Ryan Greene: Robots

Interesting Read

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 13:33:04 GMT

Interview with the Creator of Asimo.

It's really cool to see how he approached creating this robot, he approached the Vatican to get their opinion, as well as surveying Europeans. He doesn't want this to change the world, or to replace man, it exists simply to assist us in our lives. A good (fast) read.

Asimo's father.

The Daily Yomiuri has an interview with Yoshiaki Sakagami, chief engineer of Honda R&D, and the man behind Honda's Asimo robot. Along with Sony's SDR-4X, these new humanoid robots are the next wave of robotics, and are going to start showing up in people's homes within a year or two.
Read [Via BoingBoing]
[Gizmodo]

Wild!

Thu, 17 Oct 2002 10:59:23 GMT

Aibo skateboards. Sony will ship a $249 Aibo skateboard for their robot dogs in November.

The AIBO Speed Board allows AIBO to entertain you with dances and routines on its very own scooter. You can navigate AIBO's skating with voice commands such as 'turn left' and 'super slalom'. Create your own skate routines by moving AIBO to record the motions that can then be replayed later on.

Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

We Are In Deep, Deep Trouble (Or Not)

Thu, 10 Oct 2002 16:22:46 GMT

Watch this, then read up. I expect to see this in commercial applications of self propelled robots in the next seven years. That's based on the progres of bipedal robots as well as the advances in energy/fuel cell technology.

Robot hand and vision snatches objects from the air. This robot hand, coupled with a computer-vision system, is freaking eerie. Click through for a bunch of MPEG clips of the robot's master taunting the hand by waving objects before it, while it, and its vision-mount, chase them, eventually reaching out and snatching them out of the air. The hand-shaking demo is killer. Link Discuss (Thanks, Matt!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

It looks like high contrast items are needed for the tracking system to work optimally, but a combination of sonar overlayed with ccds and IR would likely make that less of an issue. It appears that vison is done through a video camera that tracks the moving obkect, and in turn controls the arm. Also, interesting reflex action with the thumb serving to close the hand once contact is made.

Hmm, as I watch more of the videos I'm less and less impressed, It looks like the handler is actually all but feeding the objects to the arm, not unlike teaching a kid to catch a ball by placing it in their hands. That's a shame really.

Sick, Busy, and Kicking Some Ideas Around

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 23:08:04 GMT

I'm fighting off another cold (and losing), I have two job related interviews in the next three days, and I've been letting a few things percolate in the old brain-pan in the meantime.

There has been a bunch of news lately, one item of which interests me quite a bit - a crossover that has not yet been considered, I think. Methanol fuel cells just got approved for use in electronics that passengers carry in airplanes. Robots are getting more and more complex all the time, and soon will be at the point where your robot serves as your own personal baggage handler, seeking you out at the baggage claim and towing your gear for you. Path navigation could be as simple as incorporating the AI schemes from existing video games, with some additional real world programming. Have a kiosk at the airports that the robots can slip in and out of in order to refuel, charging the costs to the owners credit cards or providing fuel as a part of lease, similar to the minutes on a cell phone. Go over, pay extra.

Since we don't want the robot to be a single purpose item, it can also serve as a part of your PAN, allowing you to synch all your data in and out of your systems, as well as playing back messages, and shooting video. Imagine a tripod that is programmed not only to follow you, but to make sure that you are in frame as well.

Why limit the market though? Why not sell a basic version of the robot, stripped down for kids, and let users load as much (or as little) onto it as they like? Navigation and path-finding is similar be it in a busy airport or in a school, so why not let one program handle both. Kids are already starting to use rolling backpacks to carry all their school books, so the luggage handling abilities would be welcome here too. The unit could house a cell-phone as well, so that the kids can call in to their parents, or it can alert the police if the kid hits the panic button.

Now you have the must have executive item, something that tracks you and your gear, as well as the kids market. Allow for wireless file sharing, and now you've got a great mobile system that goes with you and hauls all your kit.

What was I talking about before?

Fri, 02 Aug 2002 02:50:50 GMT

Technology: Pearl the Robot Makes Life Easier for Elderly. 13:52 ET - Reuters [NewsBlip.com]

Wow. I'm glad to see that my earlier entry is a reality in some ways already. Pearl rolls around and has large type that is easy to read, reminding people of their schedules and appointments. Fantastic.

Chucky? Izatchoo?

Thu, 01 Aug 2002 14:28:18 GMT

A Chatty Doll of a Different Kind. New York Times Aug 1 2002 2:56AM ET... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

New breed of doll that has bulit in voice recognition, speech synthysis, and a camera that is tied to a database of images that the can be taught to recognize.

By next year, he said, Cindy will be able to read Japanese, a notable addition to her current library of basic words in French, Spanish, German and Italian. And as processing power increases over time, Mr. Del Principe said, he anticipates creating dolls that can read sentences and recognize faces.

Now, imagine that you hook that tech to a self propelled bot that has a WiFi connection to your network, in addition to local storage of it's own, now you've got a self propelled doll that can remind you of your schedule, where you left something, stream audio, take dictation, remind you of your budget, VOIP phone calls, man, just about anything. To coin a term, a Botler for your home. Oops, some folks have already used that term.

Robots at a conference

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 13:45:40 GMT

Technology: New Robot Has Basic Social Skills. 03:16 ET - AP [NewsBlip.com]

Cool. While it's still very rough around the edges, the robots that Reid Simmons is working on are a good start in mixing mobility with a personable voice based interface. Contrast this with the oversized DRD at iRobot, the CoWorker.

