Nearly 1 in 10 Americans would have sex with a robot

Full Article:
http://io9.com/nearly-1-in-10-americans-would-have-sex-with-a-robot-472622975

A recent survey conducted by the Huffington Post and YouGov shows that we’re surprisingly open to the idea of having carnal relations with mechanical companions.

And the poll was fairly legit. YouGov surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults from February 20th to 21st, and the sample group factored in demographic characteristics like age, race, gender, education, income, interest in politics, and religion...

In response to questions about robotic sex partners, here’s what they found:

Eighteen percent of respondents indicated that they believed sexbots will be available by 2030. Nine percent indicated that they would have sex with a robot if they could (though perhaps they wouldn't have been keen on admitting that if they could).

Sex with a robot raises some thorny ethical questions — including whether a married person who hooked up with a robot would be guilty of infidelity. What did the poll find? Forty-two percent of Americans indicated that such a dalliance would constitute cheating. Another 31 percent said it wouldn't, and 26 percent said they were unsure. Respondents under age 30 were almost as likely to say it wouldn't be cheating (34 percent) as that it would (36 percent). Americans over age 65 were far more likely to say that it would, by a 52 percent to 24 percent margin.

All in a day’s work: Design and print your own robot

Full Article:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/print-your-own-robots-0403.html

MIT is leading an ambitious new project to reinvent how robots are designed and produced. Funded by a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the project will aim to develop a desktop technology that would make it possible for the average person to design, customize and print a specialized robot in a matter of hours.

“This research envisions a whole new way of thinking about the design and manufacturing of robots, and could have a profound impact on society,” says MIT Professor Daniela Rus, leader of the project and a principal investigator at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “We believe that it has the potential to transform manufacturing and to democratize access to robots.”

“Our goal is to develop technology that enables anyone to manufacture their own customized robot. This is truly a game changer,” says Professor Vijay Kumar, who is leading the team from the University of Pennsylvania. “It could allow for the rapid design and manufacture of customized goods, and change the way we teach science and technology in high schools.”

The five-year project, called “An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines,” brings together a team of researchers from MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, and is funded as part of the NSF’s “Expeditions in Computing” program.

It currently takes years to produce, program and design a functioning robot, and is an extremely expensive process, involving hardware and software design, machine learning and vision, and advanced programming techniques. The new project would automate the process of producing functional 3-D devices and allow individuals to design and build functional robots from materials as easily accessible as a sheet of paper.

“Our vision is to develop an end-to-end process; specifically, a compiler for building physical machines that starts with a high level of specification of function, and delivers a programmable machine for that function using simple printing processes,” Rus says.

Researchers hope to create a platform that would allow an individual to identify a household problem that needs assistance; then head to a local printing store to select a blueprint, from a library of robotic designs; and then customize an easy-to-use robotic device that could solve the problem. Within 24 hours, the robot would be printed, assembled, fully programmed and ready for action...

Winged Robot Is Time Machine to Origins of Flight

John Bohannon, ScienceNOW
October 18, 2011
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/robots-flying-origins/

Here’s what we know about the evolution of flight: By about 150 million years ago, the forests were filled with flying — or perhaps just gliding — dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx, possibly similar to the ancestor of modern birds. What we don’t know is what primitive wings were used for before bird ancestors could fly. A study published today in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics provides some fresh data for this debate, not from fossils but a winged robot.

There are two main theories for how avian flight evolved. According to the “trees-down” theory, primitive wings were used to glide down from heights. The “ground-up” theory holds that bird ancestors used their wings to “run flap” along the ground, making them faster and better able to scamper up steep inclines that got in their way. The problem with the ground-up theory is the huge speed required to achieve liftoff. By comparison, incremental improvements in gliding could have led to flight. The fossil evidence has been too scant to settle the matter.

Ronald Fearing and Kevin Peterson, engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, were not thinking about this debate when they created a 25-gram robot called DASH+Wings. It was a modification to a tiny six-legged robot called DASH, for Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod — one of the many robots they have developed as sneaky reconnaissance for the U.S. military and other applications. Tiny ground-based robots often have difficulty getting up inclines and over objects, Fearing says, so “we had been working on exploring a hybrid locomotion mode, where flapping wings and legs combine to propel the robot.” Once they had added wings to DASH, they realized that it might be a useful tool for settling evolutionary questions. So they teamed up with Robert Dudley, a paleobiologist also at Berkeley.

The team ran DASH+Wings through a series of mini-Olympic events. The bot ran as fast as possible across the floor. It tried to clamber up increasingly steep ramps. And it also jumped from a platform to glide as far as possible from the base. For each of these events, the team compared the bot’s performance both with and without wings, and with its wings flapping or still, all while measuring performance with accelerometers and cameras.

Having a pair of flapping wings helped with every test, but especially for gliding. Flapping wings did allow the bot to climb up steeper inclines, and it increased its running speed, but only by 90 percent, far from the 400 percent theoretically necessary for flight. In the gliding test, flapping wings allowed the bot to sail even farther from the base than it did with the wings fixed. “This result lends indirect support to the theory that avian flight evolved from tree-dwelling animals and not from land animals that required ground-based running takeoffs,” Peterson says.

