7.29.2005

 

Robotics CEO savors replacing people

FANUC Robotics' Rick Schneider to Present 'Save Your Factory' at Management Briefing Seminar in Traverse City, Michigan

From the article: "Choices" means "robots". He goes on:Speeches like this make it obvious that the Robotic Nation is inevitable, and will arrive rapidly. The same logic is true for every segment of the economy. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, pilots, retail clerks, fast food employees -- in short, everyone -- can be replaced by robots. See Robots taking jobs for a long list.

7.28.2005

 

Japanese 'female' robot

We've covered Repliee before, but here is another article on her:

Japanese develop 'female' android

From the article: "Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a 'female' android called Repliee Q1."

See also: Robots that look human.

 

Sewer robot

Sewer line trouble? A robot to the rescue

From the article:

7.26.2005

 

Using robots to screen human cops

LAPD Recruits Computer to Stop Rogue Cops

From the article:Robots will soon be managing most human beings. See Manna for details.

 

Robots for elderly care

Call me HAL: Japan looks to robots for elderly care

From the article:Japan is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. It has an incentive to rapidly deploy robots in its economy. That will accelerate the creation of the Robotic Nation.

7.25.2005

 

Layoffs are telling us something

On Friday it was noted here that large layoffs are becoming noticeable. This article in Saturday's paper notes the same thing:The fascinating paragraph in the article is this one:The title of the article is also interesting. The layoffs do not "defy" an upbeat Wall Street -- they propel it. When a company announces large layoffs, it HELPS the stock. Firing people is good for a company's stock price. This fact is one of the many things that will propel us toward the Robotic Nation.

By replacing employees with robots, companies become more profitable and their stock prices go up. There is no law that says that companies have to employ people. As robots get more versatile and more intelligent, companies will continue dumping people onto the unemployment roles. See Robots taking Jobs for details.

 

Robot surgeons do everything

Robotic surgery

From the article:See also Surgeons to be close behind pilots and Robotic surgeons.

 

Understanding the coming Singularity

If you have ever heard of "the singularity", wondered what it means and would like to learn more, here is a FAQ that provides you with a nice introduction: Singularity FAQ for Dummies.

 

Tagging people

RFID System Prevented A Possible Infant Abduction

From the article:Tagging people is going to become more and more common. One obvious reason is security, where it will eliminate anonimity. The other reason is so that our robots can identify us easily and definitively.

7.22.2005

 

50,000 layoffs this week


HP lays off 15,000

Winn-Dixie retools, lays off 22,000 workers

Kodak plans to cut 10,000 more jobs

That's nearly 50,000 people out of their jobs this week.

 

Robot Submarines

Robot Submarines Go To War. Part 2: The Navy's AUVs

From the article:If the Air Force can replace all of its pilots with robotic aircraft, it seems appropriate for the Navy to do the same.

See also UH readies first autonomous undersea robot, which includes a nice photo.

7.21.2005

 

Humanoid Robotics, Almir Heralic

This is a remarkable little humanoid robot built by a college student:

Humanoid Robotics, Almir Heralic

It's called HR-2. From the site: "The HR-2 robot was constructed during a period of three months at Chalmers University in Sweden. It has 22 degrees of freedom which enables it to easily move around imitating human motions." There's a very nice movie showing its capabilities.

7.19.2005

 

Poker robots advancing rapidly

Who Says Robots Can't Bluff?

Human beats poker-playing robot

From the article:Fast forward a couple of years and robots will be able to beat all human players at poker. Then combine the poker robot with a chess robot, a checkers robot, a bridge robot, a Parcheesi robot, an Old Maid robot, etc. Now you have a robot that can beat any human at any game. In 10 or 15 years, combine this robot with an advanced car-driving robot that can drive better than a human being (and does it 24x7 as well).

And just keep combining... Welcome to the Robotic Nation.

