article:See also Nanny robots

 

Robot intestine camera

Robot combined with swallowable camera could give docs a better look inside the small intestine

From the article:Not only is the idea of a robot crawling around in your intestines interesting, but the idea that South Korea is paying for the research is interesting. See also An overview of Samsung.

 

Robot Salesmen

AI Seduces Stanford Students

I know what you are probably thinking. You are thinking, "if there is one thing robots won't be able to do, it's selling stuff to human beings." But if that is what you are thinking, you would be wrong. From the article:So what happened?So here's what will happen. Scientists figure out that, by mimicing the customer, they can improve sales of a robotic salesman by x%. Then they figure out, "if we compliment the customer's choice of shoes, we improve sales by x%." Then they figure out, "if we ask the customer where he/she was born, sales go up by x%." And a hundred little tweaks later, a robotic salesman outperforms a human salesman by a factor of two.

This article further clarifies that process:This is the huge advantage robots have. Every year they get better and better and better, until they are much better than humans at everything. Welcome to the Robotic Nation. See also Robots taking jobs.

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