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May 31, 2006: Outward Bound for Robots - A new approach teaches objects how to navigate unfamiliar territory as humans might. By Duncan Graham-Rowe. Technology Review. "A computer navigation system based on a part of the brain called the hippocampus has been tested on an autonomous robotic car. By enabling the robot to take what its creators call 'cognitive fingerprints' of its surroundings, the software allows the vehicle to explore and remember places in much the same way mammals do. ... Similarly, the system has been tested on an indoor robot by 'blindfolding' it, taking it to an unknown location, and getting it to find its way home, says Adriana Tapus, a roboticist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who developed the system. This 'kidnapping task' is much more difficult than it might seem, she says. Yet this problem, known as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), is becoming increasingly important for robots, autonomous vehicles, and military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The challenge is to create a map from which a robot can navigate while it is still exploring that same environment, says Chris Melhuish, director of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of the West of England and Bristol University in the U.K." May 30, 2006: Intelligent Beings in Space! By Kenneth Chang. The New York Times. "Until recently, interplanetary robotic explorers have largely been marionettes of mission controllers back on Earth. The controllers sent instructions, and the spacecraft diligently executed them. But as missions go farther and become more ambitious, long-distance puppetry becomes less and less practical. If dumb spacecraft will not work, the answer is to make them smarter. Artificial intelligence will increasingly give spacecraft the ability to think for themselves. 'These technologies are already in operation on specific missions,' said Steve Chien, a computer scientist who heads the artificial intelligence group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Scientists discussed some of the recent progress last week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Baltimore. ... Dr. Chien's group wrote the software that manages the schedule of Earth Observing-1, a satellite that looks for natural disasters like volcanic eruptions, wildfires and floods. ... NASA's two rovers now on Mars -- the Spirit and the Opportunity -- also possess a measure of thinking ability."
>>> Space Exploration, Autonomous Vehicles, Planning & Scheduling, Robots, Applications May 29, 2006: The robot turns 85. By Brian Sabin. Radio Prague [audio available]. "From R2D2 to the Terminator, robots are a common theme in modern fiction, but not many people realize that the robot was born in Prague exactly 85 years ago. To celebrate its birthday a project last week at the University of Cambridge in England examined the life of robots and their Czech creator. Karel Capek was one of the great writers of inter-war Czechoslovakia. His play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) coined the term to describe human-like androids that perform mundane, repetitive labor. In 1921 the play opened right here in Prague and introduced robots to the world. Now Cambridge University's Robot Project explores their life, their history and what they say about us. Social Anthropologist Kathleen Richardson, who organized the project, says the themes of Capek's seminal play can be used to explore larger issues."
>>> Events (@ Resources for Students), Robots, History, Science Fiction; also see this related article May 28, 2006: Mars robots to get smart upgrade. By Jonathan Amos. BBC News. "The US space agency's rovers will get a software upgrade to allow them to make 'intelligent' decisions in the study of Martian clouds and dust devils. The new algorithms will give the robots' computers the onboard ability to search through their images to find pictures that feature these phenomena. Only the most significant data will then be sent to Earth, maximising the scientific return from the missions. Nasa says its robotic craft will become increasingly autonomous in the future. ... Leaving the robots to 'get on with it' -- to do the decision-making -- is the way ahead, Nasa believes. The agency's Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has been mapping the Red Planet since 2001, will get new autonomous flight software later this year. ... [Ralph Lorenz] said self-reliant spacecraft would open up new science opportunities on far-distant missions, where probes might be out of contact with Earth for hours or even days at a time." May 24, 2006: Newsmaker - My friend, the robot. By Tom Krazit. CNET News.com. "Future robots might not look like C-3PO of 'Star Wars' fame or Rosie on 'The Jetsons,' but they are becoming more personal than even their creators might have realized. iRobot Chief Executive Officer Colin Angle often fields questions about the Roomba robot vacuum, which is probably one of the more widely used consumer robots, with over 2 million units sold. But Angle is just as proud of his company's PackBots, which U.S. soldiers are using in Iraq to detonate roadside improvised explosive devices. ... Q: I wanted to ask you a little bit more about this notion of robots and companionship. How much of that is people projecting things onto robots, and how much of that is robot designers building in cues that will allow people to do that? Angle: With the iRobot Roomba, we explicitly tried not to make it cute. The idea was, this is a serious appliance, we want people to take it seriously, and yet the personification happens anyway. ... [Q:] Do you think people would buy a robot that was created for that purpose, though? Do you think people buy them because they want a friend or they want a pet? Angle: Do you mean, would they admit to themselves they're buying it because they want a friend? I actually have heard people say 'yes,' older people saying, 'I wanted a Furby because they give me something to talk to.' They are often careful not to suggest that this would be a replacement for human friends, but this is a nice thing, and the way they describe it is interesting. ..." May 23, 2006: Soldiers bond with iRobot machine; CEO dreams big. By Joel Rothstein. Reuters / available from The Washington Post / also available from MSNBC.com (Soldiers bond with battlefield robots). "U.S. soldiers in Iraq are giving nicknames and forming emotional bonds with bomb-defusing robots they have come to regard as teammates, according to the founder of the company that invented the machines. IRobot Inc. Chief Executive Colin Angle said one group of soldiers even named its robot 'Scooby Doo' and grieved when it was blown up after completing 35 successful missions defusing improvised explosive devices. ... 'I think it's very rational,' he said. '(Scooby Doo) was someone, something, that was doing a great service for them and thus when they brought it back, it was viewed not just as a loss of a machine gun or a piece of body armor or a helmet. It was a loss of a contributing member of the team.'" May 22, 2006: Digital Planet, the weekly BBC World Service programme presented by Gareth Mitchell which reports on technology stories from around the globe. Listen to the programme in one of three formats. "On the 85th anniversary of the invention of robots, we look at what part they really do play in our lives. Bill Thompson visits an exhibition celebrating the robot in Cambridge and finds out that they were invented by the Czech playwright Karel Capek. In 1921.... Gareth looks to the future with artificial intelligence expert Joanna Bryson from the University of Bath. Need we really worry about Terminator-style robots taking over the world, or are automatic vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers the true pinacle of robotic development ? We also visit the Cybersonica exhibition at the Science Museum in London and get to grips with a machine based on a 19th century music box called the Schitzoporotica. It plays well-known tunes from its digital memory...." May 19, 2006: All Japan Robot Sumo Tournament - Interviews (Part 2) & Video. Posted by Lem. Robots Dreams. "In this second part of the All Japan Robot Sumo Tournament interview series we explore some of the technical background behind the sumo robots and the strategies and tactics used by some of the top Japanese competitors. In addition to patiently answering all of our endless questions, the officials provided us with video clips from the 2005 competitions (see video below) that clearly, and dramatically, illustrate many of the topics they touched upon. ... .. Lem: You mentioned before that roughly half the robot entries are autonomous and half are radio controlled (R/C). The sumo action seems so fast. How can an operator possibly control the robot that quickly? [Takeshi ] Kanai: Each team designs their own entry, so their strategies vary quite a bit. Of course, the autonomous robots have sensors to track their opponents and also the edges of the ring. Some of them have as many as five sensors and can track their opponents even when they manage to get behind them. Although the R/C entries are basically remote controlled by their operators, there's no rule to prohibit the use of sensors and autonomous behavior as well. As a result, some of the top robots use R/C for general positioning and movement, then the operator will hit a button that locks the robot on target to attack using its sensors and autonomous control program.
>>> Competitions (@ Resources for Students), Robots, Sports May 18, 2006: A Meeting Of The Metal Minds. Science News blog from James Vlahos. Popular Mechanics. "Robots vacuum our homes, search for landmines, perform surgery, and explore Mars. They’ve been taught to dance, play chess, arm wrestle, and ballroom dance. For all of this service and goodwill toward men, robots deserve credit, but fictional and cinematic slams are the norm. You know the plot: Machines rebel, humanity is enslaved, and Asimov rolls in his grave. One hears of no such silliness at the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), held this week at the Walt Disneyworld Hilton in Orlando, Florida. ... This year’s theme is 'Humanitarian Robotics.' ... A primary role of these lifelike robots is not to advance human mimicry but rather human understanding. Scientists formulate theories about how various systems of the human body work, and roboticists believe that some of these theories can be verified or rejected by building robots."
>>> Robots, Cognitive Science, AI Overview, Conferences (@ Resources for Students), Science Fiction, Applications May 16, 2006: An artist at RPI who draws on the future - Graduate student in electronic arts uses provocative acts to make people think about issues. By Kate Perry. TimesUnion.com. "Last February, Boryana Rossa and her colleagues sent a decree of robot rights by e-mail to the Pope's people at the Vatican. And the staff of the Bulgarian Orthodox patriarch. It should be considered a sin, the decree said, to kill an artificially created, sentient being (that is, a robot). Robots have the right to chose their own religion, it continued. An entity or creature created by humans must be considered equal to humans. Rossa, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student, and the members of her artistic collective, Ultrafuturo, weren't being funny when they sent the e-mail. 'In terms of artificial intelligence, you can't have an intelligent entity without the possibility of free will,' she said. 'It has to have choices and intentions, otherwise it is like a toaster.' ... Ultrafuturo critiques science, specifically the uses of artificial intelligence and the responsibilities that come with that. But Rossa said statements Ultrafuturo makes about robots can often be applied to the marginalized in society, such as women, homosexuals, minorities and animals. ... 'One of the key things Boryana is interested in, and I am as well, is encouraging public debate around scientific practices,' [Kathy] High said. ... Even if she's demanding rights for robots, Rossa said being over-the-top is important because provocative acts are more likely to get people thinking about societal issues." May 16, 2006: Students Compete in Robotics Competition - High school students competing at the FIRST robotics competition learn science and life lessons. [Transcript of television broadcast.] Correspondent Tom Bearden reports. The Online NewsHour: the Web site of the NewsHour with Jim Leher. "TOM BEARDEN: The $1,000 robot had been stopped cold when a key that cost about a nickel fell into the drive train. It was heartbreaking, but dealing with breakdowns like this is exactly what FIRST is all about. FIRST, an acronym meaning 'For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,' was the brainchild of Dean Kamen, an inventor best known for developing the Segway scooter and the iBOT wheelchair. DEAN KAMEN, Founder, FIRST: The skills these kids learn when they participate in FIRST give them career opportunities. Do you want to be an electric engineer, physicist? Do you want to do proteomics, or genomics, or nanotechnology? What exciting career do you want to go into? We're helping you make that option possible. TOM BEARDEN: Kamen says helping kids develop a passion for math, science and engineering is vital to the country's future. ... TOM BEARDEN: It was back in January when this year's competition began with a kickoff rally in New Hampshire that was beamed by satellite to auditoriums all over the country. For the nearly 30,000 high school students who participate, this is their first glimpse of what game they will have to design their robots to play. ANNOUNCER: This year's game is played on a 26-by-54-foot field. TOM BEARDEN: This year, it was a complicated mix of shooting a ball through a high goal for three points, into low goals for one point, and climbing up a ramp at end of the two-and-a-half minute game to score bonus points. Just minutes after the kickoff rally ended, Team 159 huddled to plot their strategy. ... ANGELINA SALDIVAR, High School Senior: I really didn't think that I could do anything like this, engineering. I'm a Hispanic female. And doing engineering or even going to college was something that was completely out of the question for me. And really being through the program, it taught me to believe in being able to achieve anything." May 16, 2006: Testing Artificial Intelligence on German Soccer Fields. By Sean Sinico. Deutsche Welle. "German researchers play a key role in developing the robots that Robocup organizers hope will take the field against a human soccer team -- and win -- by 2050. Human scouting can start this June in Bremen. ... How far [Sven] Behnke and his team have come with their robots will be put to the test next month in Bremen, where robots on some 350 teams from 40 countries play in four size-based leagues and one computer-based simulation league at the 10th Robot World Cup, an international initiative designed to research and development of robotics and artificial intelligence. ... Just like the players on soccer's more traditional pitches, the robots make their own decisions when it comes to shooting or passing. ... To help speed up development, the competitions are accompanied by scientific conferences where researchers are able to share information and detail how their droids process the thousands of decisions involved in a soccer game. ... 'The soccer tournament is a good test area for many aspects of what is being developed,' [Peter] Dauscher said, adding that advanced mechanics, photo recognition and artificial intelligence are among the many skills researchers are still trying to teach robots. 