“This study is a beautiful example of how relatively simple bioinspired robots can address [questions] that are difficult or impossible to test in living organisms,” says Brandon Jackson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, Missoula. The results support the gliding model, but it’s still possible that ground-based bird ancestors ran fast enough to take off, Jackson says. “The question of avian flight origins is far from answered.”

Robot Cheetah Hunter

DARPA-created robots that hunt human prey is pretty cool. DARPA-created robots in the shape of cheetahs that hunt human prey is REALLY cool.

Darpa’s Cheetah-Bot Designed to Chase Human Prey
Adam Rawnsley
February 25, 2011
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/darpas-cheetah-bot-designed-to-chase-human-prey

Future soldiers may be wearing 'Iron Man' suits

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/11/iron.man.suit/index.html

Future soldiers may be wearing 'Iron Man' suits
Eric Marrapodi and Chris Lawrence, CNN
November 11, 2010
Trying on real-life 'Iron Man' suit
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Raytheon is developing a wearable robotic "Iron Man" suit for the military
The suit gives its wearer 17 times more strength and could be used to lift heavy supplies
The "Iron Man" suit is projected to cost around $150,000

Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- A lunchtime crowd is gathering beside the parking lot at Raytheon Sarcos, the defense contractor, on a recent day in Salt Lake City. White-collar workers from nearby office parks stand with their yogurt cups and sandwiches, watching with quiet awe as a man in a metal suit -- sort of half-man, half-robot -- performs superhuman feats of strength.

This may be the closest these people will get to a real-life "Iron Man," the character from the comic books and hit movies.

Inside a prosthetic shell of metal and hydraulics, Raytheon test engineer Rex Jameson is putting an XOS-2 exoskeleton through its paces.

As the crowd watches, Jameson uses his robot hydraulic arm to shadowbox, break three inches of pine boards and toss around 72-pound ammunition cases like a bored contestant on the "World's Strongest Man."

The suit moves as he moves and amplifies his strength 17-fold. It doesn't fly though.

"You don't have this immense feeling of strength," Jameson says. "It's just when you go to do something that you couldn't do without it, then that's when you notice it."

Jameson is part of a team designing in real life what comic books and Hollywood have promised for years: bringing an "Iron Man"-like suit to the battlefield.

Raytheon is seeking to develop the suits to help the U.S. military carry supplies, and claims that one operator in an exoskeleton suit can do the work of two to three soldiers. If all goes as planned, the company hopes to see "Iron Man" suits deployed in the field by 2015.

"The logistics personnel in the military typically move 16,000 pounds a day, which is an awful lot of load," said Fraser Smith, vice president of operations for Raytheon Sarcos. The XOS-2 suit can be used in tight spaces where a forklift cannot.

And with the extra of strength the robot gives the operator, "that means you exert one pound, and it exerts 17. That's a major amplification of strength and that's all load the person doesn't have to carry themselves," Smith said.

Jameson may be about the furthest thing from the fictional designer of "Iron Man," playboy billionaire Tony Stark. "I roll in a minivan," said the married father of three.

The painted black, steel, aluminum and hydraulic pumps of the wearable robotic suit wrap around Jameson's slight frame, mirroring the human skeleton in form. Its structure runs up the side of Jameson's legs and arms. Its backbone carries the load of the machine, and on this day is tethered to hydraulic power and a team of engineers.

Jameson straps into the suit, stomps his feet into the exoskeleton's modified boots and straps down the snowboardlike bindings.

"I'd describe it as feeling like wearing a backpack -- a light pack -- and really big shoes. It kind of clomps around a bit," he said shortly after the power came on and the suit jerked to life.

"It reacts to the force of your feet, so you want it to react immediately," he added, pulling the bindings tight.

Jameson's hands grip actuators in a fist. Technicians can attach grips and hooks to the robot's hands, some of which look like they would be more useful for combat than for loading supplies.

Jameson said the response time from his movements to the robot reacting is less than 10 milliseconds. He marches around, balances on his tiptoes and kicks a soccer ball around. The peanut gallery at the edge of the parking lot loves it. A woman with a yogurt cup shakes her head in disbelief.

Raytheon's Smith also sees soldiers using the robot in a modified form -- from the waist down -- to help carry equipment and take the strain off their legs during long marches.

One big obstacle, however, is how to power the suit. Raytheon is working on reducing the energy load; the version demonstrated on this day runs off hydraulic power from the Sarcos shop. Smith said chemically powered batteries such as lithium ions are not powerful enough to run the suit for eight to 24 hours at a time.

Batteries also raise concerns over safety.

"If they get breached, they aren't gentle in the way they explode," Smith said. A single-cylinder gas or diesel-powered engine may do the trick instead, he said.

The wearable robotics suit is now in its second iteration. XOS-2 has all its wires and hydraulics fully enclosed, unlike the first prototype, whose innards were more exposed. That would be problematic in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq, where a sand-encrusted robot would mean a dead robot.

