The Grumpy Owl

So humans can invent a fleet of  autonomous solar-powered, sea-swarm robots made “with ultra-light nanowire mesh that can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil” and use these to clean up an oil spill in 30 days but we can’t figure out a way to actually use solar power to meet our energy needs, create any sort of alternate lubricant or fertilizer, nor can we stop spilling oil all over the ocean?

Okay.  Gotcha.  Makes perfect sense.

Haven’t heard anything this rational since geoengineering to solve global warming.

Tags: gulf, mit, nanotech, nanotechnology, oil spill, robots, seaswarm

There’s a new PR video for the Geminoid F robot that was released in April .

Built by the famous Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University, this robot is a cheaper version of previous fembots.  It costs $110,000 and, while it purports be an exact replica of this woman, it cannot walk. I, for one, wonder exactly how exact of a replica it is.  Does it have Barbie genitals or can someone actually penetrate the thing?  If so, I’d like to know how they go about replicating the anus and vagina.  My interest may seem prurient but I’m just curious.  Do they use a mold?  Is there a specialist?  Does the model have to sit on something?

The inventors hope to sell fifty of the machines to museums and hospitals where they will work as receptionists, patient attendants, or guides.  I generally prefer my guides to able to walk.  A chair-bound guide in a hospital will be a case of the immobile leading the immobile.  Having witnessed similar spectacles on a series of Friday nights, I can assure you that it does not end well; usually with one or both parties screaming and thrashing in a vomit filled gutter while someone else takes pictures for the facebook.

Geminoid F and the human model it was based on being asked to make out with each other by interested reporters.

The designers also made some interesting choices about the appearance of the robot.

“Geminoid F’s female appearance and more natural smile with lifelike teeth are designed to put people at ease. In a reflection of Kokoro’s plans to market the system overseas, the model on which Geminoid is based is one-quarter non-Japanese, ostensibly giving her a more universal look. The robot is also quite fashionable, sporting duds by designer Junko Koshino.”

This means that the creators think people who might otherwise be fine with a female robot would be put off by a female robot who looks too ethnic.  So, human shaped machine – fine.  Human shaped machine that looks Japanese – well that’s a bit too much.  What will the neighbors think?

Even in 2010, the assumption is that people are more prone to be racist than organicist.     I worry about any tech that caters to that sort of stupidity.  I can only lead to a world full of Brandys and Clints.   It’ll be the gentrification of the human body by people who can’t even choose decent shoes.

And we already have enough of that.  Even without robots.

Tags: actroid f, fembots, geminoid f, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka university, robot receptionist, robots

Tags: i robot, jason chrisitie, poetry

Zurich researchers have created hexagonal robots that can dock together on ground and and fly in a connected swarm.  The Distributed Flight Array Robots (PDF) use magnets to dock and propellers to fly.  Their altitude is  controlled by having a human in bright yellow gloves catch them when they go too high.  When moving, they sound like soft, uplifting piano music.

Tags: distributed flight array, flying, robots, swarm, zurich

Robot fish has taste for BDSM

Since the ocean will be completely made of oil sometime in the next couple of weeks, it’s a good thing that we’ve rendered fish obsolete.  Researchers have developed a robot fish to direct their primitive, meat counterparts.

“The new robot fish will be able to help steer schools of fish away from hydroelectric turbines, oil spills and other dangers to safety and potentially has many other applications.”

Since it can steer fish, it can also steer the birds, like Pelicans, who follow them.  (Presumably. Right now, it doesn’t even know how to dive.)

This robot looks like some PVC clad, bondage fish.  This is not an accident of design,  Rather, the robot is a strict disciplinarian that controls the fish school by punishing the very naughty students.  It  uses its strap-like tail to administer a series of spankings, the severity of which are determined by fluid dynamics and relative the hotness of the fish student.

This is, however, a complicated calculation that sometimes leads to a good fish being spanked for no reason.  It is also unclear why this fish is collecting the stained white panties of mermaids.  Researchers could not be reached for comment.

Tags: robot fish, robots

For $15,000 your office can buy a robot that any employee can then log into and manoeuvre.  It can attend meetings for you while you sit at home, surfing porn and tweeting in your cheesie stained underwear.   You look through its eyes and it displays a live webcam of your face. Not a bad idea. It’s like The Surrogates.