'In the game the robots see the ball, their opponents and the goalposts, in a daily situation it could be the cat, a chair and the oven.'" May 15, 2006: A New Robot Rolls, and a New Prize Is Set - The quest to build autonomous vehicles for the battlefield continues. By W. Wayt Gibbs. In Focus feature from Scientific American. "At the podium was Steve Welby, who directs the office of tactical technology at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 'And now please join me,' Welby said, 'in congratulating Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center, as we present Crusher.' Up went the high bay door, and out from a cloud of dry ice fog rolled two of the most intimidating robotic vehicles yet to emerge from DARPA's decade-long quest to build autonomous vehicles for the battlefield. ... At the same time as DARPA pays the NREC group to take a steady and predictable path toward autonomy, the agency is also holding a third Grand Challenge competition to encourage more out-of-the-box approaches. Two days after the Crusher roll-out, DARPA officials invited roboticists, professional and otherwise, to submit entries for an 'Urban Challenge' to be held in November 2007." [A video of Crusher can be seen on page 2 of the article.] May 14, 2006: Robotic project gets £3,000 boost. BBC News. "A school in Worcestershire has been awarded £3,000 by the UK's top scientific society so pupils can design and build robots. The Royal Society funding will help Droitwich High School's science club, which aims to build search-and-rescue robots within 12 months. ... The Royal Society aims to promote excellence in science." May 14, 2006: Robots 'R' us? The machines are getting smarter every day. Human beings better be thinking about science fiction becoming reality. Opinion by Charles Rubin. post-gazette.com. "The recent unveiling of the 'Crusher' robotic combat truck by the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute makes it clear that Pittsburgh is a leader in this increasingly important area of technology. After decades of slow change and unfulfilled promise, it may be that robots and artificial intelligence are on the verge of transforming what people do and how we do it. Yet popular culture has long reflected how the rise of robots is not a prospect that everyone greets with enthusiasm. If people's fears are to be addressed honestly, the hopes behind the serious work of invention going on here will need to be matched by equally serious thought about the consequences for the human future these cutting-edge efforts will have. At first glance, the benefits of ever more sophisticated robots are obvious. ... In our world of dumb robots and dangerous jobs, concerns about artificial intelligence out-of-control are easy to dismiss as too speculative. But had you presented today's technologies to the 'great generation' back when they were young, many would have sounded just as implausible -- to say nothing of how they would have sounded to generations now past. Indeed, it is a truism among those who think about the implications of the accelerating rate of technological change that if speculation does not sound like science fiction, it is probably missing the boat. ... At another extreme, imagine an extended sphere of moral concern like animal rights advocacy, which would protect robots on a par with humans, the way Lieutenant Commander Data was treated by the crew of the starship Enterprise." May 9, 2006: Robo-roach could betray real cockroaches. By Tom Simonite. NewScientist.com news. "Cockroaches and other insects such as ants display 'collective intelligence'. This means that complex group behaviour emerges from simple individual action and interaction. Researchers from France, Belgium and Switzerland set out to create a robot capable of controlling a group of cockroaches by exploiting this emergent behaviour. The researchers came up with 'Insbot', a wheeled robot about the size of a small matchbox. ... 'This work has useful applications for influencing animals,' says Eduardo Izquierdo-Torres, who researches evolutionary artificial intelligence at Sussex University in the UK. 'But what is perhaps more important is understanding how intelligence can arise from simple components.' A better understanding of the rules that produce collective intelligence in cockroaches and ants could lead to innovative forms of artificial intelligence, says Izquierdo-Torres. 'It would be interesting to build our own intelligent societies of animals,' he says." [A related video is available via a link in the article.]
>>> Agents, Robots, Multi-Agent Systems, Artificial Life May 9-15, 2006: Ubiquity Interviews David Hanson. Ubiquity (Volume 7, Issue 18). "As CEO of Hanson Robotics, Inc, David Hanson creates robot faces that have been dubbed 'among the most advanced in the world' by the BBC, and inspired Science to label Hanson 'head of his class' in social robotics. ... UBIQUITY: So what would your definition of social robotics be and how does it differ from other kinds of robotics? HANSON: Social robotics is comprised of robots meant to engage people socially. ... UBIQUITY: Where do you see your research going? HANSON: I'm interested in making these robots easily custom-designed and mass producible -- in other words, easily designed using low-cost hardware, so that very inexpensive facial expressions can go with inexpensive walking robot bodies, as well as easily customized software. Therefore, we will be improving the software, improving the quality and rate of the speech recognition. The ability to design a custom personality and animation for the robots and to tweak and tune those things needs to get better. I see these as practical tools for bringing social robots into our lives, be they human-like or cartoon-like. These tools will be useful for artificial intelligence development. In an essay a couple of years ago AI pioneer Marvin Minsky lamented the fact that the graduate students and the AI lab at MIT had spent most of their time soldering instead of developing artificial intelligence. ... UBIQUITY: Look back on the history of artificial intelligence and social robotics and help us see it as a unified history. You remember Eliza, right? Start from Eliza, and tell us what's happened since then. ..." May 7, 2006: Music made modern with robotic marvels. Kirsten Tagami. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution & ajc.com. "[I]f it hadn't been for that piano teacher, would [Gil Weinberg] have gone on to get a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's famed Media Lab and join the cutting edge of music technology? Weinberg has made it his life's work to invent new instruments that allow kids --- and untrained adults --- to experience the bliss of music-making before they ever have to play scales or study music theory. ... Expect more such ideas to originate in Atlanta: Weinberg is overseeing the creation of a new master's degree in music technology at Georgia Tech. The program was announced in March and is awaiting final approval from the Board of Regents, which is considered likely. ... The leader in the field of music technology, MIT professor Tod Machover, said Weinberg brings to the field 'a fine sense for human-machine interaction of a kind that is fun both for the human player and the human observer/listener. This work shows that intelligent physical systems can be worthy collaborators with people, even in the sensitive interplay of musical jamming.' That said, all members of the collaboration still have a lot of practicing to do --- in mechanical nuance, musical response and sonic variety, before this is ready for prime time. ... His robot plays a real drum but also uses certain aspects of artificial intelligence, such as perception, to do things few humans (except maybe Mozart) ever could, such as play back, in reverse, an extended musical motif from 10 minutes before." May 2, 2006: Another Robot Vehicle Contest Is Planned. The New York Times. "The Pentagon said Monday that a third Grand Challenge competition would be held to foster research and development into advanced robot vehicles. In contrast to the previous contest, which took place in the desert on the border between California and Nevada, the new competition will be carried out in a mock urban area. Robots will be required to obey traffic laws while merging into traffic, as well as negotiating traffic circles, busy intersections and obstacles. The event is scheduled for Nov. 3, 2007."
>>> Grand Challenges, Autonomous Vehicles, Military, Transportation, Robots, Competitions (@ Resources for Students) May 2, 2006: BabyBot takes first steps. IST Results. "BabyBot, a robot modelled on the torso of a two year-old child, is helping researchers take the first, tottering steps towards understanding human perception, and could lead to the development of machines that can perceive and interact with their environment. The researchers used BabyBot to test a model of the human sense of 'presence', a combination of senses like sight, hearing and touch. The work could have enormous applications in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine perception. The research is being funded under the European Commission’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme, as part of the ADAPT project. 'Our sense of presence is essentially our consciousness,' says Giorgio Metta, Assistant Professor at the Laboratory for Integrated Advanced Robotics at Italy's Genoa University and ADAPT project coordinator. ... 'We took an engineering approach to the problem, it was really consciousness for engineers,' says Metta, 'Which means we first developed a model and then we sought to test this model by, in this case, developing a robot to conform to it.' Modelling, or defining, consciousness remains one of the intractable problems of both science and philosophy. 'The problem is duality, where does the brain end and the mind begin, the question is whether we need to consider them as two different aspects of reality,' says Metta. ... ADAPT did not seek to solve it in one project. They made a very promising start and many of the partners will take part in a new IST project, called ROBOTCUB. In ROBOTCUB the engineers will refine their robot so that it can see, hear and touch its environment. Eventually it will be able to crawl, too. " May 2006: Getting Vexed - A robot kit that's fun as well as functional. By Stephen Cass. IEEE Spectrum. "Either you think building robots is cool, or you don't. But if you do, then you'll love the Vex Robotics Design System, a line of robot construction kits and accessories from RadioShack Corp., headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. RadioShack developed the Vex system in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, in Pittsburgh, and the organizers of an international high school robotics competition sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology), a nonprofit organization based in Manchester, N.H. While the kit's target audience is high school kids in classroom and lab settings, it is versatile enough to appeal to a much wider audience. ... The controller module can also be configured to use a basic, but fully autonomous, preinstalled program that enables a robot to feel its way around a room on its own." May 2006: Android Science - Hiroshi Ishiguro makes perhaps the most humanlike robots around - not particularly to serve as societal helpers but to tell us something about ourselves. By Tim Hornyak. Scientific American 294(5): 32-34. "Director of Osaka University's Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Ishiguro has a high furrowed brow beneath a shock of inky hair and riveting eyes that seem on the verge of emitting laser beams. Besides the justification for making robots anthropomorphic and bipedal so they can work in human environments with architectural features such as stairs, Ishiguro believes that people respond better to very humanlike robots. Androids can thus elicit the most natural communication. 'Appearance is very important to have better interpersonal relationships with a robot,' says the 42-year-old Ishiguro. 'Robots are information media, especially humanoid robots. Their main role in our future is to interact naturally with people.' ... To emulate human looks and behavior successfully, Ishiguro yokes robotics with cognitive science. In turn, cognitive science research can use the robot as a test bed to study human perception, communication and other faculties. This novel cross-fertilization is what Ishiguro describes as android science." April 30, 2006: Upstarts upset high schoolers in robot joust - Southborough youngsters triumph by keeping things simple. By Jennifer Rosinski. The Boston Globe & Boston.com. "The robot led a middle school team from Southborough to victory in the sixth annual New England Botball Tournament held at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell this month, one of several regional competitions sanctioned by The KISS Institute for Practical Robotics in Oklahoma. ... This was the first year the Southborough team competed in the tournament and the first time a middle school won it. In addition to the high school teams, four others from middle schools participated this year. ... They kept their robot simple, and that was key to their success, said Northborough native Holly Yanco, assistant professor of computer science and one of the Botball organizers. While other teams built sophisticated robots that used cameras and color sensors, the Neary boys relied only on programming to make sure their robot completed the required tasks. 'What helped them win was maybe their design and a little bit of luck,' said Yanco, who specializes in adapting robotics to wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs. 'The unusual thing is their team had an 8-year-old. That is the youngest I've ever seen,' Yanco said. ''... The next step on the boys' journey should be Norman, Okla., for the National Botball Tournament July 7, where teams from around the country will compete." April 30, 2006: Japan's toys for the elderly. By Duncan Bartlett. BBC News. "One of [Tomy's] latest lines is a doll that is selling very well to adult women, especially women over the age of 60. The talking robotic doll tells its owner how much it loves her and welcomes her home when she walks back into the house. The majority of buyers are retired women who live alone. 'Many elderly people buy these dolls, they think the dolls are actual grandsons and granddaughters,' says Yuko Hirakawa from Tomy. 'You can speak to the doll and she will tell you she loves you so much. If you hold the doll, the weight is the same weight as a small infant.' Apparently, it provides comfort for lonely women who hold it in their arms." April 30, 2006: No fag breaks, no sickies, and he'll even serve you tea. By Jonathan Owen. The Independent Online. "Office workers, meet the colleague of the future. Asimo, the world's most 'human' robot, will start work in May as an office receptionist in Japan. ... Honda, which is now focusing its efforts on artificial intelligence, says it is aiming to develop a future version of Asimo that will be able to think for itself. Whether humans will want to work alongside a robot that might show them up is another matter..." April 29, 2006: Unmanned robotic combat truck unveiled at CMU - Carnegie Mellon's new Crusher next generation could find its own way. By Joe Fahy. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Since 2001, DARPA has awarded the [National Robotics Engineering Center, part of the CMU Robotics Institute] more than $35 million for the development of Crusher, its predecessors and autonomous navigation technology, which allows the vehicles to drive by themselves without human supervision. Eventually, the military hopes to use large unmanned vehicles for reconnaissance, re-supply of troops or other needs -- the 'dull, dirty and dangerous tasks that can be better accomplished by machines,' said Steve Welby, director of DARPA's tactical technology office." April 27, 2006: Korea's Own Robot Pet Dog Unveiled. Digital Chosun Ilbo. "[T]he country's first commercially available smart robot dog that 'understands' human speech was unveiled on Thursday. Robotics maker Dasatech in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province developed two robotic dogs for use as household pets.... The couple named 'Genibo' resemble bull terriers and are 30cm tall, 33.4 cm long and weigh 1.5 kg."