 

Another Grand Challenge robot

'Stanley' gets ready for the robo-desert race

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

 

Your own electronic 'rumble strip'

More from the "soon your car will drive itself" department:

Your own electronic 'rumble strip'

From the article:

7.17.2005

 

Robots for home security

Home, Secure Home: "Twice a day, a drone helicopter flies along the perimeter of the property, surveying the landscape with a pair of wireless camera 'eyes.' Robot security guards patrol the grounds. Visitors who show up at the enforced steel door at the center of the property must present a biometric passport and submit to an iris scan. Inside, computers and security personnel track the identities of visitors as they move from one room to the next. These aren't precautions at a supersecure government site, but the latest defenses available to the well-heeled homeowner. Security technology once the reserve of government agents is fast becoming a part of everyday civilian reality�for those who can afford it."

 

Robots may repair Hubble after all

NASA Selects Robotic Workspace Technologies, Inc., Subsidiary of Innova Holdings, Inc., to Provide Controls for Robotic Mechanisms: "Robotic Workspace Technologies, Inc. (RWT(tm)) has been awarded a multi-phase contract by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to provide control systems for robotic mechanisms that are planned for a future mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The contract comprises two phases and specifies the company's Universal Robot Controller(tm) (URC(tm)). Details of the transaction were not disclosed. "

 

Soccer robots

No matter who wins, robotics take big leap forward: "A favorite in this league is Team Osaka, a club set up mainly by small and midsize businesses in the city. Its VisiON robot won last year's event in its debut. This year, the team will compete with a new version of the robot, called VisiON NEXTA. The 47.5-centimeter-tall robot bears a physical resemblance to its predecessor, but inside it packs far more punch.

For starters, it can process data eight times faster than its predecessor, and the resolution of its 360-degree field-of-vision camera is four times as great. Team Osaka officials say the key to winning the competition will be how quickly a robot can get to its feet again after falling over in clashes with rivals. RoboCup officials say one of the most noticeable technological improvements in the competition has been the advancement in sensor technology, particularly in the increased processing power, which improves the robots' ability to see. "

7.15.2005

 

Robot drives 200 miles

Carnegie Mellon's Sandstorm robot makes unprecedented 200-mile autonomous run

From the article:

 

Robot camel jockeys

Nice photos of camels being ridden by robots:

Robot camel jockeys

The question is, how long before the camels are replaced by robots as well?

 

Advancing robot pets

I, Roommate: The Robot Housekeeper Arrives

From the article:See also Luxury robots.

7.13.2005

 

Will RFID-guided robots rule the world?

Will RFID-guided robots rule the world?

From the article:See also Why so nervous about robots, Wal-Mart?

 

ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show

A bit different...

ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show

 

Luxury Robots

Luxury Robots

See also: Home robots you can buy.

7.12.2005

 

Why so nervous about robots, Wal-Mart?

Why so nervous about robots, Wal-Mart?

From the article:All that you have to do is read Robots in 2015 to understand why Wal-Mart doesn't want to discuss it. The completely robotic Wal-Mart is just not that far away. When Wal-Mart converts, the company will need to dump about 1 million employees onto the job market.

At the same time, every other retailer will need to convert to the same kind of system in order to compete, which means about 10 million people will pour onto the unemployment rolls over the course of just 3 to 5 years. At the same time, millions of teachers will be pouring onto the unemployment roles as well. So will pilots. So will... see Robots and jobs for a long list.

It will be a remarkable period of time, for which there is no precedent and for which we are largely unprepared. See Robotic Nation for details.

7.11.2005

 

Voice recognition breakthrough

Vocie recognition breakthrough: "As for a machine, each variant of a voice is unique. That is why speech recognition programs usually require training. As a result of training, an enormous library is built up in the memory of the silicon brain, where thousands of possible options of pronunciation of the same words (for example, numerals) are stored. Having heard a word, the computer would look through the library and almost certainly something similar to the heard word will be found in it.

The approach suggested by the scientists from the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, at the Russian Academy of Sciences, is rather more human than machine: a computer under the researchers' guidance filters individual peculiarities. It picks out the most basic things and rejects all immaterial ones. As a result, the machine even acquires the ability to discern individual sounds and to put together in its 'mind' familiar words from these sounds.

As a result, 1 kilobyte would be sufficient for a processor to confidently recognize all numerals and some simple commands, however, pronounced (although only in Russian at the moment). Several dozen people with far-from-ideal articulation - tried to confuse the quick-witted program, by pronouncing numerals either in a whisper or in a voice trembling with excitement. However, the computer successfully rejected emotional frequencies as irrelevent. "

 

Read the story again? Sure. Computers don't get tired.