"Sand, water, mud are all things we like to keep out of the system, and these current [robotic suits] include sealing strategies that basically exclude them." Smith said.

While the suit has obvious military applications, Smith also sees broader commercial possibilities -- and a shorter timetable. He said if orders come in and production ramps up, within three years you could have your very own $150,000 "Iron Man" suit to help push boxes around your warehouse.

Watch The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer weekdays at 5pm to 8pm ET and Saturdays at 6pm ET.

Is the 'Avatar' concept really possible?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/03/avatar.technology.science/

Is the 'Avatar' concept really possible?
Elizabeth Landau, CNN
February 3, 2010
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) contemplates the avatar body he will inhabit via brain signals in the Oscar-nominated "Avatar."
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Scientists say we are far from making "Avatar's" human-avatar interaction possible, if at all
A monkey in North Carolina mentally controlled the walking patterns of a robot in Japan
The record in one researcher's lab for typing with the mind is 20 words per minute
Expert: "Avatar" "shouldn't be taken as anything but fantasy"

(CNN) -- Now the highest-grossing film ever, "Avatar," has captivated millions of viewers with its picturesque scenery, extraterrestrial battles, and nature-loving, blue-skinned aliens.

The premise of the film is that humans can enter the world of these 10-foot aliens, called the Na'vi, by way of half-human, half-Na'vi hybrids. A high-tech interfacing mechanism allows a human to remain inert while controlling one of these avatar hybrids just by thinking.

Not only does the human manipulate the avatar's movements and speech, but he or she also experiences life -- every sensation, feeling and emotion -- through the eyes of the hybrid, as if consciousness were transferred.

Scientists say we are many decades, even centuries, away from making this kind of sophisticated interaction possible, if it can be done at all. But the fundamentals of components required to create this complicated system of mind-controlled avatars are already in the works, and have useful applications in medicine.

"We're starting to understand the basic building blocks, but the biggest challenges will be emotion and thought -- how to make another organism think what you think, to feel what you feel -- because those networks are much more difficult to sort out," said Dr. Brian Litt, associate professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Moving remote objects by thinking

Although nothing as complex as manipulating a creature through thought has been done, scientists working on allowing handicapped people to move prosthetic limbs with their minds are making headway. This idea actually played a role in the movie: Protagonist Jake Sully was in a wheelchair in his human body, but could walk, run and jump as his avatar.

One demonstration has been shown by Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, who is working on robotic leg braces. In 2008, his group got a monkey in North Carolina to mentally control the walking patterns of a robot in Japan.

This was done by implanting electrodes in the brains of two rhesus monkeys. The electrodes recorded how cells in the brain's motor and sensory cortex responded to walking on the treadmill at various speeds. The monkeys' legs also had sensors to record walking patterns.

Researchers used all this information to predict the exact speed of movement and stride length of the legs, and uploaded that information to a robot in Japan, getting the robot to move in synch with a monkey thousands of miles away in real time. Even when the treadmill was turned off, a monkey continued making the robot walk just by thinking for a few minutes.

Another arena is one of virtual reality: controlling an avatar in a video game with your mind. Jaime Pineda, cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, is working with a brain-computer interface that allows participants to move a car around a racetrack, fly a plane and do other virtual tasks on a screen, simply by thinking. The mental training for this takes about four to six hours, he said.

"It is based on the motor parts of your brain. That's what we're recording from, and so if you think about moving, it's actually as if you are actually moving," he said.

Apart from the entertainment value, Pineda sees this as a future therapy for autistic children. The theory is that because people with autism have less conductivity between various parts of the brain, participating in mind-controlled video games may normalize those circuits. Results from his lab show improvement in social interaction and other behaviors after 10 or 20 weeks of playing the game in the lab.

Uploading information

For an "Avatar"-style brain-computer interface, an enormous amount of data would have to be transferred from the person to the avatar extremely quickly, Litt said.

Here's what's possible now: Scientists such as Gerwin Schalk at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center have harnessed the brain's electrical impulses to have people mentally type their thoughts using electrodes on the surface of the head. The rate is typically seven words per minute. In one epileptic patient who had electrodes already on the brain for clinical purposes, the record was 20 words per minute.

This kind of technology is useful for people who are paralyzed and cannot communicate, Schalk said. His research group also works on using electrodes to extract specific information from the brain such as people's actual actions, imagined actions and intended actions -- even how they move individual fingers.

The research "has changed that widespread assumption that it's not really impossible to acquire detailed information from the brain in humans," Schalk said.

Understanding brain networks

In order to construct a high-tech interface that would allow two-way communication between an avatar and a person, there must be a better understanding of the brain itself, Litt said.

Litt's group studies the brain's networks involved in epilepsy. The researchers are looking at the abnormal circuits to figure out the basic units of the brain that generate seizures. They have licensed intellectual property for a device that can improve epilepsy by stimulating specific brain regions, potentially eliminating the need for surgery.

"I see tremendous possibilities for more and more ability to unlock these networks," he said.