>>> Robots, Robotic Pets, Competitions (@ Resources for Students); also see this related article April 26, 2006: Photo galleries - Robots in action: Rapid advances in robot development are leading to a whole new generation of tools and toys. CNET News.com. April 26, 2006: Robots That Spark Your Imagination. NewsFactor Network & The New Straits Times. "Robots are a part of everyday life, not just figments of the imagination. Today, we have robots performing a great number of tasks that include repetitive and high-stress jobs such as car assembly, medical surgery, space and deep-sea exploration, dangerous military and police applications, and even entertainment." ... Interestingly enough, the history of robotics officially began with the 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Capek. The term 'robot' originates from the Czech word robota, which means 'forced labor.' However, the official definition of a robot, according to The Robot Institute of America, is 'a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.' ... Isaac Asimov, dubbed the Father of Robotics by some, used the word 'robotics' in a short story, Runaround (1942), which later became a part of the famous book I, Robot." April 23, 2006: Man and machine - Scholar envisions new devices to help extend the reach of the human race --- tirelessly. By Bill Husted. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution & ajc.com. "Once a week, a robot handles the vacuuming for Henrik Christensen. It does a good job but --- like a lot of housekeepers --- sometimes misses dirt in the corners. Christensen occupies the newly created KUKA Chair of Robotics at Georgia Tech's College of Computing. And he practices what he preaches with the robotic housekeeper. ... Q: Is there a place for that stereotypical robot, too? The machines that work around the house? ... Q: One of the public fears, when it comes to robots, is that they'll eventually cost people jobs. Do you think that's a rational fear? ... Q: What are the new developments in robotics? A: That comes in two areas. In the industrial area, traditionally robots have been behind fences. You had a protected area where robots operated and another where humans operated. The industrial area where change is occurring is in the food industry. We are starting to see lots of robots going in there. This is, in part, a response to the pandemic fears, like bird flu. It is very nice that we can process food without it being touched by human hands. You can now think that customers will want to pay more for things that have not been touched by humans. As far as personal robots, we have now seen the success story with the vacuum cleaner. We are going to go to more complex applications. The first place we see this will be in assisting the elderly and handicapped. It could be an intelligent walker. You have people today who have walkers. But if they have Alzheimer's they may forget where they are going. So with a robotic walker, you can tell it that I want to go to the kitchen. Or if you are in the hospital and need to go to a certain place for treatment, it will guide you to where you want to go." April 22, 2006: New hunt is on for robot top dog. By Chelsea Wald. New Scientist (Issue 2548; subscription req'd). "When the last of Sony's Aibo robotic dogs rolled off the production line last month, it wasn't just consumer fans who mourned its passing. For years robotics researchers have been using Aibo to test artificial intelligence systems, and they were dismayed by its demise. ... Since its birth in 1999, Aibo has quietly become one of the most widely used robotics research tools. Its skills as a soccer player that could be programmed to compete in teams for the annual RoboCup Four-Legged Challenge are what first attracted many research labs. ... A group of researchers who compete for the RoboCup are compiling a volume of some 150 papers they have published on research using Aibos. They plan to present it to Sony in the next few weeks to alert the company to the amount of work carried out, in the slim hope of changing its mind. 'Even I was surprised by collecting all these papers,' says Manuela Veloso, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who is editing the volume." April 21, 2006: Robo-ethics - Symposium delves into how machines help -- or are used against us. By Michael Lisi. Times Union. "Robots concern Chico MacMurtrie. Not Hollywood robots like chirping R2-D2 or hulking Gort from the 1950s sci-fi flick 'The Day the Earth Stood Still.' What worries MacMurtrie are real-life robotics that might end up in surveillance systems, credit cards with embedded microchips, or computerized networks that make it easy for anyone or anything motivated enough -- the government, for example -- to follow your electronic trail through everything you do, everyone you know. 'I am frightened to death of the way technology controls our society and is used against us,' said MacMurtrie, artistic director of the Manhattan-based Amorphic Robot Works, a collective of artists and engineers who create robotic artworks, performances and installations. ... MacMurtrie is the keynote speaker for 'Robots: In Our Own Eyes,' the Schenectady Museum's second annual High Voltage Fields symposium. The Saturday seminar features a panel discussion focusing on the practical and ethical use of robots and robotics. The title of MacMurtrie's speech says it all: 'How Robotics Affects Our Society and Why It Concerns Me.'" April 20, 2006: Applauding the androids. By Rob Amen. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & PittsburghLive.com. "Carnegie Mellon on Wednesday revealed that Gort and four other robots, both real and fictitious, will be inducted into the hall in June. The announcement came on the first day of the university's 50th anniversary celebration of computer science education and research. ... The Robot Hall of Fame, a small section inside the Carnegie Science Center, recognizes real robots that have improved everyday life...."
>>> Robots, Science Fiction, Manufacturing, AI; the movie, Robotic Pets, History, Exhibits (@ Resources for Students) April 18, 2006: CNN Future Summit technology profiles:
>>> The Future, Robots, Cognitive Science, Applications, Ethical & Social Implications, Science Fiction, Assisitive Technologies April 14, 2006: Europe's Robotic Challenge - Next month, Germany will host Europe's version of DARPA's Grand Challenge -- but don't expect desert-busting autonomous SUVs. By Duncan Graham-Rowe. Technology Review. "Roboticists from 47 teams are preparing to take part in Europe's answer to the U.S. Department of Defense's Grand Challenge (last year's robotic car race aimed at encouraging research into autonomous cars). This first European Land-Robot Trial, to take place in Germany on May 15, will pit against each other teams from nine countries, representing both academia and industry. Unlike the U.S. Grand Challenge, organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is a single 132-mile race in the desert, the European version will consist of three different events, putting robots to the test in urban, non-urban, and landmine detection and removal scenarios. Despite the obvious comparisons with the Grand Challenge, the European organizers stress that their event is not so much a competition as an evaluation of existing technology." April 14, 2006: The new breed of soldier - Robots with guns. By Steven Komarow. USA Today. "Spurred by the risks from roadside bombs and terrorist ambushes, the military is aggressively seeking to replace troops with battlefield robots, including new versions armed with machine guns. 'There was a time just a few years ago when we almost had to beg people to try an unmanned ground vehicle,' says Marine Col. Terry Griffin, manager of the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office in Huntsville, Ala. 'We don't have to beg anymore.' ... Although the Pentagon initially focused on aircraft, such as the Predator drone, now new ground- and sea-based robots are being developed and tested, military records show. For example: ... Self-driving convoy trucks. ... The next step -- robots that decide themselves when to fire -- is much harder. Robots will become more independent, but having them fight without human control is 'not a technology issue, so much as it's a safety issue,' says Scott Myers, president of General Dynamics Robotic Systems."
>>> Military, Autonomous Vehicles, Robots, Ethical & Social Implications, Applications April 12, 2006: Snake-Like Robots Made to Aid in Rescues. By Daniel Lovering. Associated Press / available from Forbes.com. "For most people, snakes seem unpleasant or even threatening. But Howie Choset sees in their delicate movements a way to save lives. The 37-year-old Carnegie Mellon University professor has spent years developing snake-like robots he hopes will eventually slither through collapsed buildings in search of victims trapped after natural disasters or other emergencies. ... 'Right now, the way to get to these trapped survivors is to pull the rubble out one rock at a time,' Choset said. 'So our dream is to have the snake robot thread through this collapsed rubble and get to victims more quickly.'" April 12, 2006: You, Robot - Artist Pia Lindman observes robotics experts at MIT to help us understand emotion and identity. By Sarah Tomlinson. The Boston Globe & boston.com. "Thanks to a 2005-2006 fellowship from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, [Pia] Lindman is currently observing and interacting with scientists and their robotic creations at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She has become particularly intrigued with researcher Aaron Edsinger and his robot, Domo, which he is programming to move and react much like a human does. Her observations of the relationship Edsinger has with his creation, rendered as drawings and a live performance, form the core of 'The MIT Project,' which is a part of the larger show, 'Pia Lindman: Embodiments,' on view at MIT through June 30. ... The creation of robots, especially machines that we want to look and act in a manner that suggests human beings, offers new and potentially fertile territory for Lindman to explore issues of identity and the origin of emotion." April 12, 2006: MIT Fraternity Accused Of Robot Hazing. [Satire. "The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of age."] The Onion (Issue 42•15). "Several members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology chapter of the Theta Tau fraternity are in campus-police custody today following a brutal hazing incident in which one robot remains missing and two others are in critical condition with extensive circuitry and servo-motor injuries, sources revealed Monday. ... 'We will thoroughly investigate this matter, and take strong disciplinary action,' MIT Dean of Students Geraldine Knight said. 'These robots are extremely artificially intelligent. They wouldn't willingly subject themselves to this sort of abuse without extreme levels of peer pressure or even downright reprogramming.' ... In protest, human-emotion-simulator robot Kismet, a respected member of the MIT community, announced that it will only display an expression of disapproval -- refusing to smile, show fear, or raise a curious eyebrow -- until those responsible receive appropriate punishment." April 11, 2006: Can a robot replace your receptionist? A Japanese temp agency wants robotic rentals modeled after characters like Hello Kitty to man the front desk. By Diane Anderson. Business 2.0 Magazine (from the April 1, 2006 issue) & CNN Money.com. "Manufactured by Business Design Laboratory, also based in Nagoya, the 20-inch-tall Hello Kitty Robo can recognize as many as 10 faces, ask visitors to speak their names, and tell them when the person they have come to see is ready. With 20,000 stored conversation patterns, songs, and riddles, the robot is arguably more entertaining than many real attendants." April 7, 2006: Robot to perform underwater surgery. By Tom Blackwell. National Post & canada.com. "Dr. Mehran Anvari will do experimental surgery this Sunday that could one day help save astronauts in outer space or northerners in the far-flung Arctic -- yet he will not be anywhere near his 'patient.' Wielding specialized joysticks at a hospital in Hamilton, Ont., Dr. Anvari plans to manipulate a unique, Canadian-made robot to sew up an abdominal vein in a mock space station under the Atlantic ocean. The patient this time will be a sophisticated dummy. But Dr. Anvari has already used the world-leading tele-robotic technology to perform complex operations on 22 'real' patients who were at medical facilities hundreds of kilometres away from his office. The goal is to provide such a service to secluded communities that have no surgeons of their own, and maybe operate on astronauts travelling to the moon or Mars. After Sunday's project with NASA, Dr. Anvari's team will focus on a new, even more mind-bending phase: 'semi-autonomous' robots that are programmed to do surgical procedures on their own, without a physician directly controlling their movements. 'Canada is the leader in the world on this,' said Dr. Anvari yesterday." April 6, 2006: JPL Robot Motors Into Technology Hall Of Fame. CBS 2 & KCAL 9. "A JPL robot that was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to find bombs was inducted Thursday into the Space Technology Hall of Fame. The iRobot PackBot Tactical Mobile Robot, which was developed by JPL to explore Mars, was honored at the 22nd National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. iRobot Corp., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were recognized as the innovating organizations behind PackBot’s technology. ... The Space Technology Hall of Fame honors technologies and the innovators who transformed space technology into commercial products that improve life here on Earth." April 5, 2006: Speedy robot legs it to break record. By Tom Simonite. NewScientist.com news. "A two-legged robot that walks at record-breaking speed has been developed by researchers from Germany and Scotland. 'RunBot' is the fastest robot on two legs -- for its size. At 30 centimetres high, it can walk at a speedy 3.5 leg-lengths per second. This beats the previous record holder -- MIT's 'Spring Flamingo' -- which is four times as tall but manages just 1.4 leg-lengths per second. ... [Florentin Wörgötter's] team mimicked biology to make their robot walk efficiently. 'Humans have simple neural systems that learn a few basic modes of movement that function as reflexes,' he says. 