World's First Sex Robot Can Talk About Football

Full Story at the Telegraph.

Trailer

Robot With Brain Of A Two Year Old Looks Unspeakably Evil

Image and story from Dvice.

This little fella reminds us of the importance of design and aesthetics when attempting to create robots meant to interact with humans. The topic was briefly considered in the post, I Respect You, I Love You, I Am Absolutely Terrified Of You.

The Rescue Dragon

Japan’s huge robot Tmsuk T-52 Enryu weighs nearly six tons and is powerful enough to lift...

Fashion Robot Not Quite Ready For Runway

Japanese developers unveil the HRP-4C, a robot designed to model on the catwalk. Full story at the Guardian.

Robot Roundup

Check out the Boston Globe's 'Big Picture Blog' for great images and descriptions of 32 cutting edge robots from around the world.

Robots Invade Warehouse, Diligently Ship Your Online Orders

Wired reports that autonomous robots design by Kiva Systems now scurry the warehouse floors of Gap, Zappos, and Staples. The machines make the warehouses 2-4 times more efficient by cutting out substantial worker walking time. Apparently "the employees get a lot of joy, a lot of happiness out of anthropomorphizing the robots and turning them into pets." This seems to be a pretty common way of making sense of a human-robotic relationship. It helps quiet any fears (however fantastical or unconscious) of the robots. Another way is joking about possibility of a robot-human confrontation. As in the first line of the wired article:

Next time you order a new pair of skinny jeans from Gap.com, you should know that you are helping welcome in the hive-mind robot overlords of retail.

Love, Sex, And Robots

Ever since David Levy's book hit the shelves last year, robot love (perhaps more specifically robot sex) has been a hot topic (call it the "sexy singularity"). Levy's prediction that by mid century these robot-human relationships will become commonplace, has been met with skeptical excitement and artistic reaction. Consider the current "Sex Lives of Robots" at the Museum of Sex in NYC.

From all the hoopla an obvious question has arisen: "Is it cheating to have sex with a robot?" And what if that robot is equipped with AI emotion technology (apparently some sex dolls already come with a heartbeat that accelerates throughout the sex act)? One wonders if it will be this question of sexual fidelity, ahead of all others, that will force humanity to legally consider the rights of robotic entities.

Ante Up, Human

Adventures of a poker playing robot.

Robot Invented To Explore Other Planets Ends Up On Kanye West's Blog

The GroundBot! A Swedish designed spherical robot designed to roll 6 mph over any terrain. So stylish, so design-conscious that it ended up of Kanye West's popular blog of MP3's, swimsuit models, concept cellphones, and of course, uncomfortable, avant-guard chairs. Check out the link for video footage of the GroundBot in action.

The State Of The Household Robot

Natalie Angier, in her recent NYtimes Science article discusses the dream that is (and has been) the household robot. It seems, that like flying cars, the prerequisite technological breakthroughs have not yet occurred to make the dream a reality.
In the short but interesting article Angier discusses: the etymology of the word robot (the Czech word "robota" meaning slave), the striking specificity that restricts many of our robots in the field (a welding robot transfered from an assembly line to an auto shop would likely kill someone within seconds), and the how the boundaries between ourselves and our "robotas" blurs, as we walk around linked to and loving our iphones, bluetooth headsets, and blackberrys.

Hollywood Looks To Nasa Roboticists For Realism

As Wired magazine reports today, Wall-E director, Andrew Stanton, used hard science to create the cute little robot. During development he visited Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to gather insight into how robots move, think, and learn.
Now Nasa is looking for creative input from students all around the county. They recently announced a contest to name the next Mars rover, scheduled to take off in 2009. Students age 5-18 are eligible.

Rappers Use Robot Voices To Talk About Feelings

When Bob Dylan "went electric" at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, fans were (allegedly) in tears. The controversy was this: how could a pillar of folksy authenticity take up a less-human, futuristic, piece of technology known as the electric guitar. Robots and trees just don't mix, so to speak.