Transferal of sensations and emotions

The area of this "avatar science" that will be most difficult to sort out is being able to feel and think as the avatar, Litt said.

Today there are auditory prostheses called cochlear implants that encode signals that allow people to hear who could not otherwise, as well as rudimentary visual aids. It is also possible to stick a pin in a particular part of someone's brain and induce sensations of various temperatures, pressures and even pain levels, just by stimulating certain neural circuits.

"But there's a far cry from doing that to being able to make somebody feel an emotion or see something," Litt said.

The technical hurdles, including transferring huge amounts of information extremely rapidly and building devices to both extract signals from the brain and inject signals into the brain, are significant, he said.

Clearly, people aren't going to be able to climb into personal pods and use their brains to remotely control 10-foot-tall creatures any time soon. Andrew Schwartz, neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, added in an e-mail that it is not even clear what "consciousness" is. There's no rigorous definition, and how it looks in the brain is unknown.

"It's a wonderful movie, but it shouldn't be taken as anything but fantasy," he said.

Roxxxy the 'Sex Robot' Debuts at AVN Porn Show

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357928,00.asp

Roxxxy the 'Sex Robot' Debuts at AVN Porn Show
01.09.10
by Brian Heater

LAS VEGAS - TrueCompanion on Saturday kicked off the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo's Saturday sessions with the debut of the "the world's first sex robot."

Meet the Roxxxy TrueCompanion. This doll has an artificial intelligence engine programmed to learn your likes and dislikes. She can listen, feel, and speak to her owner.

The doll features "girlfriend personalities," including Frigid Farrah, Wild Wendy, Mature Martha, and more. Users can also built custom profiles online and swap them with friends. The doll goes on sale next week for for $7,000 - $9,000 plus a subscription fee, which is "comparable to a cell plan," according to Roxxxy's creator, Douglas Hines.

TrueCompanion and Hines, a former Bell Labs employee, introduced its first robot, Trudy, in 1993. Users, however, told the company that the dolls were too "catatonic" and not interactive enough. Enter Roxxxy.

When asked what inspiration was for creating the doll, Hines said that "after 9/11, I wanted to give back." God bless America.

Killer Human Eating Robots

"Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things... even a mobile gunship."

"Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes 'human bodies,' the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips -- small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI."

Sure, the Pentagon definitely doesn't violate the Geneva Convention...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533382,00.html

Biomass-Eating Military Robot Is a Vegetarian, Company Says
Thursday, July 16, 2009

A steam-powered, biomass-eating military robot being designed for the Pentagon is a vegetarian, its maker says.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

But, contrary to reports, including one that appeared on FOXNews.com, the EATR will not eat animal or human remains.

Dr. Bob Finkelstein, president of RTI and a cybernetics expert, said the EATR would be programmed to recognize specific fuel sources and avoid others.

“If it’s not on the menu, it’s not going to eat it,” Finkelstein said.

“There are certain signatures from different kinds of materials” that would distinguish vegetative biomass from other material."

RTI said Thursday in a press release:

"Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips -- small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI."

EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone, of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.

Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship.

In press materials, Robotic Technology presents EATR as an essentially benign artificial creature that fills its belly through "foraging," despite the obvious military purpose.

Robot achieves scientific first

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f2b97d9a-1f96-11de-a7a5-00144feabdc0.html

Robot achieves scientific first
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
April 2 2009

A laboratory robot called Adam has been hailed as the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators.

Adam formed a hypothesis on the genetics of bakers’ yeast and carried out experiments to test its predictions, without intervention from its makers at Aberystwyth University.

The result was a series of “simple but useful” discoveries, confirmed by human scientists, about the gene coding for yeast enzymes. The research is published in the journal Science.

Professor Ross King, the chief creator of Adam, said robots would not supplant human researchers but make their work more productive and interesting.

“Ultimately we hope to have teams of human and robot scientists working together in laboratories,” he said.

Adam is the result of a five-year collaboration between computer scientists and biologists at Aberystwyth and Cambridge universities.

The researchers endowed Adam with a huge database of yeast biology, automated hardware to carry out experiments, supplies of yeast cells and lab chemicals, and powerful artificial intelligence software.

Although they did not intervene directly in Adam’s experiments, they did stand by to fix technical glitches, add chemicals and remove waste.

The team has just completed a successor robot called Eve, which is about to work with Adam on a series of experiments designed to find new drugs to treat tropical diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis.

“Adam is a prototype,” says Prof King. “Eve is better designed and more elegant.”

In the new experiments, Adam and Eve will work together to devise and carry out tests on thousands of chemical compounds to discover antimalarial drugs.

Honda unveils helmet that lets wearer control robot

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/31/mind-control-helmet-honda-asimo

Honda unveils helmet that lets wearer control a robot by thought alone
A human wearing the Honda helmet managed to control the robot Asimo without moving a muscle
Ian Sample, science correspondent guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 31 March 2009

An elaborate electronic helmet that allows the wearer to control a robot by thought alone has been unveiled by researchers in Japan.

Scientists at the Honda Research Institute demonstrated the invention today by using it to move the arms and legs of an Asimo humanoid robot.