'RunBot works the same, putting it on the ground triggers the reflex.'" [Videos available.] April 4, 2006: R O B O SCIENCE Student robots will sweep for mines. Middle-schoolers build robots for military. By Kathleen Lewis. The Free Lance-Star & Fredericksburg.com. "Students at John J. Wright Middle School were on Lego detail. ... This is the essence of N-Star, 'Naval Research--Science and Technologies for America's Readiness,' at the middle-school level. The program was launched last year in Stafford schools by the Department of the Navy. Science and engineering staffers for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, serve as mentors. ... The Navy's goal is to generate enthusiasm for math and science that will lead students to pursue careers in science and engineering. ... In addition to working with the robots, the students are learning about the issue of land-mine removal around the world. Each group researched a country that has land mines. They had to discover the country's topography, the location of the mines and their construction." April 4, 2006: Urban Search and Rescue Robots Put To Test. FacilitiesNet News. "Ground, aerial and aquatic emergency response robots from across the country will face realistic urban search and rescue challenges April 4-6 at Disaster City near the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas. The event, hosted by Texas A&M Engineering and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urban search and rescue team Texas Task Force 1, is the second in a series of robot evaluation exercises for urban search and rescue applications conducted by the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The program is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate." April 3, 2006: Board grants autonomy to bots. By R. Colin Johnson. EE Times. "Analog Devices Inc. has teamed with robotics expert Fred Martin to create a single-board solution for autonomous robots. The Blackfin Handy Board, containing all the electronics needed for sensing, processing and actuating robots, will be announced this week at the Embedded Systems Conference. 'What this board provides, in addition to the Blackfin processor, is all the sensor input/motor output circuits built in for hooking up to external devices,' said Martin, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. 'This board will appeal to domain experts in electrical engineering as well as academic researchers in mechanical engineering, physics, microbiology, astronomy and artificial intelligence--basically, anybody who wants to automate a control system but wants to concentrate on their application instead of on wiring circuits and writing code.' The original Handy Board was designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by then-students Martin, Mike Parker and Randy Sargent for MIT's Autonomous Robot Design Competition." April 2, 2006: In a Wired South Korea, Robots Will Feel Right at Home. By Norimitsu Onishi. The New York Times & nytimes.com. "South Korea, the world's most wired country, is rushing to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life. The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade, has marshaled an army of scientists and business leaders to make robots full members of society. By 2007, networked robots that, say, relay messages to parents, teach children English and sing and dance for them when they are bored, are scheduled to enter mass production. Outside the home, they are expected to guide customers at post offices or patrol public areas, searching for intruders and transmitting images to monitoring centers. If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication.... While other countries have focused on developing military, industrial or humanoid robots, [Mr. Oh] said, South Korea decided three years ago to develop service robots that, instead of operating independently, derive their intelligence from being part of a network." April 1, 2006: How Dr Who does it. By Rin Simpson. Western Mail & icWales. "A new book by Paul Parsons, editor of the BBC's science and technology magazine BBC Focus, has the answers. He shares a few here: ... Could humans become Cybermen? This race of creatures was once humanoid but, having experimented with cybernetic modifications to their bodies, became entirely robotic. We have already started this process with medical technology.... In 1998 Professor Kevin Warwick at the University of Reading decided to take this a step further by becoming the first human to have a microchip surgically implanted into his body, which served as a transponder. ... Warwick believes there will be strong motivation for us to modify our bodies in these ways as a consequence of developments in artificial intelligence." March 30, 2006: Lights...camera...robot! New Scientist Technology Blog, posted by Tom. "I don't think Spielberg needs to be worried, but this film-making robot seems to have all the makings of a decent director." March 28, 2006 [broadcast date]: The Great Robot Race. NOVA, the PBS science television series. "Join NOVA for an exclusive backstage pass to the DARPA Grand Challenge -- a raucous race for robotic, driverless vehicles sponsored by the Pentagon, which awards a $2 million purse to the winning team. Armed with artificial intelligence, laser-guided vision, GPS navigation, and 3-D mapping systems, the contenders are some of the world's most advanced robots. Yet even their formidable technology and mechanical prowess may not be enough to overcome the grueling 130-mile course through Nevada's desert terrain. From concept to construction to the final competition, 'The Great Robot Race' delivers the absorbing inside story of clever engineers and their unyielding drive to create a champion, capturing the only aerial footage that exists of the Grand Challenge." The program will be available online on March 29th.
>>> Grand Challenges, Autonomous Vehicles, AI Overview, Robots, Applications, Resources for Educators; also see this related interview and these related articles March 25, 2006 : Rules for the modern robot. New Scientist (Issue 2544). "Is there a way to ensure robotic fighter planes do not mistake civilians for enemy soldiers and kill innocent people? Is 'system malfunction' a justifiable defence for contravening the Geneva Convention? Should robotic sex dolls resembling children be allowed? Such are the concerns of a group of leading roboticists, who met this week in Palermo, Sicily, to discuss measures to prevent robots unnecessarily harming people." March 24, 2006: Robots take the field in name of science - High school competitors build their own mechanical players. By Robert Weisman. The Boston Globe & boston.com. "The geek olympics have come to town. ... [H]undreds of tech-crazed high school students gathered in Boston University's Agganis Arena yesterday to ready their robots for the FIRST Robotics Competition opening today. ... 'Businesses recognize that we really need a change in American culture,' said Brookline technology entrepreneur Marc A. Hodosh, chairman of the Boston FIRST event. 'This country celebrates athletes and entertainers. The average high school kid around Boston could probably name the entire Red Sox team, but they couldn't name a single living inventor. A career in science and technology is much more accessible and realistic than a career in sports.'"
>>> Robots, Competitions & Careers in AI (@ Resources for Students) March 23, 2006: In this soccer match, the players are robots. By Scott Patterson. The Wall Street Journal (subscription req'd) / available from post-gazette.com. "Blending artificial intelligence, robotics and soccer, RoboCup is an obscure competition known mostly to computer-science wonks at top universities around the world. ... RoboCup, which is shorthand for Robot Soccer World Cup, has an eye-popping long-term goal. By 2050, it wants to create a humanoid robotic soccer team that can defeat the winner of soccer's real World Cup. ... In June, more than 100 teams will square off in Bremen, Germany, for the 10th-annual RoboCup World Championship. ... The idea to use soccer as a way to experiment with robots appeared in a 1993 paper called 'On Seeing Robots,' by Alan Mackworth, professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. ... The Aibo teams have an even bigger challenge ahead of them. In January, Sony pulled the plug on the Aibo Entertainment Robot line." March 22, 2006: He's an expert guide, fluent in Italian, takes you round the museum - and he's a robot. By Barbara McMahon. The Guradian & Guardian Unlimited. "It looks like an oversized vacuum cleaner, but can call on enormous amounts of information. It has wheels, a keyboard and monitor, and can navigate itself around a room of objects, many of them precious. Welcome to your latest tour guide, a 1.5-metre tall robot that from next month will greet visitors, in Italian, to the Agrigento archaeological museum in Sicily and then take them around it. Cicerobot can plan tours and respond to a visitor's wishes. Harris Dindo, part of the science team at Palermo University that developed the robot, said: 'It uses the technique of latent semantic analysis, which means it can answer many of the questions tourists throw at it and have intelligent interaction with them.'"
>>> Robots, Natural Language Processing, Customer Service, Applications March 21, 2006: Flight without flaps. The Engineer Online. "An innovative pilotless aircraft with flapless wings has completed a test flight in the UK. The model aeroplane was developed by a cross-disciplinary team from UK Universities as part of a £6.2m programme, funded jointly by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and BAE Systems. The five-year programme, called FLAVIIR (flapless air vehicle integrated industrial research).... The results from the different groups will be brought together in a single flying demonstrator in about 2009. The concept of a flapless vehicle, using fluidic thrust vectoring - where direction is changed with a secondary airflow - and air jets, is one important area of investigation. Another is the replacement of the pilot by sophisticated software that can autonomously fly the vehicle without collisions in what might be dangerous or remote environments. March 16, 2006: Mars rovers win an upgrade - Spirit and Opportunity learn to single out good images. By Mark Peplow. news @ nature.com. "The rovers Spirit and Opportunity will soon be able to spot interesting features of the martian weather automatically. Their new software, due to be installed in June, will help the rovers to identify swirling dust devils and thin clouds in the sky. ... [A]rtificial-intelligence experts have developed software to help the robots spot the most important images. The rovers should even be able to crop the images so that only key features are sent home. ... The project's leader, Steve Chien, an artificial-intelligence expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, says that the upgrade should quintuple the number of scientifically interesting snaps in each block of data sent." March 16, 2006: The Shape of Robots to Come. By Michel Marriott. The New York Times & nytimes.com. "A segmented tower on a metal and plastic base swiveled around. Two glowing segments, suggesting a head, tilted forward and spoke: 'Hello. My name is Scoty. Let me explain a few things about myself.' n a vaguely female synthesized voice -- but always in plain English -- Scoty [smart companion operating technology], the latest robot from the robotic-toy maker WowWee, demonstrated its functions for a visitor recently. Chief among them are managing a personal computer's communication and entertainment abilities, finding and playing songs by voice request, recording television shows, telling users when they have e-mail and, again by voice request, reading the e-mail aloud. It takes and then sends voice-to-text e-mail dictation. It takes pictures, and gives the time when asked. ... As robots increasingly migrate from heavy industrial tasks, like welding automobile chassis on assembly lines, to home uses as restless toys and venturesome vacuum cleaners, a fetching personality and appealing appearance become critically important. A flashy show called 'Robots: The Interactive Exhibition' is touring museums and science centers in the United States through 2012 with the aim of demystifying robotics, especially their harder edges. ... 'The overall mission is to find ways of bringing robotics into useful interaction with people,' said Colin Angle, chief executive of iRobot...." March 15, 2006: Bacteria could power tiny robots. By Michael Kanellos. CNET News.com. "A strain of bacteria that releases electrons as a waste product could become the secret ingredient for developing fuel cells for spy drones and other small robots. Researchers at Rice University and the University of Southern California have embarked on a project to harness the power of Shewanella oneidensis, a microorganism that essentially spits lightning. Rather than consume oxygen to turn food into energy, Shewanella consumes metals." March 15, 2006: Event explores philosophy of robotics. By Teresa Hou. Spartan Daily. "The philosophy of personal robotics technology will take center stage this afternoon as the Philosophy Club of San Jose State University will be hosting 'Friends by Design: A Design Philosophy for Personal Robotics Technology.' The event ... will feature a discussion led by John Sullins, an assistant philosophy professor from Sonoma State University. ... According to Sullins, designing personal robots are more problematic than designing any other type of technology. 'From the technical standpoint, we are attempting to create machines that exhibit human behaviors, such as intelligence, language use, and reasoning, which are things we barely understand in ourselves,' Sullins said. 'From the social standpoint, we are not only designing a mechanical instrument, but one that requires a personality of its own and the ability to closely interact with humans as a fellow agent.'" March 15, 2006: Japan builds robots to look after old folks. IOL, The Independent Online. "A Japanese-led research team on Tuesday said it had made a seeing, hearing and smelling robot that can carry human beings and is aimed at helping care for the country's growing number of elderly. Government-backed research institute Riken said the 158cm RI-MAN humanoid can already carry a doll weighing 12kg and could be capable of bearing 70kg within five years."