And it just goes to show the classist prejudice that science fiction robots have operated under for too long.  The idea is that “menial” jobs will be replaced by robots.  My job (bartending, waiting tables) in particular.  But to do my job a robot needs to be complicated.  It needs pressure sensitive hands, incredible amounts of mobility and small talk.  To do an office job it needs what?  A camera on a broomstick attached to some wheels.

Kinda makes me wonder why you people get paid so much.

Tags: anybots, robots, telepresence

Friendly household robot of the future.

German scientists have discovered that household robots with knives are more dangerous than robots without them.  Not so surprising,  Everything is more dangerous with a knife attached.

Like, a shark is dangerous but a shark covered in knives?  That’s crazy dangerous. Even non-dangerous things, like Teddy Bears, become more dangerous when knives are attached.

The good news is that these scientists have developed something to lessen the danger:  A collision indicator.  One of the researchers even let a robot stab him while that was in use and he was only mildly damaged.

Knife wielding robots might seem like a necessary idea –knives being an important household tool– but, even with these collision indicators, I’m not sure we’ll ever see them.  The insurance companies would surely balk at the idea even as the lawyers salivate.

Maybe there’ll be warranty-voiding, home-made solutions.  And like bathtub gin, I’m betting the safety will be skimped on.

pic nicked from here

Tags: knives, robots

FROM HERE (PDF)

Tags: daleks, dr, to victory, who

pc nicked from here

By 2015, Japanese business group SOHLA, hopes to put a humanoid robot on the moon.  They plan to use a bipedal robot but it’ll be pretty tough.  Even on Earth, bipedal robots are clumsy.  So why go to the trouble?

SOHLA board member Noriyuki Yoshida explains:

“Humanoid robots are glamorous, and they tend to get people fired up.  We hope to develop a charming robot to fulfill the dream of going to space.”

That’s all fine and good.  My only concern is that Japanese businessmen can sometimes have strange ideas about what makes a charming robot.  Then again, I’d love to see a moon mission that somehow turned into this:

Tags: japan, moon, robots, space

ATTENTION LADIES!!! – That nagging voice in your head that says you might not be as skin and bones as you like might not be enough to keep you as super-duper thin as we like!  But we have the solution.  The robot solution.

Allow me to introduce AUTOM.

AUTOM is a robot that will help you diet.  It provides information, feedback and encouragement.  It gives you graphs.  It even alters its behaviour to identify your weaknesses.  Even better, its big blue eyes and round head will serve as a constant reminder of the child you’ll never have if you don’t drop ten pounds, squeeze into those jeans and land a man pronto.  But that’s okay.  You can just dress AUTOM up and give it a name.

You can customize its voice to sound like your favourite celeb.  Won’t it be wonderful to discuss your weight problems with a simulacrum of Angelina?

Just turn AUTOM on and listen to it bitch.  You’ll never enjoy a cookie or a cake again.  Not with AUTOM around.  It’s the alarm clock for your gut.

Tags: autom, diet robot, robot

YouTube – Cybermen Call Centre.

Tags: cybermen, daleks

pic nicked from here

Funded by the EU, a group of universities are developing an internet for robots. RoboEarth will function as a hive mind, where new robots can learn old tricks without being individually programmed.  Their third eye opened, they shall gaze into a mass machine mind while it gazes back into them.

Tags: roboearth, robot internet

KRAFTS BY CHRISTOPHER GOLEBIOWSKI on yay!everyday.

Tags: art, kraftwerk, robots

The Russians want to build a gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea.  There’s just one little problem:  There’s still over 150,000 unexploded WW2 bombs in that sea.

Enter the robots.

pic nicked from here

Bactec Int. has been contracted to clear the Baltic Sea of the 70 mines that block the pipeline.

“When the robot finds a mine, a surface ship releases a high-pitched wail to scare away nearby marine mammals, sets off a small explosive to scare away any fish, and then plants and detonates a small charge on the mine. Altogether, it takes Bactec two days to clear each mine.”

There’s some worries about the exploded mines adding to pollution but it sounds like the Baltic is already a toxic, mine-infested shithole.   So let the robots pollute and let the humans choke on their waste.   Because at the end of the day, you either choke on your waste or you get blown up by it while you build a pipeline to help you produce more waste.  It’s just that simple.

Tags: baltic sea, mines, robots

The future is so often portrayed as some slick, clean and minimalist place.  People all have the same haircut, there’s no litter and most of it takes place in grey corridors.  I’ve never pictured the future like that.  I always figured it’d be noisy, crowded and annoying.  With robot pole dancers.

Because why should the future make any sense?  The present doesn’t.