Read the story again? Sure. Computers don't get tired.: "For all those parents whose voices have grown hoarse sounding out the rhymes in their child's favorite picture book 'just one more time,' some reinforcements have arrived.

One More Story is a new online library where children can choose a book - complete with narration, highlighted text, and the book's original illustrations - and listen as they read along on the computer.

Creators Carl Teitelbaum and Rona Roth see it as an opportunity to bring literature to an electronically inundated generation. Aimed at the home rather than the educational sphere, it's the first website to deliver popular children's books along with music and sound effects, says Jim Eber, a spokesman for One More Story (www.onemorestory.com)."

It does not seem that this is any different than using a DVD as a babysitter, but it is another form of technological babysitting.

 

Robotic Container Ship

Robotic Container Ship

From the article:19 is not that many. How long before the ship needs zero people?

 

The end of anonymity

Thinking about the London subway bombings last week, it seems like one thing is certain. In just a few years, after one or two more incidents like this, we are very likely to see the end of anonymity in human society.

What happened on Thursday is that several people walked with complete anonymity into several subway stations. They planted their bombs invisibly and then either left the scene or remained to be detonated. We have no idea who they were, where they came from, who they associated with or where they went if they left the scene.

We consider anonymity like this to be completely normal today. And we see the effects of this anonymity constantly, simply by reading the paper or watching the news. Anonymity gives criminals a huge advantage. The O.J. Simpson case and its "trial of the century" brought this point home with a big splash 10 years ago. On June 12, 1994, two people died in a brutal murder and no one can conclusively prove who did it. We have no idea who was on the street near Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman at the time of the murder, or where O.J. Simpson was that night.

The O.J. case is one end of the spectrum – a gigantic murder mystery. At the other end are tiny crimes that happen anonymously everyday. For example, one of my neighbors found the envelope of a credit card bill torn open and lying on the grass near his mailbox last week. He has no idea who did it, and therefore had to cancel all of his credit cards that afternoon.

It would be relatively easy to eliminate anonymity today, and that is why its end is near. All that we need is a way to read biometric information (thumbprint, iris, whatever) whenever a person enters and leaves an area like a subway station. This might be done very simply with thumbprint-reading turnstiles. This type of identity gathering will occur at the entrance to every subway station, building, airport, mall, campus, park, stadium, etc. In addition, the identity of every car will be tracked as it moves around.

That will be the first level of the net. With these simple measures, we would know the identity of everyone who entered the subway stations on Thursday. That data would make it easy to discover the identity of the London terrorists in just a few days.

Then the net will tighten. Once it is known who is entering each facility, it will be possible to use cameras to track each person's motion and identify their exact location on a moment by moment basis. If Person X stops to talk to Person Y, that will be known. So will all of Person X's and Person Y's phone calls, email messages, package deliveries, purchases, etc. No longer will email messages and spam arrive with anonymity – we will know exactly who sent them, and so will "the authorities". That means that once the criminals are caught, all of their associates will be caught as well. Entire terrorist cells will be rooted out quite easily once anonymity disappears.

Is this good or bad? It doesn't really matter – it is inevitable. Anonymity is simply an artifact of our non-technological past. The only reason we have anonymity today is because, in the past, it would have been too expensive and too onerous to eliminate it. Today we can use technology to eliminate anonymity at low cost and with only small inconvenience. We will gladly deploy the technology to eliminate everything from petty theft to global terrorism. Given a choice between "anonymity" and "the potential to have a city blown up by terrorists", we will choose to lose our anonymity.

Once anonymity is gone, it is very likely that we will eliminate crime as we know it today. That will be a very good thing. According to this page, in the year 2000 in the United States there were:In 20 years, people will look back at the level of crime and terrorism that we endure today with a certain horror, in the same way that we look back in horror at all of the deaths caused by things like smallpox.

7.08.2005

 

Stand Watch For Security Robots

Stand Watch For Security Robots

From the article: See also Robotic Police.

 

Guitar robot

Guitar robot

Nice set of photos and a description of a guitar-playing robot.