>>> Assisitive Technologies, Robots, Applications March 14, 2006: Ikea robot. The Engineer Online. "Some of Europe's leading research institutes, universities and automation technology companies are planning to bring industrial robotics to the masses. The masses in this case are Europe's 200,000-plus smaller manufacturing firms, who will have access to intuitive, affordable self-assembly 'light' robots if the EU's SMErobot project within the 6th Framework Programme project is successful. ... A team of leading research institutes, universities and robot manufacturers, including ABB and Kuka, have three main goals. The first of these is to design a robot capable of understanding human instructions. They hope to achieve this by developing a combination of existing devices and methods to create intuitive instruction paradigms. The team wants to produce robots that understand speech and human gestures as well as other automatically generated instructions that will ultimately limit the programming effort." March 13, 2006: Pilotless Planes. Imagine planes without pilots - they are known as UAVs, Unmanned Airborne Vehicles and it's a fast growing market, both military and civilian. Innovations program from Radio Australia, hosted by Desley Blanch. "[Blanch]: Robyn Williams asked Doctor Rodney Walker, from the Queensland University of Technology, what's going on in Australia's aerospace industry and with UAVs in particular. ... [Williams]: And the main job surveillance in every case? [Walker]: At this stage, yes. Surveillance is the primary motivation for developing the UAV platforms for a wide range of reasons. ... [Williams]: And you did mention helicopters before - are these unmanned helicopters as well? [Walker]: Yes, unmanned helicopters. In fact, the platform that we'll be using is called a Yamaha RMAX, and it's probably a little known fact in Australia that there's already over 2000 of these helicopter platforms being used daily across Japan for fertiliser purposes. ... [Wimmiams]: And the people controlling this are they sitting at the outside like these sort of amateur aircraft enthusiasts or are they in a mission control? [Walker]: Yeah, I guess there's two different concepts of operations for UAVs. There are the truly autonomous aircraft that you give them a high level mission and they go off and they do that mission and they come back and they land. And the next level, which is slightly less autonomous, is what's called an ROA or remotely operated aircraft and they still are essentially flying themselves but there's always a human person there to monitor how they're going and to make decisions and to keep the aircraft doing its mission. [Williams]: They can't go feral? ..." March 7, 2006: Robots To Slash Farm Labour Costs. University of Warwick Media Centre. "The researchers from the University of Warwick's horticultural arm, Warwick HRI, and its manufacturing engineering section, Warwick Manufacturing Group, are working on a number of robotics and automation products that will vastly reduce the labour costs of farmers and growers. Those projects include: A robotic mushroom picker: the robot uses a charged coupled camera to spot and select only mushrooms of the exact size required for picking achieving levels of accuracy far in excess of human labour. ... Robot Grass Cutter ..." March 7, 2006: Tiny robots gear up for soccer competition. By Hayashi Sakawa, with Jennifer Guevin contributing. CNET News.com. "The Eco-Be, which measures less than one square inch, features a motor unit adapted from tiny watch motors. With a lithium battery, small LED and microprocessor on board, the robot can move forward and backward, as well as turn around. ... Citizen [Watch] is working with the University of Osaka's engineering department, along with robot development specialists from Robot Laboratory and Vision. The organizers of RoboCup, an international robotics soccer competition held annually, plan to have a new category this year named the 'RoboCup Citizen Eco-Be League'.... The University of Osaka is a leading institution in artificial intelligence-enhanced robot development."
>>> Robots, Competitions (@ Resources for Students) March 6, 2006: My robot - Hackers reprogramming Roombas to do more than just clean floors. By Hiawatha Bray. The Boston Globe & boston.com. "Some people are tinkering with their Roomba robotic vacuums, but not much of it has to do with cleaning floors. ... And iRobot is happy to help them experiment. In October, it introduced a $30 kit that lets people reprogram the software in older Roombas so they can modify how it works. The newest models feature a digital data port, similar to those found on PCs, that allows the robot's sensors and motors to be controlled by a computer. And iRobot is even giving university robotics labs free Roombas to use as teaching aids. ... Phillip Torrone, associate editor of Make, a magazine for do-it-yourselfers, has turned his Roomba into a roving camera that relays pictures from his house to the Internet site Flickr." March 5, 2006: The Art of Building a Robot to Love. By Henry Fountain. The New York Times & nytimes. com. "Marvin the Robot, a supporting player in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' speaks in the dull monotone of the chronically depressed. In the "Star Wars" films, C-3PO is a bundle of anxiety and neuroses. And in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' the HAL 9000 is creepily homicidal. These are all fictional machines, far removed from real robots of the present or even those that scientists envision for the future. Yet they raise questions: If robots can act in lots of ways, how do people want them to act? We certainly don't want our robots to kill us, but do we like them happy or sad, bubbly or cranky? 'The short answer is no one really know what kind of emotions people want in robots,' said Maja Mataric, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California. But scientists are trying to figure it out: ..." March 3, 2006: Robotic 'pack mule' displays stunning reflexes. By David Hambling. NewScientist.com news. "A nimble, four-legged robot is so surefooted it can recover its balance even after being given a hefty kick. The machine, which moves like a cross between a goat and a pantomime horse, is being developed as a robotic pack mule for the US military. BigDog is described by its developers Boston Dynamics as 'the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth'. The company have released a new video [available via link in article] of the robot negotiating steep slopes, crossing rocky ground and dealing with the sharp kick. ... The project is sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who want the robotic pack mule to assist soldiers in terrain too tough for vehicles. Ground-based soldiers often need to carry 40 kilograms of equipment." March 3, 2006: Will Home Robots Ever Clean Up? Helen Greiner of iRobot talks about how the company's Roomba vacuum cleaner succeeded -- and why they don't have competitors. By Wade Roush. Technology Review. "Helen Greiner, one of three co-founders and current chairman of iRobot, believes the market for home and office robots is about to grow. She started iRobot in 1990 with fellow computer-science student Colin Angle and Rod Brooks, a professor in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and she holds two degrees from MIT, a bachelor's in mechanical engineering and a master's in computer science. ... TR: Why aren't there more companies bringing out home robots? HG: I think that bringing all the parts together in one place is a nontrivial matter. Robots are a true integration of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, production engineering, and a real focus on the cost structure and the real needs people have in their homes, or in the military. ..." March 2, 2006: Perception: Rosie. Reality: Roomba - We’ve come a long way since the Hoover, but an autonomous robot-maid is still a long way off. Don’t throw away the dish gloves just yet. By Larry Smith. Popular Science. "Today’s best home robots prove that good, cheap help is still hard to find. Find three of the most promising potential robo-maids on the following pages: ZMP’s Nuvo ... White Box’s 914 PC-Bot ... Honda’s ASIMO." March 1, 2006: Artificial Intelligence Gains Momentum - New robotics center plans to develop machines to do human tasks. By Rosalind Guy. Memphis Daily News (Volume 121, Number 49). "These types of technological advances inspire the research at the FedEx Institute of Technology [FIT] at the University of Memphis. To that end, the institute is planing to open its robotics research center this month. ... Eric Mathews, associate director for corporate research and development at the institute and director of the new robotics center, said the idea for the center grew out of a project the institute is working on with FedEx called 'yard management.' It involves researching and creating an autonomous vehicle that will be able to move cargo bins on a tarmac. ... The research center's first couple of years will be spent looking at smaller robots, experimenting with them and developing artificial intelligence and mechanical systems that can be scaled up in subsequent years. So two types of robots could evolve from this particular project. 'One of the robots will be the off-the-shelf research robot already pre-made with all the sensors,' Mathews said. The other will come from a vehicle that can navigate through the halls of FIT." March 2006: Halfway to Mars - How a hardy band of researchers braved freezing nights, bad food, and high winds in the Chilean desert to test the next generation of planetary rovers. By Jean Kumagai. IEEE Spectrum Online. "[David] Wettergreen, an associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, in Pittsburgh, and his team have been roughing it here in the Atacama since August, and they'll remain until November, just as South America's spring gives way to summer. They've come to test out new concepts and designs for the next generation of planetary rover, because this place, more than any other on Earth, approximates the barren, arid rockiness of the Red Planet. Testing the rover means pushing the technology to its limits, and sometimes beyond. The robot is so unusual and so new that breaking down is, for now, anyway, what it's supposed to do. 'A hundred percent success means we're not really trying hard enough,' Wettergreen says. It isn't the most elegant-looking machine ever built. Weighing in at 180 kilograms, the rover, dubbed Zoë, looks something like a motorized, overgrown ice cream cart. But it is beautiful in the one way that really matters to planetary scientists: unlike all the rovers built thus far, Zoë can roam autonomously. ... The rover can even make some rudimentary decisions about what terrain to explore. In a set of experiments conducted in Chile, Zoë successfully determined which tests to run at a given location." February 24, 2006: Animated Robot for Hospitalized Children. AATP Interactive (the weblog of the American Association for Technology in Psychiatry). "The Robotics & Multibody Research Group (Brussels University) is working on Anty, an intelligent soft robot that will entertain long-term hospitalized children. When developed the robot will walk, talk and show feelings. According to the creators, Anty will be able to develop different personalities, so kids won't get bored with him. Anty uses sensors for vision, audio and touch to interact with the children. By means of artificial intelligence, Anty is capable of understanding and expressing emotions." February 24, 2006: Exhibit explores world of robots, A.I. By Bridget Brown. The Galveston County Daily News. "Space Center Houston will help us understand what makes robots tick when artificial intelligence invades the premises. The 5,000-square-foot 'Robots and Us' exhibit showcases the history and creation of robots, and answers the question of why humans often fear and, at the same time, are intrigued by them. 'At first, robots were seen as these evil things that would take over the earth,' said Roger Bornstein, director of marketing for Space Center Houston. 'It has progressed from people being afraid to them getting more comfortable. There is something almost heroic about (robots) now. We totally accept them.'" February 22, 2006: Smart cameras drive machine vision uptake. Manufacturingtalk News; based on a news release from Frost and Sullivan. "Once vision systems achieve greater versatility and upgradeability, the range of applications is likely to expand beyond industries and production processes. ... . SICK IVP, Sweden has introduced a first of its kind 3D vision smart camera that uses laser triangulation for high-performance capture of 3D images. Due to 3D inspection capabilities, the camera has versatile qualities that enable it to perform inspection, location, and measurements of objects to enhance production processes. This revolutionary 3D smart vision system, which also incorporates tools that can estimate height and volume is set to make a significant impact on robotic guidance applications such as bin picking, inspection of connector pins, and inspection of weld seams all of which require precise inspection of 3D images. Currently, researchers are also working toward the development of real-time autonomous robotic guidance using machine vision systems. The five year reverse engineering the vertebrate brain (REVERB) project jointly undertaken by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), BAE systems, and a group of universities in the United Kingdom aims at incorporating artificial intelligence in robotics." February 18, 2006: Beware the helpful robots in your home. By Paul Marks. New Scientist (Issue 2539; subscription req'd). "The growing breed of oh-so-cute robotic pets and small humanoids can make it easy to forget that robots are essentially fast-moving lumps of metal, and therefore potentially dangerous when something goes wrong. Industrial robots have been with us for decades, along with a steady trickle of robot-related accidents. The first death was in 1981, when an engineer at a Kawasaki plant in Japan was killed when a robotic arm pushed him into a grinder. ... [W]hen we do begin sharing our living and working space with mobile robots, many legal issues are likely to arise. What if, for instance, a robot were to get under someone's feet, tripping them down a set of stairs? Robot owners will have to be aware of their responsibilities to other people, says Joanne Barker, a solicitor with Which Legal Service in Hertford, UK. 'It would be like having a pet: it can do its own thing, but you are the one responsible for its actions.' ... But lawyer Stephen Sidkin, a spokesman on high-tech product liability issues for the Law Society of England and Wales, believes robots will have to be a lot smarter than that. 'Designers will have to ensure a robot's software is capable of learning how to avoid all problems like hot drink spills. The onus has to be on the manufacturer to get it right.' ... The Japanese government is concerned enough to have commissioned a long-term research programme designed to establish the safety standards for robots working in our homes and as nurses and porters in healthcare." February 15, 2006: Slime mould used to create first robot run by living cells. By Alok Jha. The Guardian & Guardian Unlimited. "Ever worried that the terrifying cyborgs that fill sci-fi stories might one day become a reality? Perhaps the latest research by Klaus-Peter Zauner of Southampton University will cause a stir: the engineer has invented a robot that is controlled by living cells. The cells in question are a specially grown type of 'slime mould' that naturally shies away from light. ... The work came out of a collaboration with scientists at Kobe University in Japan, who had been studying ways of using biological cells in robots. Dr Zauner himself had been trying to use individual molecules - rather than instructions from computer programs - to control the functions and movements of robots. ... 'What is very attractive to us is the fact that cells can self-repair and self-restructure, all the things that you can't achieve with conventional technology,' he said. Using biological cells provides some autonomy to the robot's movements. 'In a conventional computer we specify a program and if the computer doesn't do exactly what we want ... there's an error.'"