To control the robot, the person wearing the helmet only had to think about making the movement. Its inventors hope that one day the mind-control technology will allow people to do things like turn air conditioning on or off and open their car boot without putting their shopping down.

The helmet is the first "brain-machine interface" to combine two different techniques for picking up activity in the brain. Sensors in the helmet detect electrical signals through the scalp in the same way as a standard EEG (electroencephalogram). The scientists combined this with another technique called near-infrared spectroscopy, which can be used to monitor changes in blood flow in the brain.

Brain activity picked up by the helmet is sent to a computer, which uses software to work out which movement the person is thinking about. It then sends a signal to the robot commanding it to perform the move. Typically, it takes a few seconds for the thought to be turned into a robotic action.

Honda said the technology was not ready for general use because of potential distractions in the person's thinking. Another problem is that brain patterns differ greatly between individuals, and so for the technology to work brain activity must first be analysed for up to three hours.

The project will also benefit from miniaturisation to make the helmet wearable on the move. At the moment it comes attached to computer equipment the size of a domestic refrigerator.

The demonstration is the latest by the diminutive robot Asimo, which stands slightly higher than four feet (130cm) tall. The multimillion-pound machine has already been taught to walk, talk and fetch drinks. It notched up a world first last year when it conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. One double bass player likened the experience to being conducted by a metronome.

Asimo, which stands for Advanced Step In Innovative Mobility, is one of a very few robots that can walk reliably on two legs. It is fitted with twin cameras in its head and is powered by 34 individual motors. Honda hopes that by 2020 the robot will be cheap enough, and capable enough, to help pensioners and nurses with simple tasks.

'Terminator'-Style Military-Robot Rebellion

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,496309,00.html

Experts Warn of 'Terminator'-Style Military-Robot Rebellion
Friday, February 20, 2009

Autonomous military robots that will fight future wars must be programmed to live by a strict warrior code, or the world risks untold atrocities at their steely hands.

The stark warning — which includes discussion of a "Terminator"-style scenario in which robots turn on their human masters — is part of a hefty report funded by and prepared for the U.S. Navy's high-tech and secretive Office of Naval Research.

The report, the first serious work of its kind on military robot ethics, envisages a fast-approaching era where robots are smart enough to make battlefield decisions that are at present the preserve of humans.

Eventually, it notes, robots could come to display significant cognitive advantages over Homo sapiens soldiers.

"There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do," Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of the report, said. "Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to a time when ... programs could be written and understood by a single person."

The reality, Dr. Lin said, was that modern programs included millions of lines of code and were written by teams of programmers, none of whom knew the entire program.

Accordingly, no individual could accurately predict how the various portions of large programs would interact without extensive testing in the field — an option that may either be unavailable or deliberately sidestepped by the designers of fighting robots.

Anybot's QA: The Best Humanoid Robot Yet

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4298623.html

January 9, 2009
Anybot's QA: The Best Humanoid Robot Yet

Las Vegas– Every year, we hope for the best. We prowl the tiny neighborhood of robotics-related booths here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, dutifully covering the various models aspiring to be the next Roomba (while looking and performing suspiciously similar to it) and DIY kits for making your own 12-in.-high breakdancing humanoid robots. This time around, there was a $6000 fuzzy baby seal that stands in for traditional animal therapy, batting its eyes at you and responding to petting. There was also the Automower from Husqvarna, essentially a giant Roomba that autonomously cuts grass. Unless iRobot introduces a new model, the Robotics Techzone is usually a complete disappointment, another reminder of the fragile, early state of the consumer robotics market.

But this year, for the first time, a robot showed up with all the eerie promise and engineering rigor that’s been missing from this corner of the convention. The QA from Anybots is a humanoid robot with no arms, that balances, Segway-like, on two wheels. It’s designed for telepresence, giving off-site users a physical, mobile presence during meetings, factory tours or inspections. When a user is logged on to the QA, it’s LED eyes light up. If more than one person is speaking through the robot, the eyes switch back and forth between each user’s designated eye color. When the QA is driven around, it autonomously steers itself around obstacles, using a bottom-mounted LIDAR (or laser radar) sensor along with its neck-mounted visible/infrared camera. It also has a green laser pointer, allowing users to point out something on a whiteboard or factory floor, something that Anybots engineers claim is a surprisingly common necessity during telepresence situations.

The market for this robot is, admittedly, limited. It costs around $30,000 at the moment, putting it in the reach of a select few corporate customers with regular telepresence needs. Or, as Anybots hopes, maybe a tech-savvy company like Google will simply think it’s too cool not to try. But whether anyone actually buys the QA, it’s an inspiring piece of technology, from a company that’s already made news for its research into humanoid walking robots. The QA, says Anybots, is a stripped-down bot, intended to help make companies comfortable with the idea of having robots around the workplace, and paving the way for more sophisticated models, such as ones with arms.

