Iron Man Suit Possible Within 5 to 10 Years

Hey check out this Device article that details Sarcos Raytheon's improved XOS called simply the XOS-2.
From the article:

• This improved version of the original XOS is stronger, lighter, more damage resistant, and uses only half the power of its predecessor. It's still tethered to an external power supply, which trades mobility for a lot more power and longer running time. The good news is that Sarcos just announced that they expect to start shipping XOS 2 within about five years, and that an untethered version could be about 10 years out.

Man controls Robot Hand with his mind

Tim Sayell sends in an article from Yahoo news that concerns advancements being made in the field of interfacing the human nervous system with robotic hardware.

In an experiment, that set a record for the longest time electrodes had remained connected to a human nervous system, 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello, for a month, learned to control a robotic arm with thoughts alone, achieving a here-to-fore unheard of accuracy of 95%.

Electrodes were implanted in Petruzziello's stump that not only picked up control signals, but also feedback / sensation inputs, which Petruzziello stated made it much easier to imagine the arm as his own, connected to his body.

From the Article:

• During the month he had the electrodes connected, he learned to wiggle the robotic fingers independently, make a fist, grab objects and make other movements.
  

Read more here

How will society react to robots with emotional responses?

I thought I could answer this question fairly easy until I read this article in NewScientist sent in by Shaun Saunders.


Outside of science fiction, the idea of technology that reads emotions has been limited. In the 90s computer scientist Rosalind Picard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology expressed interest in the science and technology of gaging human emotional responses. However her contemporaries were uninterested and in some cases outright hostile. When she suggested pursuing this sort of research. She was greeted with scepticism. "It was such a taboo topic back then - it was seen as very undesirable, soft and irrelevant," she says.

However the advertising business was vitally interested in how to gauge how effective a certain products ad are being received.

from the article:

• Picard published a book in 1997 called Affective Computing, which laid out the case that many technologies would work better if they were aware of their user's feelings. For instance, a computerized tutor could slow down its pace or give helpful suggestions if it sensed a student looking frustrated, just as a human teacher would.

Simple versions of responsive tech are very familiar to us. Take for example the Microsoft paperclip. Ideally it was there simply to help you work more efficiently, however Microsoft wisely killed it off because people found it so irritating.

But what would it be like if a like featured robotic device or software started gauging how fast you typed or how hard, or using your web cam determined that you were upset or disturbed...could this undermine personal relationships? Is it possible that said technologies might serve to isolate you from human interaction even more so?

Saunders of course can clearly see a downside to this tech. That emotion-sensing technologies might be used covertly. Security services could use face and posture-reading systems to sense stress in people from a distance, even when they're unaware of it. Imagine if an unsavory regime got hold of such technology and used it to identify citizens who opposed it.

A classic piece of reading on the extreme is Jack Williamson's classic 'With Folded Hands'

Read the complete article

Unnatural Selection

From Shaun Saunders comes a very interesting article in New Scientist:

• Christopher MacLeod and his colleagues at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK, created a robot that adapts to (environmental) changes by mimicking biological evolution.

Pretty strong statement by any definition. So just exactly are they talking about. Well at present, if you build a robotic device and then add on some other ability, you wind up having to retool and recode the whole system. The device on it's own can not make the adjustments to deal with environmental and structural changes. But MacLeod has added a wrinkle. The robot's software "brain" can automatically grows in size and complexity as its physical body develops, this is very much how biological life evolved over million of years. Macleod's robot's brain assigns new clusters of "neurons" to adapt to new additions to its body. In effect mimicking life.

Up to this point robotic scientists have used a try it, fail, succeed system for robot learning which is often slow and time consuming. MacLeod's team took this idea a step further, however, and developed an incremental evolutionary algorithm (IEA) capable of adding new parts to its robot brain over time. This new system can learn and adapt to changes and relearn functions by adding on "brains" to deal with the changes.

Read the complete New Scientist article

Open-Source Humanoids

The writers over at the Daily Galaxy blog seem to have a pretty compelling vision of the future of robotics, specifically of the humanoid variation. It would seem that quite a few people consider the DIY (do it yourself) and Open Source are not just a fad, but the wave of the future. It's a future most elegantly fronted by the Willow project who's aim is to bring robotics to the masses. The project makes all their hardware and software designs open source, so anybody with the capability can take part, downloading existing designs and uploading their own. Willow feels that such an approach of putting the hardware and software in the hands of the average man "will enable breakthrough robotics applications, much as PCs and DOS enabled a new set of computing applications two decades ago."

