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I’m sorry, but instant death by sudden penetration of a recoiling swarm of caterpillar robots is not my idea of a enjoyable science experiment. Even if cake was involved. Nevertheless, an ambitious group of researchers at Tuft University are fascinated at the possibility of using Biomemtrics to capture the “balistic rolling” action of the Crambidea caterpillar family. The GoQBot is the 4″ long amalgamation of all that thought and research.
My mouth… is full of soup. It’s also gapping wide open. So, soup is falling all over my desk as I watch the future controlled by our appendages. Appendages that haven’t been detached by our robot friends, but are being used to manipulate where we want them to display information… or interact with our environment.
It’s another project out of the MIT Media Lab called LuminAR. The idea is to take the computer display off the screen and move it where ever you need it. In addition, the display is projected by a robotic arm.
Don’t worry, it’s taught to do your bidding with programming to recognize your hand gestures and display interfaces according to the surrounding environment. So, no chance at all it would recognize something (YOU) as a threat and shoot beams of high-intensity light into your retinas.
Here’s the video…
(more…)
Here’s your chance to be part of the future… and also part of the remains left over after a rebel group goes after the people responsible for the creation of our friendly humanoid companions.
You may be familiar with the REEM-A or REEM-B developed by PAL Robitics. Well, as you might be able to guess, REEM-C is in development and claims to be the one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world… and guess what? They need YOU to design a snazzy exterior for the chunky beast.
Details are on Life in the Robotics Lab, but needless to say, elegant, not scary, not toy-like and recognizable are going to be a great challenge. Up for it? Here’s what’s up for grabs.
You know how it goes. You buy one, two, eighty quadrotor flying robots at Christmas for your kids. Ya know, because the little gripping mechanism on their belly is just so cute. All of a sudden, the kiddos are being carried off to the mother quadrotor for experimentation.
If you saw the copterbot pulling baby g’s and aerial acrobatics before, you’ll love the team spirit they’ve been endowed with this time. GRASP Labs, University of Pennsylvania, has no qualms about robots and the possibilities they have in serving the greater good our demise. Take a look.
Very, very slick of the robot sympathizers over the past few decades. Distract the humans with fear of robot attacks, while they slowly integrate them into the working class and family life.
Yep, you’ll be surprised when you come home and your baby has been replaced by a multi-appendage, potato-peeling chubbling that ‘sleeps’ through the night and has coffee made for you in the morning, but you’ll be even more surprised when you find your office chair has been replaced by a circuit board that looks like you and does your job 24 hours a day.
I’ve been holding my breath in a muscle tensing fright for the past day, looking at the images below and imagining being curdled cradled by a skinless baby robot with the head the size of a large bear.
Seriously, if this thing crawled up to me, you would hear the highest pitch scream of your life come out of me as that enormous head gets booted at you. All arm flailing and creeping out aside, I hope whatever they are learning will allow them to construct a more customizable sizes of baby bot. I’m working on finding out more design details.
In the meantime, creep. yourself. out. oh, and I’d love to hear your captions for these.
I’m telling you, there’s no end to the carnage… or virtual carnage… or inane thoughts I get when I see pretty lights shooting out of a robot. But that just goes to show how naivety will bleed us dry in a fit of flashy brilliance.
What is this I speak of? An experiment from Chris Rojas that fits a tiny Sumobot with an IR tracking systems for an interesting take on how we could interface with robots or our environment, or heck, with each other. Initiate fear recognition…
Of course a small, kid-like robot wouldn’t go berserk, run and jump onto your face while screaming “YOUR SOUL, YOUR SOUL” in a cold, electronic voice. That, is RIDICULOUS. Almost as ridiculous as robot cockroaches that survive impacts.
Even if it actually wouldn’t attack you, that hasn’t stopped, Tomotaka Takahashi, CEO of Robot Garage from making us think it could. He debuted Ropid, the 15″ (38cm) tall robo-boy with a precious 3″ vertical leap, that makes you want to say, Awwwww, then turn and run.
Aaaccck! Yeah, forget the fact that the bug you just swallowed was, oh, say the size of your palm. It also happens to have the newest in remote radio control gadgetry, and probably the diseases of a hundred generations, strapped to it’s muscly exoskeleton.
As if we didn’t have enough to make us cringe with super agile robots and flesh-eating mechs, you can now rest less easy at night as you tumble into dreamland with the fear that cyborg insects can be controlled to fly left… AND RIGHT. Pleasant dreams. I’d keep the lights off.
You know that point where robots become more agile than humans and then dead, lifeless bodies scatter the streets of the cities. Yeah, that is approaching, and you’ll love to see what’s putting it all in motion.
Ishikawa Komuro Lab has been busy over the past 10 or so years developing technology in high-speed visual information processing, optical information manipulations and, of greatest interest, adaptive multi-sensor architecture. What is that, you ask? Take a look at the video and be scared, be very a… scared.
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