The QA is impressive in its own right, a 50-pound robot with a sleek, androgynous humanoid design and enough self-balancing algorithms to keep itself upright after we shoved it across the both. Anybots hopes to eventually bring the price down as low as $5,000, but the real goal is that quasi-philosophical acceptance of workplace robots, in this case as a surrogate for off-site employees. If there’s enough customer demand for arms, Anybots could apply its ongoing research into hydraulic limbs in follow-up models. For now, this is the closest CES has ever come to the heady potential of robotics as inspirational technology. Whether it sells or not, or ushers in a wave of ambitious, sophisticated robots, the QA’s most important job for the moment is to stand there, and look as cool as a robot should.

—Erik Sofge

The future? Man falls in love with robot

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=11178

December 10th, 2008
The future? Man falls in love with robot
Posted by Larry Dignan

Categories: General, Hardware Infrastructure, Innovation

Tags: Business Technology, Robots, Software Upgrade, Emerging Technologies, Enterprise Software, Software, Larry Dignan

In the not exactly business technology department an inventor has created the love of his life–a female robot.

According to the UK Sun, Le Trung, 33, has created Aiko–a female robot with “with a stunning 32, 23, 33 figure, shiny hair and delicate features.” And oh yeah Aiko cleans and does Le’s bills.

I’ll refrain from the one-liners (I have at least 10), but Le has quite a tale. Can’t wait to read about Aiko’s software upgrade. I’m not sure whether to be intrigued by the technological undertaking or repulsed. I’ll figure it out once I get over my one liners.

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic.

Robot that can pull faces just like a human being

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1085059/Pictured-The-robot-pull-faces-just-like-human-being.html

Pictured: The robot that can pull faces just like a human being
By Daily Mail Reporter
12th November 2008

Scientists have created the first 'humanoid' robot that can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of a human being.

'Jules' - a disembodied androgynous robotic head - can automatically copy the movements, which are picked up by a video camera and mapped on to the tiny electronic motors in his skin.

It can grin and grimace, furrow its brow and 'speak' as his software translates real expressions observed through video camera 'eyes'.

Jules mimics the expressions by converting the video image into digital commands that make the robot's servos and motors produce mirrored movements.

And it all happens in real time as the robot can interpret the commands at 25 frames per second.

The project, called 'Human-Robot Interaction', was devised at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), run by the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol.

A team of robotics engineers - Chris Melhuish, Neill Campbell and Peter Jaeckel - spent three-and-a-half years developing the breakthrough software to create interaction between humans and artificial intelligence.

Jules has 34 internal motors covered with flexible rubber ('Frubber') skin, which was commissioned from roboticist David Hanson in the US for BRL.

It was originally programmed to act out a series of movements - as can be seen in the video - where 'Jules' talks about 'destroying Wales'.

The technology works using ten stock human emotions - such as happiness, sadness, concern etc - that the team 'taught' Jules via programming.

The software then maps what it sees to Jules's face to combine expressions instantly to mimic those being shown by a human subject.

'We have a repertoire of behaviours that somehow is dynamic', Chris Melhuish said.

'If you want people to be able to interact with machines, then you've got to be able to do it naturally.

'When it moves, it has to look natural in the same way that human expressions are, to make interaction useful.'

Peter Jaeckel, who works in artificial emotion, artificial empathy and humanoids at BRL, said: 'Realistic, life-like robot appearance is crucial for sophisticated face-to-face robot-human interaction.

'Robot appearance and behaviour need to be well matched to meet expectations formed by our social experience.

'Violation of these expectations due to subtle imperfections or imbalance between appearance and behaviour results in discomfort in humans that perceive or observe the robot.

'If people were put off, it would counteract all efforts to achieve trustworthiness, reliability and emotional intelligence.

'All these are requirements for robotic companions, assisting astronauts in space or care robots employed as social companions for the elderly.

'Unlike most research projects, the focus lies on dynamic, subtle, facial expressions, rather than static exaggerated facial displays.

'Copycat robot heads have been created before, but never with realistic human-looking faces.'

But not everyone is impressed by Jules's mastery of mimicry.

Kerstin Dautenhahn, a robotics researcher at the University of Herefordshire, believes that people may be disconcerted by humanoid automatons that simply look 'too human'.

'Research has shown that if you have a robot that has many human-like features, then people might actually react negatively towards it,' she said.

'If you expose vulnerable people, like children or elderly people, to something that they might mistake for human, then you would automatically encourage a social relationship.

'They might easily be fooled to think that this robot not only looks like a human and behaves like a human, but that it can also feel like a human. And that's not true.'

It is hoped that the technology developed in Jules will help create robots for use in space, to accompany astronauts on solo missions, and in healthcare settings and nursing homes.

"Does it come in the shape of Jessica Alba?"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/3157003/Robot-that-looks-like-young-girl-unveiled.html

Robot that looks like young girl unveiled
A life-like robot created to look like a five-year-old girl has been unveiled by scientists in Japan.
By Matthew Moore
08 Oct 2008

The robogirl, known as Repliee R-1, has flexible silicone skin and contains dozens of sensors and motors, allowing it to move and interact with its surroundings like a human.