February 14, 2006: If Robots Ever Get Too Smart, He'll Know How to Stop Them. By Cornelia Dean. The New York Times. "In Isaac Asimov's collection of stories, 'I, Robot,' robots rise up against humanity. In the classic sci-fi thriller 'Blade Runner,' a bounty hunter must exterminate intelligent androids that are both deadly and very unhappy with their creators. Even in 1920, when the playwright Karel Capek gave English speakers the Czech word 'robot' (laborer) in his play 'R.U.R.,' the androids at Rossum's Universal Robots were bent on wiping out the human race. 'If popular culture has taught us anything,' Daniel H. Wilson says, 'it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace.' Luckily, Dr. Wilson is just the guy to help us do it. In his new book, 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising,' Dr. Wilson offers detailed --- and hilariously deadpan --- advice on evading hostile swarms of robot insects (don't try to fight --- 'loss of an individual robot is inconsequential to the swarm').... [H]e earned his doctorate in robotics at Carnegie Mellon... And his thesis describes a version of the smart house, a dwelling so rich in sensors that it would monitor people's activities and raise an alarm if their movements changed or stopped. He said he was inspired to investigate the possibilities of such 'assisted intelligent environments' by his mother, a nurse who organizes care for elderly people who want to remain in their own homes --- or 'age in place,' as Dr. Wilson put it. ... '[T]he book turned out very nicely,' Dr. Atkeson said. People will pick it up because it is funny --- 'and then you have an opportunity to educate them. It's a robotics primer.'"
>>> Humor (@ AI Toons), Robots, Science Fiction, Smart Houses, Assisitive Technologies, Applications February 14, 2006: Tech Check - Sales pick up for robotic cleaners. By Dave Toplikar. Lawrence Journal-World & LJWorld.com. "More than 1.5 million house-cleaning robots have been sold by iRobot, a company founded in 1990 by 'roboticists' from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... Besides the Roomba, I also found a number of other floor-cleaning robots. Most were pricier than the Roomba [basic model about $149]. They included Zucchetti Orazio floor cleaner ($1,299), the Karcher RC3000 Robocleaner ($1,495), the Electrolux EL520A Trilobite ($1,799), the Friendly RV400 Vacuum ($1,599) and the CleanMate 365 ($124). ... [Arvin Agah, a Kansas University associate professor] predicts it will be awhile before consumers have servant robots — ones that can do a multitude of household tasks, like clean dishes, make beds or take out trash. The difficulty is in creating an artificial intelligence that can recognize the various types of houses we live in. The robot must be able to travel on carpet, on hardwood and move up and down stairs. For that reason, some people are working on specialist robots that do one particular task. 'It’s easier to design and build them, versus a robot that just listens to you and does whatever you ask,' Agah said. ... Agah told me of a couple of robots he had heard of being developed. One would serve as a golf caddy. Another type is a robotic nurse that interacts with patients and delivers medicine in nursing homes" February 12, 2006: I am the droid R2D-X ... take me to your leader. By Louis Whitehead. The Brookings Register Online. "Nine Hillcrest Elementary School students and one home-schooled student have learned that robots aren’t just the stuff of mass production and science fiction movies. How did they do that? Why, by taking part in an Ocean Odyssey, of course. No, they haven’t been using robots to hunt for sunken treasure in the South Pacific. But they did participate in the national FIRST (For Inspiriation and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League for the first time in the fall of 2005. The league’s 2005 theme, 'Ocean Odyssey,' pertained to finding ways to use robots to benefit and preserve the health of the world’s oceans. 'It’s a good program for kids ages 9-14 because it’s a relatively inexpensive way to expose kids to science and engineering, and they get to see what engineers and scientists do. You have to start kids at this age,' said Madeline Schaal, coach of the Hillcrest robotics team and coordinator of the school’s foreign language program. ... She also encourages other area elementary schools to get involved in robotics as well. 'It’s really simple to start. And if you want to coach, you don’t have to have a background in engineering,' she said, 'you just have to be willing to commit the time.'" February 11, 2006: The human touch. By Simon Tsang. The Age & theage.com. "[Stephen] Keeney says the artificial intelligence capabilities [of ASIMO] include facial recognition and voice recognition: it can understand hand signals and voice commands. It has a global mapping system which involves using its head-mounted cameras to scan its environment and record stationary and moving objects as it moves. Other advances in robotics are being made in Sweden. A student at the Complex Adaptive Systems of Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Almir Heralic, has developed a robot called HR-2. ... While its motion is less graceful than ASIMO, Heralic says its aim is to test 'to what extent different biologically inspired algorithms could be used to create complex robot brains for real robots'. In other words, it's a test bed for developing robots with more natural human traits that don't have high processing and power demands. However, it raises the question of whether robots need to look like humans. While ASIMO takes on human form with two arms, two legs and five fingers on each hand, there's no real face. HR-2 has a metal faceplate with cut-outs for the eyes, nose and mouth." February 5, 2006: Getting their 'bot in gear - Richardson Students building machine for contest. By Jeremy Roebuck. The Dallas Morning News & DallasNews.com. "Just three weeks into the new semester, the students in Max Morales' robotics class have designed and started construction on a robot that can collect rubber balls and shoot them, and aim itself with an independent targeting device. 'This is not quite your daddy's shop class,' said Mr. Morales, a Richardson High School teacher. 'Instead of building dustbins and birdhouses, we're building autonomous robots.' Next month, the students will take their completed robot to Houston for the FIRST Robotics Competition Lone Star Regional. The event is part of the world's largest robotics competition for high school students, conducted by an organization called For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. More than 1,000 teams from countries across the globe compete. 'Programs like this are important if we want to attract more students to technology,' said Cristian Penciu, dean of electronics at DeVry University's Dallas campus." February 4, 2006: Robot special - Almost human. New Scientist (Issue 2537; page 38) & NewScientist.com. "Robots are on the march. Already, 1.5 million Roomba vacuum-cleaning bots are crawling the globe, and autonomous planetary rovers are working overtime on Mars. But this is only the start of what engineers are hoping to achieve. The goal is to build robots that can be let loose in our world, where they will learn to interact with humans in a messy and unpredictable environment, not just in the lab. These robots need to be able to get around in the same places we do, manipulate objects in their surroundings and communicate with others around them. In short, they need to be more like us. ... New Scientist lifts the lid on the most stunning advances in humanoid bots. Researchers are poised to pull together developments in three key fields - walking, talking and manipulation - to produce a new generation of human-like machines. And when artificial intelligence catches up, they will not only be able to clean the house, do the dishes and take out the garbage, but also to play with children, help care for the elderly and even explore the farthest reaches of space and perform repairs or search-and-rescue missions in hazardous sites on Earth. ... The robot revolution, in three exclusive features: Now hear this ... Walk this way ... Get a grip ... Note: These articles require a Full Access subscription."
>>> Robots, Applications January 30, 2006: Man Machine - Robotic Exoskeletons. The Engineer (subscription req'd). "While many of the biggest recent advances in robotics have concerned artificial intelligence and enhanced autonomy, hopes are high that this parallel strand of development - a marriage of brain and machine - could soon yield results in a range of applications. ... Just as human bodies have evolved over time, so the systems for automated and robotic therapy change. 'There is a very wide spectrum of technologies that is being deployed,' said Prof David Bradley of the University of Abertay, Dundee's school of computing and creative technologies." February 1, 2006: Sony scraps four-legged robot pet Aibo. By Yuri Kageyama. The Associated Press / available from USAToday.com. "The world's first mass-marketed robot, Sony's Aibo, recognizes its owners' faces and is programmed for sympathy, like a canine companion. Its eyes light up in red to show anger, green to convey happiness. It even learns its own name. ... Like so many things Sony has made over the years, the Aibo is a niche product. And since Sony is pulling the plug on robot production as part of a major restructuring, so goes the Aibo. ... Owners have created fan clubs around the world, and some even dress up their canine robots like babies. Some hospitals used the Aibo --- which means 'pal' in Japanese and combines the first two letters of 'artificial intelligence' combined with 'bo' from robot --- in therapy. The robots' charm comes in part from how their behavior somewhat reflects how they've been treated by their masters. ... Takeshi Ohashi, a Kyushu Institute of Technology professor, considers Aibo a gem of technological finesse. He plans to appeal to Sony to bring the robots back. Ohashi has his motives. He is an organizer of RoboCup, an annual international competition in which teams use Aibos and other robots to play soccer."
>>> Robotic Pets, Robots, Assisitive Technologies, Competitions (@ Resources for Students), Applications February 2006: An Ibsen Classic, Now With Robots! By Mike Daisey. Wired (Issue 14.02). "[O]n February 8 in New York City, the underground theatrical superstars Les Freres Corbusier premiere the first production of Hedda Gabler in which half of the major roles are played by robots. Not humans in funny suits, but walking, talking machines performing live onstage. It's titled, naturally, Heddatron. ... It might be difficult for machine actors to convey the full dimensions of the human condition. But Elizabeth Meriwether's strange script cuts to the heart of Ibsen's story: A woman chained up in her own life struggles to break free of social programming. That struggle is mirrored by the robots, who attempt to escape their own programming and achieve true AI - self-awareness. Just as Hedda rails against a world that can't hear her, the robots represent potential that one day may be unleashed."