<- The Willow Garage ->

Monkey uses brain power to feed itself

This video from NewScientist on cybernetic devices is interesting but creepy none the less. The film documents test with monkeys that allowed them to feed themselves with robotic arms controlled completely with brainwaves.

AI Robotics hoax claims robot is ‘Perfect Woman’

I just started hearing about this, but what is out there is very strange indeed. What is truly strange though is that given a decade or so and this "hoax" is likely to be reality. The gist is that AI Robotics has produced a prototype female companion and is rushing it into production with a start up in June. As Dvice puts it:

...the “Perfect Woman” publicity stunt is in full swing, claiming a planned release of its first model on June 11. Said to be able to go shopping, clean up the house, cook dinner, give you a massage and understand you, this “perfect” woman is allegedly the product of two robotics students at Kobe University in Japan. According to the hype accompanying the launch, the blonde, brunette and redhead robots use “a technology called RKS, ‘Recognition Krax System,’ which allows for vocal, tactile and visual recognition.” They can even “satisfy your desires in the bedroom.”

Perfectly creepy is my take. Deliberate or not, the "robot's" expression is of someone numbly aware that they are in the middle of some Machiavellian nightmare. Check out the "promo"

Too Many Vagrants? Bum Bot to the Rescue!

Vagrants beware - Atlanta pub owner Rufus Terrill has built a robot bouncer to deter criminals and vagrants who cause trouble around his bar. Terrill's "Bum Bot" is a 300-pound, waist-high robot marked "SECURITY", equipped with bright red lights and an even brighter spotlight, infrared security camera that can record and transmit plus a water cannon at the ready in the spinning turret on top. All this plus Terrill's voice saying "You're trespassing. That's private property," through the robot's loudspeaker. Bum Bot has not gone completely without notice in the activist community however. Neighborhood activists, have threatened protests. Street people say it's intimidating. And homeless advocates question the intentions of its inventor. Bum Bot consists of a three-wheel scooter which gives the robot mobility. A home-alarm loudspeaker attached to a walkie-talkie gives it a voice. Its head is a former home meat-smoker. The red lights are from a 1997 Chevrolet, and it's powered by four car batteries. The bar now welcomes patrons with a sign that says "Home of the Bum Bot,".

photo Jason Bronis / AP file

Want to be a Cyborg? Just need a few more holes in your Head!

I am really split about this...on one hand the thought of invasive brain surgery aimed at true cybernetics is a bit on the creepy side. The other side, given the stated aims of helping severely handicapped individuals move is certainly noble. So, read and make up your own minds.

Researchers at Osaka University are stepping up efforts to develop robotic body parts controlled by thought, by placing electrode sheets directly on the surface of the brain. The aim of the research is to develop real-time mind-controlled robotic limbs for the disabled. To date, the researchers have worked with four test subjects to record brain wave activity generated as they move their arms, elbows and fingers. Working with Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), the researchers have developed a method for analyzing the brain waves to determine the subject’s intended activity to an accuracy of greater than 80%. The next step is to use the data to control robot arms developed by the University of Tokyo’s Department of Precision Engineering.

{via Pink Tentacle}

Robot servants in British homes 'within ten years'

From The Daily Mail online as Shaun puts it "I Robot comes a step closer":

Robot servants for the home will become a reality within ten years, according to experts at Britain's biggest technology retailer. Among the latest examples unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show(CES) in Las Vegas were the Spykee series developed by Meccano and Tribot and Rovio, from Wow wee. However, even more sophisticated worker robots are in the pipeline, such as the iRobiQ, from Yujin Robots of South Korea. These robots and future models, far from being autonomous, will be linked into the home's own technology and broadband internet service, effectively becoming the technology hubs of the home. Voice commands to the robot would be translated into wireless signals to turn on the washing machine, change the TV channel, dim the lights or change the music.

Household Robots

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

“Love + Sex With Robots”

Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing pointed me towards this interesting, unsettling and I must admit at times, horrifying interview with author David Levy in the blog "I am not even trying" - concerning the psychological, economic and the social implications of using robots as sexual partners, better known as sexbots. Some of the questions addressed are:

What essentially human traits do you envision future sexbots changing forever?

Obviously, not everyone will be able to afford robots for sex straight away and top-of-the-line ones will undoubtedly command top dollar. Do you think there is room for the poor in this vision?

Do you foresee much of a secondhand/refurbished market for sexbots?

Is it ethical for an adult to have sex with a sexbot designed to look like a child but programmed to “perform” like an experienced adult?

Would you personally use one of these robots? Would your wife? Would she mind if you used one?