The robot even has eyes that blink and pig tails, creating a spooky effect has led to comparisons with the boy robot David in Steven Spielberg's 2001 science-fiction movie AI: Artificial Intelligence.

The team at Osaka University's robotics department behind Repliee R-1 claim it is the most realistic robot suit ever created.

It has been designed to do basic tasks for the elderly and disabled, such as fetching objects. The scientists hope that its life-like features will put people at their ease, and help them get over their reluctance to interact with a robot.

Cyberdyne, a robotics firm, hopes to start mass producing the models within days, according to reports.

An earlier version of the robot - Repliee Q1 – was unveiled by scientists in 2005, but was criticised for appearing to have "spasms" because of technical glitches. It was modeled on a young Japanese woman, complete with trouser suit.

At the time Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University predicted that robots would soon be so life-like that they could fool humans into thinking they were real.

"An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes," he said.

"More importantly, we have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her. Consciously, it is easy to see that she is an android, but unconsciously, we react to the android as if she were a woman."

Robot 'conducts' orchestra for first time

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1954704/Robot-%27conducts%27-orchestra-for-first-time.html

Robot 'conducts' orchestra for first time
15/05/2008

A robot has conducted an orchestra in a live performance for the first time.

Asimo, a white 4ft 3in robot designed by Honda, helped the Detroit Symphony Orchestra performance of "The Impossible Dream" from "Man of La Mancha."

"Hello, everyone," Asimo said to the audience in a childlike voice, then waved to the orchestra.

As it conducted, it perfectly mimicked the actions of a conductor, nodding its head at various sections and gesturing with one or both hands. Asimo took a final bow to enthusiastic shouts from the audience.

"It is absolutely thrilling to perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. This is a magnificent concert hall," Asimo said.

Later, a cellist joined the robot onstage to receive an award for his efforts in music education.

Honda spokeswoman Alicia Jones said it was the first time Asimo has conducted an orchestra, and it may be the first time any robot has conducted a live performance. ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility.

ASIMO has its limits. ASIMO's engineers programmed the robot to mimic Charles Burke, the Detroit Symphony's education director, as he conducted the piece in front of a pianist about six months ago. But it cannot respond to the musicians.

During the first rehearsal, the orchestra lost its place when ASIMO began to slow the tempo, something a human conductor would have sensed and corrected, said bassist Larry Hutchinson.

"It's not a communicative device. It simply is programmed to do a sense of gestures," said Leonard Slatkin, the orchestra's musical director. "If the orchestra decides to go faster, there's nothing the robot can do about it. Hopefully, I keep that under control."

But several musicians also said ASIMO was more realistic than they expected.

"The movements are still a little stiff, but very humanlike, much more fluid than I thought," Mr Hutchinson said.

Dextre the robot ready for space adventure

http://www.news.com/2300-11397_3-6233770-1.html

Dextre the robot ready for space adventure
March 10, 2008

On Tuesday, astronauts on the space shuttle Endeavour will have a special Canadian visitor when they rocket off on their trip to the International Space Station (ISS). Canadian Space Agency's Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, aka "Dextre," is scheduled to be installed by Endeavour astronauts to the ISS later this week. Dextre was built to do maintenance tasks that were previously done during long and sometimes dangerous space walks.

Dexter is the third and final stage to the Mobile Servicing System and works with the Canadaarm2 which was installed on the ISS in 2001 and the mobile base which was installed in 2002.

Credit: Canadian Space Agency

Robot as good as real dog at easing lonely hours

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080227/lf_nm_life/robot_dog_dc

Robot as good as real dog at easing lonely hours
By Julie Steenhuysen
Wed Feb 27, 2008

A friendly dog can make older people feel less isolated -- and it appears to make little difference if that wagging tail belongs to a robot doggie or the real thing.

Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri compared a 35-pound (16 kg), floppy-eared mutt named Sparky with AIBO, a far-from-lifelike robot dog, to see how residents of three U.S. nursing homes would respond.

"The most surprising thing is they worked almost equally well in terms of alleviating loneliness and causing residents to form attachments," said Dr. William Banks, a professor of geriatric medicine who worked on the study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

Banks said pets have been shown to help older people feel less isolated. "It really improves loneliness considerably," he said in a telephone interview.

But many senior citizens are too frail to care for a pet or have had to give up their own animals when they went to the nursing home. "They really miss that bond," he said.

Banks and colleagues decided to see if a faux fido might offer some comfort.

The researchers studied 38 nursing home residents who were divided into three groups. One got regular visits from Banks' pet Sparky, another got visits from the AIBO Entertainment Robot, a shiny robot dog formerly made by Sony Corp that used artificial intelligence to interact with its environment and express emotion.

The third group got no visits from either dog.

Banks said he had been sure Sparky would have the edge, but to his surprise, both dogs provided virtually equal comfort after seven weeks of visits.

While AIBO has been discontinued, Banks thinks similar robots could offer companionship for older people and might even be programmed to keep tabs on their owners, alerting emergency workers of a sudden fall.

