Posts tagged as Robots
Please Don't You Cry, Robot Baby
"Babyloid, Japan's latest therapeutic robot baby, is also designed to help ease depression among older people by keeping them company. Towards the middle of its round, silicone face are two black dots that act as blinking eyes and a small slit that poses as a mouth and that can produce a smile. The cheeks have LED lights embedded and turn red to signify when it Babyloid contented. Blue LED tears are produced when it is unhappy.... Babyloid knows what's going on through its acceleration, temperature, touch, pyroelectric and light sensors. If you hold the crying Babyloid and rock it, it might – if you're lucky – fall asleep."
Here Is The Perfect Robot For The Bear-Loving Snorer In Your Life
"This bear may be soft and pillow-shaped, but you might want to think twice before curling up for a nap on Jukusui-kun. If you snore, it will stroke your face with its furry paw.... Jukusui-kun, which does not yet appear to be on the market, monitors snoring through a microphone and a matching fuzzy bear oxygen meter that the sleeper attaches to his or her hand. To avoid using chords that could interfere with sleep, Japan Trends says the creators developed a mat of sensors to be placed under the sheets instead of using chords. When oxygen and decibel levels signal loud snoring, the pillow takes action."
"Giving a bomb-hunting car artificial intelligence is a step so far unimagined"
"The Army’s latest scheme to stop homemade bombs is pretty much inspired by "Knight Rider.'" True story! Robot car hates bombs! ("We’re not making KITT," says the KITT-building company honcho, which obviously means the opposite. So this is how it all ends.)
Yes, Let's Teach Robots To Think For Themselves
"You've heard it before: robots are bad at new things. They're bad at adapting to new situations, they're bad at recognizing new objects, and they're bad at coming up with their own ideas about how to carry out tasks in changing environments. One way to deal with this general ineptitude is to provide a robot with endlessly detailed instructions to minimize the amount of unfamiliar things it experiences. The world is an awfully big place, however, and if we want robots to be able to do robot stuff outside of tolerably controlled environments, such a brute force approach may not be the best way to go. A much more elegant solution is to teach robots to think and adapt for themselves." READ MORE
Tiny Spider Robots Will Swim Through Your Veins
"Next, Sen hopes to develop versions of these tiny aquatic spiders that run on chemicals readily available in the body, such as glucose. In the future, more sophisticated microspiders attached to nanobots that detect chemicals secreted by damaged tissue could swim through the bloodstream, weaving a medical glue to help heal tears in vessel walls. Decorated with other micromachines and enzymes, they could swim through the circulatory system scouting out tumours, scouring plaque from vessel walls and helping the immune system battle infections." READ MORE
Why We Should Not Build Self-Conscious Robots
"We should not unnecessarily increase the amount of conscious suffering in the universe." READ MORE
Who Cares If All The Birds Die? We'll Just Build New Ones!
Remember how freaked out everyone was a couple months ago about all the birds that were dying? No one cares anymore, right? That's probably because now we know that even if all the birds die, it doesn't matter. We can just make new ones that look and fly pretty much exactly the same.
Bi-pedal Robot Marathon Straining The Limits Of Machine And Man
"Five teams of humans will compete to keep their robots walking over the grueling event, switching out servos and batteries (but not the entire robot) as needed. In order to win a bot must complete 422 laps of a 100 meter course outlined on the 11th floor of Osaka’s ATC building." READ MORE
Be Careful, That Hummingbird's Bow Tie Is Really A Camera
When I think of a future filled with little robot hummingbirds flying around videotaping everything for the Defense Department, it makes me want to build myself a life-size robot ostrich mecha suit programmed to bury its head in the sand.