7.07.2005

 

Why millions of teachers will be out of work soon...

Computers monitor summer school classes

From the article:That last sentence is extremely interesting, because it implies that human teachers don't do that. That is just one of the many reasons why human teachers are about to be replaced by computers and robots.

The other reason is cost. Let's say you could replace all of the teachers in the U.S. with computers. Those computers will cost very little compared to a teacher, and the computer will do a better job (as seen above). So it seems like a no-brainer -- teachers will be gone in the not-too-distant future. How much money would the nation save?

There are over 3 million teachers in the United States. Assume the average salary+benefits+SS+etc is $50,000 per teacher per year. That's $150 billion per year. There are approximately 100 million households in America, so that's $1,500 per household. If we replaced all the teachers with computers, your taxes would fall by something between $1,000 and $1,500 per year.

But once you computerize all the classes and eliminate 3 million teachers, you don't really need students to come to "school" any more. The repercussions of that could save a lot more money. And so on. The gist is that by eliminating teachers, each household would take home $1,000 to $2,000 per year in additional income, which is something that a lot of people can get excited about.

It will also mean that 3 million teachers are on the street looking for jobs.

Welcome to the Robotic Nation. See also: Robotic education, Robots and education and Robots and jobs.

 

Robotic police

CNN.com - Cameras put police ears to the ground

From the article:It simply will not be too long before these eyes and ears are attached to rolling or walking robots, and those robots have the ability to do things like deploy nets and shoot tasers and tranquilizer darts.

One thought that comes to mind immediately is that these systems are desperately needed in Iraq.

See also The future of robotic police.

 

Fujitsu Automation HOAP-3

Fujitsu Automation HOAP-3

From the article:See also Walking robots.

 

Robot hand performs remote breast checks

This one comes as a surprise:

Robot hand performs remote breast checks

From the article: Just another step forward in the development of the completely robotic hospital.

7.05.2005

 

Robotic Nation is happening right before our very eyes 2...

Were the Good Old Days That Good?

From the article:"There is no question that a huge gap has opened up between productivity and living standards." As mentioned in Robotic Nation is happening right before out very eyes, this is the essence of the Robotic Nation. Automation and robots replace people, causing employment and wages to fall and the Concentration of wealth to rise.

7.03.2005

 

Robotic Nation coming true before our very eyes...

Profits, Not Jobs, on the Rebound in Silicon Valley - New York Times

From the article: "In part, the change is driven by the very automation that Silicon Valley has largely made possible, allowing companies to create more value with fewer workers." This is the essence of the Robotic Nation. Automation and robots replace people, causing employment to fall and the Concentration of wealth to rise.

 

Manna on board the space station

Space station gets HAL-like computer

From the article:This is a direct implemantation of the Manna system. Computerized management of human beings will be coming soon to every fast food restaurant and SuperCenter near you...

See Manna for details.

 

Deep Impact robot beats human pilots

Deep Impact fires its bullet at Comet Tempel 1: "Monte Henderson, deputy program manager with spacecraft-builder Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., said not even a right-stuff fighter pilot could pull off the flying challenge faced by the two Deep Impact spacecraft. As a result, both were programmed in advance to collect their own navigation data and to maneuver autonomously as required. "

7.02.2005

 

Advanced Robotics E-Symposium - AdRob 2005

Advanced Robotics E-Symposium

From the site: The International Federation of Robotics is proud to present the 1st International Advanced Robotics E-Symposium. This E-Symposium has been designed to stimulate knowledge sharing and global dialogue amongst advanced robotics industry professionals. World-renownwed experts will discuss the latest standing of human-robot interaction and user interfaces, advanced robotics technology transfer & investment, current & emerging applications, mass commercialisation and other cutting edge mobile, personal and service robotics topics.

Live online on July 6, 2005. Seems to offer free registration.

7.01.2005

 

Korean Robot Guard

Korean RobotCop

The Korean uPostMate robot has the ability to shoot a net to stop an intruder, as shown in this photo.

See also this photo.

See also Robot guards.

 

Surgical nurse robot

The Penelope Surgical Instrument Server makes its debut

From the article:See also this article.

 

Kendo robot

Practice Kendo with robot

From the article:See also Ballroom robot

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