Check out the complete interview by clicking the article title or clicking here

Intelligent Software Helps Build Perfect Robotic Hand

Another step closer to when robotic equipment will be able to do anything a human can in manufacture and service. From Science Daily online:

Scientists in Portsmouth and Shanghai are working on intelligent software that will take them a step closer to building the perfect robotic hand. Using artificial intelligence, they are creating software which will learn and copy human hand movements. They hope to replicate this in a robotic device which will be able to perform the dexterous actions only capable today by the human hand.

Picture is The 'cyberglove' used to capture data about how the human hand moves. (Credit: Image courtesy of University Of Portsmouth)

Robotic Exoskeleton Turns Soldiers Into Space Marines

From AMC

Sci-fi has trained us to expect military personnel to be walking around in mech suits. From Starship Troopers to Robocop, our expectations have been set: if you're not walking around in a flying skeleton of titanium alloy, you're just a flaccid water balloon full of meat slurry in a shooting range.

here is some video of very up to date "super suit"

amc/scifiscanner/2007/11/robotic-exoskel.html

Key Found to Making Robots Human-Friendly

On average, robots today can hold human interest for only about 10 hours, but in a new study, a humanoid robot dubbed QRIO (pronounced "curio") was accepted by human toddlers as "one of them" for 5 months before it was taken away. Why? Well it is no mystery that humans revel in the sense of touch. The premise that if a robot responded when touched - would improve the chances that the robot would be much more acceptable was proven out when QRIO was programmed to have a crude sense of touch. In the study, QRIO was introduced into a classroom of toddlers aged 18 months to 24 months. Children of this age group were chosen because they have no preconceived notions of robots and they communicate using touch as much as speech. In phase I of the experiment, which lasted 27 sessions, QRIO was instructed to interact with the children using its full behavioral repertoire, which included head-turning, dancing and giggling. At first, the children would touch the robot on its face, but as they warmed to him, the majority of their touches were to its hands and arms—a pattern the children also displayed toward each other. During phase II, which lasted 15 sessions, QRIO ignored the children's touches and danced throughout the session. At that point, the [children] quickly lost interest. When QRIO's ability to respond to touch and giggle were returned for three sessions in phase III, the children became friendly with the robot again. What proved even more interesting is that the response to touch is more important than being humaniform. QRIO only basically mimics the human form, this however seemed no impediment to it being accepted as long as it responded when touched.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

pic credit Credit: J. Movellan et al., UCSD

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs.

I have been hearing a lot about this from a great deal of people. Here is the Washington Post article online that Shaun Saunders found. We know the tech is there...saying that it is not, well is just hiding your head....what bothers me is that it's being deployed.... Has the pendelum swung that far back people? Is this the 21st century version of the sixties? Lots of unpopular wars, losts of protests, lots of government agencies spying, lots more interesting in causing fear and trouble..... Remember what Buffalo Springfield said.... "there's something happening here.... what it is ain't exactly clear..."

Here is the article

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Others think they are, well, dragonflies -- an ancient order of insects that even biologists concede look about as robotic as a living creature can look.

No agency admits to having deployed insect-size spy drones. But a number of U.S. government and private entities acknowledge they are trying. Some federally funded teams are even growing live insects with computer chips in them, with the goal of mounting spyware on their bodies and controlling their flight muscles remotely.

The robobugs could follow suspects, guide missiles to targets or navigate the crannies of collapsed buildings to find survivors.

The technical challenges of creating robotic insects are daunting, and most experts doubt that fully working models exist yet.

Make an edible robot hand!

From make blog I found a video on how to make a robot hand out of all things cheese and veggies!
No, it doesn't just look like a robot hand.....it really works!

Click on the article title or here to watch the video.

Robotic Fleas Spring into Action

A robotic flea has been developed that is capable of jumping nearly 30 times its height, rubber band power. These tiny rubber band powered micro-robots could serve as ultra-small sensors. Swarms of such robots could eventually be used to create networks of distributed sensors for detecting chemicals or for military-surveillance purposes. Early tests show that the solar-powered autonomous "flea-bots" can store enough energy to make a 7-millimeter robot jump 200 millimeters high. This flea-like ballistic jumping would enable these sensors to be mobile, overcoming distances and obstacles that would normally be a major problem for micrometer-sized bots.

Robotic age poses ethical dilemma

An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea. The Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007. It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer. The new charter is an attempt to set ground rules for this future. Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives, or others may get addicted to interacting with them just as many internet users get hooked to the cyberworld.

The new guidelines could reflect the three laws of robotics put forward by author Isaac Asimov in his short story Runaround in 1942, she said. Key considerations would include ensuring human control over robots, protecting data acquired by robots and preventing illegal use.

ASIMOV'S LAWS OF ROBOTICS

1 A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2 A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3 A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law