Nearly 1,000 industrial and service robots are being showcased at Japan’s International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. The robots range from simple pet like robots that react to your movements, to extremely sophisticated pain feeling robots that allow you to practice dental or medical procedures. Need a ping-pong partner? How about a baby robot that teaches you how to breast feed? There are robots for practically any occasion or application. In the video below you’ll see a very life-like “dental patient” humanoid, which actually took me a few seconds to realize it was not real. It feels pain and reacts accordingly. With a $600k+ price tag, you’ll probably feel the pain too.
Gibson Guitar continues their reign as the leader in guitar and music technology when they announced their newest guitar, a self tuning and adjusting guitar, aptly named the Robot Guitar. With a touch of a button, the Gibson Robot Guitar automatically tunes to the key you select. You can actually see the knobs on the head of the guitar turn as each string is tuned. Not only do you get automatic key changes but the guitar constantly adjusts itself to remain in tune. You can play for hours and still have perfect intonations.
From the press release:
1. The Gibson Robot Guitar eliminates tuning problems for guitarists. It automatically tunes to standard A440 tuning.
2. It also allows players to access six commonly used altered tuning presets at the push of a button. These tunings were used on many well know hit songs, giving players easy access for the very first time.
3. The Gibson Robot Guitar allows the guitar to be intonated in seconds after string changes, truss rod adjustments or change in weather conditions.
4. Finally, with the locking tuner, single string changes or changing the entire set of strings are an automated breeze.
Carnegie Mellon and their autonomous self-driving 2007 Chevy Tahoe SUV named “Boss” won the latest DARPA Urban Challenge, earning them the first place prize of $2 million. Without any human interaction the vehicle was able to navigate the difficult urban obstacle course which included other human driven and robot driven vehicles. The course followed 55 miles of urban landscape and each competing vehicle had to operate safely and within California driving laws.
The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Challenge started a few years ago to stimulate innovation in the robotics and artificial intelligence fields. The challenge involves building a robotic vehicle that can maneuver through an obstacle course without human interaction. Each year the course gets more difficult as competitors build increasingly sophisticated vehicles. The robot vehicles use cameras, sensors, and lots of computing power to continuously guage the situation and calculate the next move. Millions of inputs and situations need to be calculated to correctly select each move and navigate the course successfully.
For decades artificial intelligence and autonomous robotics have been touted as the wave of the future but have never quite lived up to hype. Public challenges like DARPA’s not only spur development in these areas but show the world that these technologies can be used safely and efficiently.
If your husband designs robots, then you should be prepared for crap like this. Seok Gyeong-Jae somehow convinced his fiancee to let him take his work to their wedding, where ‘Tiro’ acted as master of ceremonies. Apparently it’s a world first, and I have no reason to believe that anyone has ever done it before so it’s probably true. ::Physorg
Here’s DARPA’s latest innovation in the world of hi-tech military gear, it’s called the LANDroid. When soldiers let this run loose on the ground, it will find the best place to plant itself as a network hub. This is only a concept and the finished product should only be $100 for each, DARPA is accepting proposals by August 16th. More [OhGizmo]
Researchers at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University have created a robot capable of climbing walls and glass at a rate of six centimeters per second. As Technology Review tells us, “Such robots could, among other applications, be used to inspect the hulls of spacecraft for damage.” This robot has two triangular wheel-like legs with three foot pads and a tail allowing it to move easily, even from wall to ceiling. It uses a dry elastomer adhesive to stick, but they are testing a new fiber on its feet that should make it five times stickier. Continue below to watch video of the robot in action…
The Multifunction Utility Logistics and Equipment (MULE) is a new 2.5-ton robotic vehicle being developed by the U.S. Army. It has six wheels and is armed with heavy machine guns (two 7.62mm machine guns and two Javelin anti-tank missiles to be exact), designed to transport equipment (1,900 pounds of it) and soldiers to their destinations. It of course has all kinds of cameras, sensors and GPS which will keep it on track.
To get around a law preventing humans from soliciting to potential customers outside of sex clubs, owners are now turning to humanoid robots to entice the sex-crazed to their clubs.
These human-sized robots used to direct traffic, but have gone through a 500,000 yen ($4,000 USD) upgrade to take on their latest task of hustling potential sex club visitors.
Researchers have brought microscopic robots a step closer to reality by overcoming two existing hurdles. Previously, propulsion and on-board power have been a real problem on the microscopic scale, but a team from North Carolina State University have found that an electronic diode could solve both these issues.
By creating an electric field between the diode’s contacts, ions in the water are accelerated in one direction, pushing the bot in the other. They won’t break any speed records though - they only travel a few millimeters per second. The robots could eventually be used to travel inside a human body and diagnose medical conditions, just as in the film Innerspace, but with less Dennis Quaid. You can watch a video here, and read more at New Scientist.
Scientists are seriously thinking to write a code for robots due to problem posed by development of robotics. Experts in South Korea are creating an ethical code for human to abuse robots and vice versa. According to BBC, “a group of leading roboticists called the European Robotics Network (Euron) has even started lobbying governments for legislation.”
Since robots are now showing up in everyday life, and as they gain intelligence, who will be held responsible if they injure some one ,user, the designer or the robot itself?
Isaac Asimov was considering these problems in the 1940s, when he made his “three laws of robotics”.
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second law.
There are obviously some very difficult issues to deal with, like the robot being able to tell the difference between humans, other robots, and things. So is an ‘ethical code’ for ‘bots a good idea? - or just a silly waste of time?
The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Challenge started a few years ago to stimulate innovation in the robotics and artificial intelligence fields. The challenge involves building a robotic vehicle that can maneuver through an obstacle course without human interaction. Each year the course gets more difficult as competitors build increasingly sophisticated vehicles. The robot vehicles use cameras, sensors, and lots of computing power to continuously guage the situation and calculate the next move. Millions of inputs and situations need to be calculated to correctly select each move and navigate the course successfully.
If your husband designs robots, then you should be prepared for crap like this. Seok Gyeong-Jae somehow convinced his fiancee to let him take his work to their wedding, where ‘Tiro’ acted as master of ceremonies. Apparently it’s a world first, and I have no reason to believe that anyone has ever done it before so it’s probably true. 
