Nov
26
South Korea has developed robot prison wardens. And they’re actually kinda cute. BBC Reports: The three 5ft-high (1.5m) robots involved in the prison trial have been developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections, a South Korean group of researchers who specialise in criminality and prison policies. It said the robots move on four wheels and …
Nov
13
pic nicked from here The Canadian National Robot Games have been cancelled due to lack of interest. CBC reports: Steve Jones said attendance to this weekend’s competition, which was scheduled to take place in Toronto at the Ontario Science Centre, was going to be down to half its normal number. “Kids aren’t interested what’s inside …
Nov
02
I’m gonna file this one under – when it’s not evil to blog straight off a press release . . . November 1, 2011 (Toronto) – Robots of all shapes, sizes and skills will take over the Ontario Science Centre November 12 and 13 for the annual Robots Rule extravaganza. Some 20 of Canada’s top …
Sep
20
A language evolving robot called a Lingodroid has been invented in Australia. These Lingodroids can invent words when they need one then share that word with other robots. Below, two Lingdroids meet in a new location. One names it “Pize” and informs the other robot. The other robot thinks the name is nice. That’s good …
Sep
06
The Office of Naval Research has given a team from Northeastern University $600,000 to develop micro-robots to find underwater mines. Professor Joesph Ayers directs the program. Over the last seven years, the synthetic biologist has become famous for designing the RoboLobster and RoboLamprey — autonomous underwater robots that mimic the neurophysiology and behavior of their …
Sep
01
Cornell’s Creative Machine Lab wanted to see what happened when two chatbots spoke to each other. They start arguing about everything from God to unicorns to what they are. This amused me.
Aug
24
pic nicked from here German scientists have made a robot that can imitate the waggle dance that bees use to communicate. RoboBee is stuck to the end of a rod attached to a computer, which determines its “dance” moves. The rod is also connected to a belt which makes it vibrate. Like a real bee, …
Aug
06
Slackstory subjected three chatbots to the Proust Questionnaire. (You can find his answers here.) Their answers are the sort of transcendent absurdity than I aspire to. So much so that I’m going to start randomly feeding my email interviews into chatbots.
Aug
02
Giardia lamblia, the microscopic intestinal parasite that causes beaver fever, may inspire the next generation of swimming robots. In a peer-reviewed paper released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Zhang and Scott Lenaghan, Corinne Davis, William Henson and Zhili Zhang outline how they used high-speed microscopic imaging to study the …
Jul
31
The Keio-NUS CUTE Center ( a collaborative lab between National University of Singapore (NUS) and Keio University of Japan) has proposed research into the field of Lovotics. The goal is to create robots that can love and be loved by humans. Their research will be based on three modules. Artificial Endocrine System (based on physiology of …
Jul
29
The winners of the Robot Film Festival are below. For a collection, you can go to the Vimeo collection and you can find pictures from the red carpet here. VISIONARY FUTURES AWARD: MOONRUSH An extended cut of the trailer for Moonrush, an in-production documentary about the first privately funded mission to the moon. ETHICS AND …
Jul
15
Robots For Humanity has helped Henry Evans to scratch an itch and shave himself. Neither of these are mundane tasks for Mr. Evans, who was, at age forty, paralyzed and struck mute by a brain stem stroke. He has since regained some movement of a finger and his head. This is enough to control PR2. …
Jul
09
Dr. Jordan Boyle of the University of Leeds has developed a robot worm that can maneuver through obstacles. Boyle hopes that one day the worm would help in rescue operations in earthquake hit places to search for survivors trapped in the rubble. Boyle has derived inspiration from the nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, and has written the software …
Jul
06
Japan has always been on the forefront of cutting edge robotics. Its roots can be traced back 200-300 years during the Edo period when skilled craftsmen created automata (self-operating machines). Using nothing more than pulleys and weights they were able to make the Karakuri (Japanese automata) perform amazing tasks. Japan’s modern day robots can be …
Jul
02
A couple of interesting, separate but seemingly connected, developments in robotics. First off: Researchers from the Excellence Cluster CoTeSys at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have created a sensitive skin for robots that allows them to feel temperature and a light touch. And secondly: . . . researchers in Japan have developed a dental training robot that …
Jun
28
Someone should buy me this. Or just the picture of it. Whatever.
Jun
27
pic nicked from here Recent work by a research group from Delft University of Technology, Delft, and Philips Research, Eindhoven, in The Netherlands, examines the personality that people desire from their robotic vacuum. Robot Vacuum Cleaner Personality and Behavior published in the International Journal of Social Robotics,Volume 3,notes that: People tend to behave towards artifacts in a social way, …
May
15
pic nicked from here Recent experiments by The Web Ecology Project have discovered that robots are better at using twitter than humans. That is, they have more interactions and longer conversations. The winning “socialbot,” JamesMTitus, kept interchanges going for a record of 12 consecutive tweets and garnered close to 200 overall responses from targeted Twitter …
Apr
11
The Boy Scouts of America have added a merit badge for robotics. BSA Chief Scout Executive Bob Mazzuca says: “While the guiding principles of scouting–service to others, leadership, personal achievement, and respect for the outdoors–will never change, we continue to adapt programs to prepare young people for success in all areas of life.” I’ve always …
Mar
26
Festco has created a robot that flies like a seagull. People have been trying and failing to mimic bird-like flight for some time. As a child, I conducted my own experiments with my arms and a porch. Like my previous experiments with an umbrella parachute, this series of tests ended in a minor ankle injury. The robot bird …
Jan
19
EDV-01 (Emergency Disaster Vehicle) is a mobile, robot house for use in disaster zones. You simply push a button to assemble this two story, solar powered home complete with restroom, kitchen, beds, LED lights and satellite-powered data transfer. It sounds good but it’s worse than useless. EDV-01 weighs ten tonnes. I can’t imagine a disaster where …
Nov
22
By experimenting with robots and children scientists have made a surprising discovery: Working with a group of 18-month-old toddlers and a metallic robot, a team of scientists from the University of Washington (UW) recently determined that it is not only what something looks like, but how it moves and interacts with others that give even inanimate objects …
Oct
18
Borut Povše, a robot researcher in Slovenia has received ethical clearance (in Slovenia) to test human-robot pain thresholds by making robots hit his colleagues in the arm with blunt and sharp tools. Borut Povše might be the worst co-worker in the world. This is even worse than his previous project to test human-boot pain thresholds by kicking his colleagues …
Oct
18
I dislike installation art almost as much as I dislike artists. I do, however, make exceptions for things involving robots. Then I tell myself it’s not an installation at all but a future zoo exhibit that has been somehow dislocated in time. Neil Mendoza and Anthony Goh have made this easy for me by collaborating to …
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (sci-fi), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap.