"Loneliness is common in nursing homes. Robots may be very useful for people who cannot for whatever reason have access to a living dog," Banks said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Sandra Maler)

Robot Maker Builds Artificial Boy

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RKI2F80&show_article=1

Robot Maker Builds Artificial Boy
Sep 13, 2007
By MATT SLAGLE
AP Technology Writer

RICHARDSON, Texas (AP) - David Hanson has two little Zenos to care for these days. There's his 18-month-old son Zeno, who prattles and smiles as he bounds through his father's cramped office. Then there's the robotic Zeno. It can't speak or walk yet, but has blinking eyes that can track people and a face that captivates with a range of expressions.

At 17 inches tall and 6 pounds, the artificial Zeno is the culmination of five years of work by Hanson and a small group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company, Hanson Robotics. They believe there's an emerging business in the design and sale of lifelike robotic companions, or social robots. And they'll be showing off the robot boy to students in grades 3-12 at the Wired NextFest technology conference Thursday in Los Angeles.

Unlike clearly artificial robotic toys, Hanson says he envisions Zeno as an interactive learning companion, a synthetic pal who can engage in conversation and convey human emotion through a face made of a skin-like, patented material Hanson calls frubber.

"It's a representation of robotics as a character animation medium, one that is intelligent," Hanson beams. "It sees you and recognizes your face. It learns your name and can build a relationship with you."

It's no coincidence if the whole concept sounds like a science-fiction movie.

Hanson said he was inspired by, and is aiming for, the same sort of realism found in the book "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," by Brian Aldiss. Aldiss' story of troubled robot boy David and his quest for the love of his flesh-and-blood parents was the source material for Steven Spielberg's film "Artificial Intelligence: AI."

He plans to make little Zenos available to consumers within the next three years for $200 to $300.

Until then, Hanson, 37, makes a living selling and renting pricey, lifelike robotic heads. His company offers models that look like Albert Einstein, a pirate and a rocker, complete with spiky hair and sunglasses. They cost tens of thousands of dollars and can be customized to look like anyone, Hanson said.

The company, which has yet to break even, was also buoyed by a $1.5 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund last October. The fund was created by Gov. Rick Perry in 2005 to improve research at Texas universities and help startup technology companies get off the ground.

Hanson concedes it's going to be at least 15 years before robot builders can approach anything like what seems to be possible in movies. Zeno the robot remains a prototype.

During a recent demonstration, Zeno could barely stand and had to be tethered to a bank of PCs that told it how to smile, frown, act surprised or wrinkle its nose in anger.

Robotics, Hanson believes, should be about artistic expression, a creative medium akin to sculpting or painting. But convincing people that robots should look like people instead of, well, robots, remains a challenge that robot experts call the "uncanny valley" theory.

The theory posits that humans have a positive psychological reaction to robots that look somewhat like humans, but that robots made to look very realistic end up seeming grotesque instead of comforting.

"Nobody complains that Bernini's sculptures are too darn real, right? Or that Norman Rockwell's paintings are too creepy," Hanson said. "Well, robots can seem real and be loved too. We're trying to make a new art medium out of robotics."

So just how did Hanson end up with two Zenos, anyway?

It all goes back to when his wife, Amanda, gave birth to their first child and Zeno the robot was already in the works.

They rattled off several names to their baby boy, but it wasn't until they whispered "Zeno" that "this look of peace fell over his face; it was like soothing to his ears," Hanson recalled.

"There was no way we could give him any other name. He chose Zeno as his name," he said.

That was just fine with Amanda.

"I thought that it was very endearing, very sweet," she said.

The similarities go beyond the name. Though Zeno the robot was built to resemble the animated Japanese TV show character Astro Boy, his plastic hair and saucer-shaped eyes bear a striking resemblance to the curly locks and wide-eyed smile of the real Zeno.

"So by coincidence they're both Zeno, and in other ways this robot has become more of a portrait sculpturally of the son, although it's almost coincidence," said Hanson, whose previous jobs include working as a character sculptor for The Walt Disney Co. "We didn't consciously sculpt this robot to look like him. It's the way things filter through the hands of the artist."

Hanson says one of the robot Zeno's biggest advancements is that its brains aren't inside the robot. Instead Zeno synchs wirelessly to a PC running a variant of Massive Software—the same Academy Award-winning code that enabled the fantastical battles among humans, orcs and elves in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

Like some modern version of Geppetto's workshop, Hanson's office is crammed with rows of shelves stacked with books about robots next to toy robots and plastic skulls. Notes ranging from mathematical formulas to design sketches cover several white boards like high-tech graffiti.

There are scattered bits from Hanson's previous creations, including Albert Hubo, a white robotic body topped with a realistic head of Albert Einstein that has graced magazine covers and even shaken hands with President Bush.

Hanson has been recognized for his work, garnering accolades from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2005 and a "best design" award at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial last year.

But Hanson is most proud of the real Zeno, a rambunctious toddler who frolics with free rein among priceless electronics.

"If the robots become popular I suppose it will pose an identity crisis for my son," Hanson said. "But I think that the amount of love that he receives will make him feel like an individual no matter what."
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On the Net:

http://www.zenosworld.com/