Hip-hop, by in large, does not have this kind of moral dilemma. Hip-hop was born in the age of the synthetic beat and the sample, and as a result, the usual schism between technology and authenticity seems much less relevant.

Of late, there has been a veritable explosion of hip-hop artists using phase vocoder technology to modulate the voice, making it sound like, what can only be described as "slightly robotic" (example here). Interestingly, many of the songs that employ the phase vocoder are about feelings. These songs are no doubt on the emotional (or emo) end of the hip-hop song spectrum.

Why is this? In some ways it is easier to get emotional through a text message than over the phone or in person. The"less-human" the form of communication, the more emotional we can get without feeling vulnerable. Maybe for these hip-hop icons, it's easier to get emotional when you sound like a robot.

The Oracle Chatbot

An interesting take on chatbots yields entertaining conversations: chatbot game.

Bionic Woman, Part II

Yoky Matsuoka, a one time tennis prodigy and self-described "airhead," is now a MacArthur fellow and professor of neurobotics (a fusion of neuroscience and robotics) at the University of Washington. Matsuoka leads the charge to create advanced prosthetic limbs controlled by human thought. Learn about her story in this short Nova video and watch a short video on the 400 year old history of the quest to build robotic limbs.

Bionic Woman

Emilie Simon, the French singer and composer of electronic music, performs tonight at the Cutting Room in NYC. Emilie studied contemporary musical research and production in Paris, where she developed an interest in bringing science and art together in order to "rejuvenate musical language."

Her arm controller, called the "Brissot," allows her to "remotely control, modulate, and transform her live voice through a series of controlled effects."

On stage Emilie strives for total control of her musical output - from beats to harmonies and modulations - while standing alone on stage (perhaps Neurosky's brainwave sensors are the next stage in Emilie's quest to bring science and art together).

I Respect You, I Love You, I Am Absolutely Terrified Of You

What is the status of the robot in American popular culture? We fear them (Terminator), we respect their intelligence and befriend them but consider them ultimately dangerous (2001: A Space Odyssey, I Robot), we find them adorable (RJD2, Wall-E), we idolize them (Optimus Prime), and finally, we see them as modern sirens (Austin Powers' Fembots).

The design of the robot is of vital importance. It is the designer who helps realize the robot's potential for good, by translating the incomprehensible robotic technology into the language of humanity. For robots to interact beneficially with humans in the future, designers must make them holistically likeable, trustworthy, respectable. At the design stage, a new robot becomes either a Zune or an Ipod, a Wall-E or a Terminator.

Take a look at this Youtube video depicting a nanobot replacing a human neuron. Although the technology is years off, this process has enormous medical potential. Patients with ailing brain cells could recieve nanobots replacements with identical signalling capacity – think of these neuron nanobots as the pacemakers of the brain. If the technology advanced sufficiently, I would be theoretically possible to replace each neuron with a nanobot, leaving an individuals unique brain architecture fundamentally sound – like replacing a wooden boat, one board at a time.




But how can you view this video without being terrified!? Is there not something inherently frightening in watching that nanobot spring tentacles and wind its way up the axon like a sinister kudzu vine? And why is the video so dark? A sentinel (from the Matrix) could swim by and not look out of place in this video.

If we want people to embrace this sort of technology we must think about aesthetics and design. It sometimes hard for scientists to think like this, but it's important.

Roboticists Ask Hollywood For Help

Roboticists are reaching out to Hollywood creators for tips on making likable robots.
The RO-MAN conference addresses the fundamental issues of robot-human interactions, including ways to design the robots for enthusiastic human acceptance.

The Rat-Brained Robots

Scientists at the University of Reading are experimenting with robots controlled wirelessly by a collection of rat neurons. The 300,000 or so neurons, harvested from rat fetuses, are housed in warmed broth of nutrients.