>>> Robots, Ethical & Social Implications, Philosophy February 2006: Geeks in Toyland - Lego built a global empire out of little plastic blocks, then conquered the wired world with a robot kit called Mindstorms. So when the time came for an upgrade, they turned to their obsessed fans - and rewrote the rules of the innovation game. By Brendan I. Koerner. Wired Magazine (Issue 14.02). "The kit, due in stores in August, looks nothing like 2.0 and isn't backward compatible. Users still program the bots from their PCs, but everything else about the experience has been changed. The centerpiece of a Mindstorms kit is the RCX brick, which acts as the robot's brain. It receives input from sensors and sends instructions to motors, breathing life into plastic-block creatures. The new brain has a 32-bit processor -- a huge upgrade over the old 8-bit processor -- allowing NXT bots to perform more-complex tasks than their predecessors, like ambling with a near-human gait or reacting to voice commands. ... The programming language has been revamped, as have the sensors, motors, and I/O ports. As a result, Mindstorms NXT robots look and act far more realistic than their predecessors. ... Instead of cobbling together a 3.0 version, Lund decided to make a clean break with the past. Mindstorms' main flaw, he believed, was its complexity; many kids lost interest before completing their first robot." January 30, 2006: Rehab's robotic revolution - Researchers envision a day when robots will become therapeutic equipment. Stroke victims could especially benefit. By Chris Woolston. Los Angeles Times & latimes.com. "KineAssist is just one of a legion of smart machines poised to bring physical therapy, a field that relies heavily on rubber bands, exercise mats and dumbbells, into the high-tech age. Researchers envision a day when robots will become standard equipment in rehabilitation centers, giving stroke patients --- and possibly patients with spinal cord injuries --- a chance to take their recovery further than previously possible. The KineAssist, developed at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, is essentially a hip brace and harness that connects to a rolling bank of wires and motors. The whole thing could fit in the back of a minivan with the seats down. When a patient steps forward, backward or to the side, the robot follows, using sensors in the brace to detect the patient's speed and position. If the patient leans too far or loses balance, the brace catches him. ... Stroke-damaged arms are the target of another kind of robot: the MIT-Manus, which was designed by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the pioneers of robot therapy." January 30, 2006: Japanese Working On Robot Butler. The Associated Press / available from FOXNews.com. "Though his movement is a bit stiff, slow and voice monotonous, he willingly turns on the television with a chest-mounted remote control, and brings a can of drink for you. Within years, a humanoid robot HRP-2 --- currently under development by a Japanese national technology institute --- could be a little domestic helper. The robots --- named Promet --- are being developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and can run errands. They are designed to respond to verbal instructions and are capable of capturing three-dimensional images of objects and locating them through an infrared sensor. ... 'In order to interact with people, a robot must be able to carry out conversation ... and also monitor objects, register them and act on its own,' [Isao Hara] said." January 30, 2006: For Sony's Robotic Aibo, It's the Last Year of the Dog. By Eric A. Taub. The New York Times. "There was sad news last week for enthusiasts of the Aibo Entertainment Robot from Sony: the doglike machine, which walks, barks and recognizes speech, is being put to sleep, the company said. The Aibo, which was introduced in 1999, is being discontinued as part of Sony's move to improve its financial position. ... With little marketing or promotion, the Aibo robot garnered a cultlike following around the world. Its programmed actions include barking, pushing a ball and lifting its leg, and it can 'learn,' becoming more adept at behaviors over time. Using different software stored on memory sticks, Aibo also gives the illusion of development by becoming able to perform different age-appropriate tasks. Aibos from the latest litter speak 1,000 words and can understand more than 100, including some in Spanish. A videocamera in the robot's head can wirelessly relay images to a laptop, allowing owners to see the world from a dog's point of view. ... Many owners regard their possessions as more than just a piece of plastic coupled to motors and processors. For some, the machines have taken on a life of their own. 'I love them, they're great,' said Craig Lee, a technical support specialist at a Chicago insurance company, who owns 40 Aibos. 'I think of them as dogs.'"
>>> Robotic Pets, Robots, Ethical & Social Implications, AI: the movie January 27, 2006: Rest in Peace, Sony Aibo - Owners sad as toy robots canned as firm focuses on core products. By Therese Poletti. Mercury News & MercuryNew.com. "The Aibo lived seven years -- or 49 if you count robotic dog years. On Thursday, Sony pulled the plug on Aibo, its peppy robotic dog with a software-controlled personality and abilities that has entertained thousands of faithful owners. ... 'It really is sad,' said David Calkins, a professor of robotics at San Francisco State University. Calkins uses several Aibos to teach students about robotics by playing robo-soccer. Many other universities with robotics programs also use Aibos as a teaching tool. ... Another Aibo owner, Joe Barnhart, a software engineer in Santa Clara, has six of the robotic dogs, in part because he travels a lot and can't take care of a 'biological' pet. ... Sony said it plans to shift its research and development in artificial intelligence into future consumer electronics products, but offered no further details."
>>> Robotic Pets, Robots, Applications January 27, 2006: What happened to the Robot Age? Sony's decision to ditch its Aibo robotic dog, along with its entire robot development team, is a reminder that we are still a long way from the age of automated domestic servants. Architects of the Robot Age have been busy rethinking the future. BBC News Magazine. "It might seem as though the robot revolution we were promised 20 years ago has hit an almighty malfunction. On the outskirts of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, in a ground-floor flat in which two customised robots are the only full-time residents, a team of researchers have been grappling with just this issue. The University of Hertfordshire's human-robot interaction research group has, along with most other robot development programmes, gone back to basics. 'For a long time people thought the summit of human intelligence was our capacity for problem solving, IQ tests and the like. So in developing robots they designed them to do these complex tasks, like playing chess,' says Prof Kerstin Dautenhahn, the group's leader and professor of artificial intelligence. 'But now people are saying that its humans' ability to deal with complex social relationships that's made us intelligent. Primatologists suggest this is what has made us smarter.' ... These days, the watchword in robotics is 'multi-disciplinary' - bringing together people from sociology and psychology backgrounds, as well as the technical folk, to build a robot that could a true domestic goddess." January 26, 2006: Sony to quit manufacturing AIBO, QRIO. Kyodo News / available from Yahoo! Asia News. "Sony Corp. said Thursday it will cease manufacturing the popular robot dog AIBO by the end of March and stop developing a new version of the humanoid robot QRIO soon, as part of its efforts to improve profitability. Sony said it will continue with research and development of the artificial intelligence it has used in the process of developing the robots and will utilize the results for general electronics appliances."
>>> Robotic Pets, Robots, Hazards & Disasters, Applications January 25, 2006: High Tech Bots Play Ancient Tune. Here and Now radio program hosted by Robin Young. WBUR. "Last week, Japanese scientists announced the creation of a robot that can do sign language. That brings the science of robotics another step away from the assembly line, and closer to human contact. But robotic music? Won't it sound like that cheesy 'Theme from the Entertainer' on your telephone hold button? No, says 'Ensemble Robot' director Christine Southworth. This week the ensemble is premiering 'Heavy Metal,' a new piece for Balinese gamelan, robots and strings. The piece debuts at 'Music and the Invasion of Technology,' part of the 'When Science Meets Art' series underway at the Boston Museum of Science here in Boston." Use the Listen button at the top of their page to access the broadcast. January 24, 2006: Partnership has legs - Yobotics envisions making robots walk. By Anna Guido. The Enquirer & Cincinnati.Com. "Someday, four-legged robots that look like dogs could help the U.S. Army scout out the enemy and carry supplies. With names like 'Pluto' and 'BigDog,' they could walk through the jungle and climb mountain areas where wheeled support could not navigate. But that day is not tomorrow. ... In August 2003, [Ben] Krupp and [Jerry] Pratt received funding for their 25-page proposal for research and development of a quadruped robot they call Pluto - short for Power Autonomous Legged Robot for Urban Terrain Operations. ... Pratt said the technologies that come out of their research and development also will have practical applications for the entertainment and medical industries. Thousands of toy robots will be available 20 years from now, he said. And in medicine, robots will be used in surgery and to help with physical rehabilitation, which is 'very labor intensive and requires two or three nurses for one patient.'" January 20, 2006: Developing Robots as Social Companions. University of Hertfordshire News. "The University of Hertfordshire has taken the robot out of the laboratory and has it living in a house nearby as part of a study of human-robot interaction. The study, which will be broadcast on the BBC Three Counties' John Pilgrim Show, on Wednesday 25 January as part of a two-hour feature on the University, aims to research how humans can comfortably interact with robots. ... Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn, Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the School and who is leading the University’s contribution to the project commented: 'We aim to develop personalised robot companions. Some people will want a robot with a human head and arms, while others will be more comfortable with just a technical box.'"
>>> Robots, Assisitive Technologies, Interfaces, Applications January 16, 2006: Police, Army Robots to Debut in 5 Years. By Kim Tae-gyu. The Korea Times & hankooki.com [Note: The article also appears under the headline > Police, Army Robots to Debut in 10 Years.] "By the 2010s, Korea is expecting to see robots assisting police and the military, patrolling the neighborhoods and going on recon missions on the battlefield. The Center for Intelligent Robots on Monday said the state-backed agency plans to check the feasibility of security robots by convening a 40-member planning committee late this week. ... 'The robots will be directed by a remote control system or move autonomously via their own artificial intelligence systems,' MIC project manager Oh Sang-rok said. `... Smart robots need three basic functions of sensing, processing and action. Thus far, robotics researchers have tried to cram the three into a single dummy, causing expenses to soar. Instead, the planned robots will be receiving most sensing and processing capabilities via a Web connection. Only the ability of movement will be located in the robot. ... On top of their use in national defense and social security, the MIC hopes to use the network robots for the private sector late this year. ... The three sorts of wheeled robots will be used for various applications: cleaning rooms, health-care programs, Internet connection, home monitoring or reading books to kids." January 14, 2006: And they call it robot love. Interview by Rachel Nowak. New Scientist (Issue 2534). "How do people react when brought face-to-face with intelligent robots for the first time? It's a question that has fascinated Mari Velonaki for nearly a decade. But she is no anthropologist. She's not even a scientist in the conventional sense. Velonaki is an artist with a PhD, and a passion for electronics. She is also determined enough to have convinced the prestigious Australian Centre for Field Robotics in Sydney to give her a desk, lab space and expert assistance to help her understand what happens when humans interact with mechanical beings. Velonaki has collaborated with robotics scientists at the centre to create Fish-Bird, a live exhibition comprising a pair of moody, love-struck robots disguised as wheelchairs that can communicate through movement and written text. ... [Q:] From your experience, do artists, engineers and scientists have much in common? [A:] There is a lot in common. They are passionate and proud people who create things that didn't previously exist. ..." January 14, 2006: A return to the orangey world. By Jonathan Amos. BBC News. "[T]here is a significant challenge in operating such a vehicle so far from Earth. 'The round trip light-time is 2.6 hours; that's a lot worse than talking to the rovers on Mars,' explains team member Alberto Elfes. 'In addition to that, depending on the relative positions of Titan, Saturn and Earth, you may have situations where you have blackout periods of up to 16 days or so. Under those conditions, you need a vehicle that is substantially autonomous, that can take care of itself.' Elfes and colleagues have tested an artificial intelligence system on a small airship over a dry lake bed in El Mirage, California. The vehicle was able to navigate itself to designated waypoints, correcting its path to take account of the wind. Take this sophistication to another level and an aerobot sent to Titan could be left to get on with scientific observations, safe in the knowledge that the vehicle would not crash into the first hill." January 14, 2006: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Robot. Astrobiology Magazine (based on an Electrolux release). "Will robots one day rule the world? For decades this notion has both fascinated and terrified humans, our hungry imagination fed by Hollywood blockbusters and sci-fi novels. Now a new generation of robots promises a breakthrough in the world of Artificial Intelligence as they become capable of cognitive thought processes. The 2005 Fourth British Computer Society's Annual Prize for Progress towards Machine Intelligence sponsored by Electrolux has been won by IFOMIND, a mobile robot system that demonstrates intelligence as it meets a new object in its world. Based on Khepera , a robot commercially available from K-Team, the machine intelligence system was designed and programmed by a team led by Professor David Bell from Queens University, Belfast. ... Runners up include Rollo Carpenter's entry -- a chatty personality, George.... Rollo explains, 'George learns from every word everyone says to him - to imitate people, as well as trying to be himself.' ... The award is sponsored by Electrolux, a leader in the field of home appliance machine intelligence, with appliances such as the Electrolux Trilobite 2.0 - a robotic vacuum cleaner. ... Sales of domestic appliance robots reached 39,000 units in 2003 and are forecast to hit 20 million by 2008." January 12, 2006: Backstory - Don't swat that fly. It's a spacecraft! Tomorrow's space vehicles may look more like insects and ping-pong balls than traditional rocket ships. By Peter N. Spotts. The Christian Science Monitor & csmonito.com. "Picture this: Swarms of one-legged robots hopping across Mars like malformed chicks. They dart in and out of caves and crevices, grabbing soil samples and searching for signs of ancient microbes - and thus life.... Welcome to the space exploration of tomorrow. While NASA struggles to return humans to the moon, scientists and engineers in labs across the country are letting their imaginations run free in designing hardware for far more distant exploration of the solar system. ... The resulting research would come about as close to human exploration as you can get without putting actual bootprints on Mars or the moon. The robots and rovers would essentially set their own exploration agenda. They may not make missions cheaper, but they could squeeze more science out of each voyage. ... NASA's first Earth Observing satellite, for instance, is designed to watch active volcanoes, spot wildfires, and monitor the polar ice caps. As it recognizes terrestrial changes, it makes some of its own decisions about follow-up monitoring, says Steve Chien, who heads the artificial intelligence group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Future versions of this intelligent software could be built into a new generation of robots and orbiters." January 11, 2006: Is there a Santa Claus? Ho, ho, ho, robot! By Lee W. Bailey. The Ithaca Journal. "Our technology is very symbolic. Cars are fast, sexy, social position markers, and, rockets are powerful political expressions of collective soul-in-the-world. Our machines embody both clever engineering and mythic passions. Take robots, for example. There are plenty of important non-humanoid robots that perform valuable functions, such as the Mars explorers. But these do not try to look human. There are robots that try to look and act human, such as Honda's walking P2. Other androids are mythic robots in science fiction, such as Oz's Tin Woodman, Asimov's robots, Star Trek's Data, Star Wars' C3PO, the Terminator, animated dolls, the robots in films like Metropolis, A.I., and so forth. Some Santas are even robots. Not all of these are for kids. Many are highly symbolic, fervent fascinations of adults. They express hope for techno-utopias, fear of technological dystopias, and our complex, emotional interactions with machines, cute and sexual or powerful and destructive. ... These robot myths are not lies, but meaningful, symbolic, positive and negative, inspiring and critical stories for intelligent adults. ... I suggest that android robots are mythic, ritual re-enactments of the Pinocchio folktale about bringing puppets to life." January 10, 2006: Robot taught lesson of patience. BBC News. "Scientists at a Belfast university have developed a mobile robot system that can reason about change and adapt. The scientists, led by Professor David Bell from Queen's, have won the British Computer Society's prize for Progress Towards Machine Intelligence. The robot, named Ifomind, combines learning and reasoning to decide the best way to interact with objects. Professor Bell likened the reaction of the robot to how an animal may react to another it has not previously seen. ... 'A major challenge in artificial intelligence is the development of a system that can observe events in an unknown scenario, and then learn and participate as a child would.' ... Professor Max Bramer, Chairman of the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (SGAI) said they wanted to use the award, sponsored by Electrolux, to showcase and reward achievement in the field. 'As a group we are committed to fostering achievement, capability and awareness of applied artificial intelligence,' he said. Sales of domestic appliance robots reached 39,000 units in 2003 and are forecast to hit 20 million by 2008." January 9, 2006: Robonauts. The next generation of space explorers will look -- and act -- more like people than probes. By Carolyn Y. Johnson. The Boston Globe & Boston.com. "In 1989, using an insect-like robot named Genghis, Rodney Brooks pitched a bold vision for exploring space: Send up an army of small, cheap machines to rove around on a distant planet and beam back data. The concept kicked off a new era in robotics, and eight years later, NASA sent the simple probe Sojourner rolling across the surface of Mars. But now Genghis sits in a box, and the sophisticated machines that populate Brooks's lab at MIT are becoming increasingly human-like: One has a sense of touch, another can find a familiar face in a crowd. Eventually a robotic torso named Domo -- now learning to wield a screwdriver -- will be able to master new skills by imitating people instead of undergoing software updates. The new designs are part of a broader shift toward a vision of robots that are partners, not simply remote-controlled probes. ... 'The thing we were tasked by NASA is: How can robots support manned missions on the moon and Mars before people get there, while they are up there, and after they've left?' said Brooks, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'The danger is sticking with the mind-set that developed in the 1960s of "what robots do" and "what humans do."' It is now clear that both humans and robots have their advantages in space -- and the segregation between the two is fading as NASA pursues colonization of the moon and Mars. ... At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, researchers are developing Robonaut, an agile, tool-using robot-astronaut that can outlast any human on a space walk. SCOUT, a lunar rover being developed by NASA, will carry astronauts but will also have the potential to act on its own. Last month, NASA launched two competitions to encourage the private sector to create autonomous robots -- ones that can assemble structures with minimal human intervention and ones that can steer along a flight path and touch down to take surface samples." January 5, 2006: Will machines for the aged herald the age of machines? The Japanese vision of robots working alongside humans may be a cultural step too far for westerners. By Stuart Tanner. The Guardian. "At the recent international robotics exhibition in Japan, Joe Engelberger blasted the Japanese robotics industry for wasting time and money making humanlike robots. He saw 'nothing serious. Just stunts. There are dogs, dolls, faces that contort and are supposed to express emotion on a robot. They are just toys.' Engelberger is considered by many to be the father of robotics. His company, Unimation, installed the first robot in the General Motors car plant in 1961. Along with other robotics experts, he believed then that by the early 2000s, robots would have taken over many jobs. They haven't. Engelberger is critical of efforts by Japanese companies to create humanoid robots. He sees such efforts as a distraction from developing robots with a specific function. ... Engelberger also argues that the Japanese interest in humanoid robots is partly cultural. Takuya Fukuda, senior manager at Kawasaki Robots UK, agrees. He thinks the Japanese fascination with robots starts at a very young age: 'A lot of us grew up reading Atom Boy manga comics. Now we are the ones developing the robots.' ... So will robots step out of the factory floor and into the home to look after ageing parents - or our ageing selves? Dr Ken Young, chairman of the British Robotics Association, is not convinced. ... " January 5, 2006: Better robots could help save disaster victims. By Kurt Kleiner. NewScientist.com news. "In the wake of the tragic accident that killed 12 trapped miners in West Virginia, US, roboticists are saying that a new generation of search-and rescue-robots could help save lives in future disasters. ... Although they tried to use a robot to move ahead and test conditions, the robot, a commercial model usually used for bomb disposal, was not specifically designed for mine work and became bogged down after moving just 21 metres into the tunnel. 'They're slow [robots]. They won't cause an explosion, but they don't do much,' says Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot Assisted Search and Rescue at the University of South Florida, US. But new robots, designed to squirm through rubble, or crawl through boreholes, or clamber over obstacles on legs, could someday go into mines quickly ahead of rescuers. ... Howie Choset, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US, is working on a robot that can squirm snake-like through small spaces that might be left after a mine or building collapses." January 5, 2006: Geeks in Toyland. By Brendan I. Koerner. Wired News (to appear in the February 2006 issue of Wired Magazine). "The kit, due in stores in August, looks nothing like 2.0 and isn't backward compatible. Users still program the bots from their PCs, but everything else about the experience has been changed. The centerpiece of a Mindstorms kit is the RCX brick, which acts as the robot's brain. It receives input from sensors and sends instructions to motors, breathing life into plastic-block creatures. The new brain has a 32-bit processor -- a huge upgrade over the old 8-bit processor -- allowing NXT bots to perform more-complex tasks than their predecessors, like ambling with a near-human gait or reacting to voice commands. ... The programming language has been revamped, as have the sensors, motors, and I/O ports. As a result, Mindstorms NXT robots look and act far more realistic than their predecessors. ... Instead of cobbling together a 3.0 version, Lund decided to make a clean break with the past. Mindstorms' main flaw, he believed, was its complexity; many kids lost interest before completing their first robot." January 1, 2006: Year of the Robot. By Brian Huse. Robotics Online. "Last year (2005) the news was full of stories about robots. On the industrial side, the robotics industry posted 30% growth through the first three quarters (the latest data available). In other, less traditional markets such as law enforcement, there were monthly reports of mobile robots used for bomb detection and disposal in the U.S. and across the world. Unmanned robotic vehicles have been used for assessing hurricane damage from Katrina; to watch borders; and go on missions to improve safety for our soldiers. On the surgical front, robots are assisting doctors in delicate surgery that yields more accuracy with less cutting and speedier recovery times. ... As we enter the New Year, we will certainly hear more about robotics. For many of us, our attitudes and notions about robotics will change in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. ... My own attitudes are changing, too. Only a few months ago, I was debating with [Robotic Industries Association's] Vice President of Marketing & PR, Jeff Burnstein, as to whether the Roomba deserves to be classified as a robot. ..." January 2006: Is This the Machine That Will Finally Find Life On Mars - It may not look like much, but this humble 'bot may be our best shot at proving we’re not alone in the universe. First, though, the scientists testing it in Chile’s Atacama Desert have to figure out how to control the thing. By Joseph Hooper. Popular Science. "[H]ere is where a group of engineers from Carnegie Mellon University have come to test their creation, a six-and-a-half-foot-long, 440-pound robot built to detect life in seemingly lifeless environments. The robot features a cutting-edge system for identifying organic molecules, but it looks less than high-tech, more like a robotic patio table built with spare bicycle parts. And although its knobby wheels can soak up flat terrain at a brisk human walking clip, right now it’s in trouble. 'Ah, that’s the angle of refusal,' says Carnegie Mellon roboticist David Wettergreen. The robot --- named Zoë, the Greek word for 'life' --- had been making its way up a steep ridge, but suddenly its navigation software called for a complete stop. ... Zoë will find its way or collapse trying, and it can choose its own route. The engineers intervene only in emergencies." January 2006: The Hits of Tokyo Robot Week. By Aleksandar Lazinica. IEEE Spectrum. "The world's largest robotics show, the International Robot Exhibition, was held in the Tokyo Big Sight complex from 30 November through 3 December 2005. The event, which has taken place every other year since 1973, this year showcased robots from 152 companies and 40 organizations, featuring more than 800 booths, which displayed everything from manufacturing robots to humanoids. One recent trend at the show, known as IREX 2005, is the increasing number of robots designed for purposes other than manufacturing, including those built to perform medical, welfare, cleaning, and security jobs. For that reason, the biggest part of the exhibition was dedicated to robots specializing in service functions. ... The Actroid [from Kokoro Co. and Advanced Media] was the robot that left visitors breathless. Amazingly lifelike, this office robot has been designed as an android 'bearing a striking resemblance to a woman,' with a command of four languages. ... My second pick: The PARO, from the Intelligent Systems Research Institute of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in collaboration with Microjennics Co. PARO is an eighth-generation mimetic mental-committed robot in the form of a baby harp seal. ... An autonomous robot, PARO can express feelings such as surprise and happiness, voluntarily, by blinking its eyes and moving its head and legs. ... They also have individual 'personalities,' which they develop through a process of interactive behavioral learning with their owners .... The robot was tested in nursing homes and hospitals for handicapped children in France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. After a few months of use, tests showed that having a PARO robot companion can bring about the same effects as interaction with a real animal." January 2006: Say Hello to Stanley - Stanford's souped-up Volkswagen blasted through the Mojave Desert, blew away the competition, and won Darpa's $2 million Grand Challenge. Buckle up, human - the driverless car of the future is gaining on you. By Joshua Davis. Wired (Issue 14.01). "The 128-mile race is a success. Four other vehicles, including both of CMU's entries, complete the course behind Stanley. The message is clear: Autonomous vehicles have arrived, and Stanley is their prophet. 'This is a watershed moment - much more so than Deep Blue versus Kasparov,' says Justin Rattner, Intel's R&D director. 'Deep Blue was just processing power. It didn't think. Stanley thinks. We've moved away from rule-based thinking in artificial intelligence. The new paradigm is based on probabilities. It's based on statistical analysis of patterns. It is a better reflection of how our minds work.' The breakthrough comes just as carmakers are embracing a host of self-driving technologies, many of them barely recognizable as robotic. ... But even as vehicles are being produced with sensors that perceive the world, they have, until now, lacked the intelligence to comprehensively interpret what they see. Thanks to [Sebastian] Thrun, that problem is being solved. Computers are nearly ready to take the wheel. But are humans ready to let them?"
>>> Autonomous Vehicles, Transportation, Machine Learning, Uncertainty / Probablility, Vision, Robots, Reasoning, Expert Systems, Applications, History, Chess, Careers in AI (@ Resources for Students) January 2006: The 50 Best Robots Ever. By Robert Capps. Wired (Issue 14.01). "They're exploring the deep sea and distant planets. They're saving lives in the operating room and on the battlefield. They're transforming factory floors and filmmaking. They're - oh c'mon, they're just plain cool! From Qrio to the Terminator, here are our absolute favorites (at least for now)." January 2006 [issue date]: Helen Greiner - Entrepreneur of the Year. By Patricia Greco. Good Housekeeping. "While studying computer science and mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Helen Greiner would often tell her mother about robots made for space exploration. 'That's great, honey,' her mom would say, 'but what I really want is a robot that can clean hard-to-reach places.' Greiner, 38, delivered on her mom's request. As cofounder and chairwoman of iRobot, she helped develop the Roomba...."
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