Wed, 19 Jun 2002 03:12:53 GMT

Teaching Language to a Robot. An article by National

Geographic talks about teaching language to a robot. In some of the experiments they used a modified AIBO. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service][National Geographic]

Interesting, left to their own devices, the robots (modified AIBOs) would develop their own language from a set of arbitrary syllables.I wonder what would happen should the robots each be taught a different language, and then were to meet? Would they form a pidgin/creole in order to communicate? Time will tell.

Wed, 15 May 2002 12:52:40 GMT

World: Researchers to study how children interact with their Aibos. 05:44 ET - Ananova [NewsBlip.com]

They are studying how the elderly interact with the robots as well. While this will likely have no impact on what Sony is planning to do with the robots, it is good to see that someone is looking into this.

Military Robots

Wed, 10 Apr 2002 15:19:58 GMT

Bots: The New Mobile Infantry. Who was that guy in camouflage running around with grad students and robots at Ground Zero in the days following the terrorist attacks? It was a former Army lieutenant colonel, using the new mechanical dogs of war. By Michael Behar of Wired magazine. [Wired News]

There is a wealth of information in here for anyone that is interested in the state of robot technology.

Counterpoints:

...An onboard sensor tracks the HMTM's heading and wheel rotation. If the network fails, the robot can play back its movements in reverse, retracing its steps until communication is reestablished. "This will save the robot if the communication link with the operator drops out or is jammed," says Larsen. "It could spell the difference between mission success and failure."

Or, a sufficiently advanced enemy can send out a jamming signal that pulses every five minutes or so, so the robot keeps doing the cha cha, making it easier to isolate and destroy.

...There are plenty of critics who doubt that software solutions like ATAC will match the decisionmaking power of the human brain anytime soon. "Autonomous robotic weapons won't demonstrate human intelligence until machines pass the Turing test," says Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual Machines.

Thrown in a modified version of the creature AI from Black and White, and you have your solution. Get a hundred of them out int he field and running, and "breed" the 80th percentile and ina few generations, you'll have a pretty smart 'bot tearing around. Given that it can be reproduced (just copy the code base) you'll have a ready supply of robot intelligences. Something like the semi autonomous tanks from Ghost In The Shell.

Thu, 04 Apr 2002 14:52:23 GMT

Trade Secrets of the 6-Legged Set. The biologist Robert Full says the next generation of robots will be nimble crawlers. By Chee Pearlman. [New York Times: Technology]

Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:57:41 GMT

I saw the Proscope on TechTV’s Call For Help the other day, an thought nothing of it. Then I went to the product’s site. Boom, I got it. You can hook up a 200x lens to it, and feed that directly into your machine. Looking at the Law Enforcement applications they describe gives me even more ideas. For crime scene data collection, have a robot that enters the scene, scans it in 3d while taking photos so you have a complete map of the room. Then bathes the room in UV, taking photos and noting where organic material lights up. Next, it goes through, takes a close look at said organic material, including a series of magnified scans of them. An arm could be set up to swab for DNA, insuring that you never get a contaminated sample. Additionally, the robot could record the ambient temperature of the room as well as the body to help establish the time of death.

A truly smooth operator would also have it set to scan/dust doorknobs and other surfaces for fingerprints once it finished it’s initial run through the room. This would all help minimize crime scene contamination, and improve evidence gathering. First though, the cost of intelligent semi autonomous robots needs to drop.

Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:38:16 GMT

Bruce sends along a pointer to the new Samsonite Hardlite 625 laptop case. It seems very cool, although you wouldn't know it from the distracting Flash. What I like best about it is the embedded Bluetooth chip that synchronizes devices and notifies the owner if the case is being removed. Add laptop cases to the list of intelligent appliances you didn't know you needed. [The Shifted Librarian]

Make them self propelled and add some of the AIbo's intelligence, and you'll have a bag that will follow you anywhere (not unlike the luggage from Discworld.)

The Shifted Librarian scores again!

Mon, 25 Mar 2002 14:55:14 GMT

Lord of the Robots.

"The idea is that we should have all our information services always available, no matter what we are doing, and as unobtrusive as possible. If I pick up your cell phone today and make a call, it charges you, not me. With our prototype H21s, when you pick one up and use it, it recognizes your face and customizes itself to you—it knows your schedule and where you want to be. You can talk to it, ask it for directions or make calls from it. It provides you access to the Web under voice or stylus command. And it can answer your questions rather than just giving you Web pages that you have to crawl through.

The E21s provide the same sorts of services in a pervasive environment. The walls become screens, and the system handles multiple people by tracking them and responding to each person individually. We are experimenting with new sorts of user interfaces much like current whiteboards, except with software systems understanding what you are saying to other people, what you are sketching or writing, and connecting you with, for instance, a mechanical-design system as you work. Instead of you being drawn solitarily into the computer’s virtual desktop as you work, it supports you as you work with other people in a more natural way....

In 10 years, we’ll see better vision systems in handheld units and in the wall units. This will be coupled with much better speech interfaces. In 10 years the commercial systems will be using computer vision to look at your face as you’re talking to improve recognition of what you are saying. In a few years, the cameras, the microphone arrays will be in the ceiling in your office and will be tracking people and discriminating who is speaking when, so that the office can understand who wants to do what and provide them with the appropriate information. We’re already demonstrating that in our Intelligent Room here in the A.I. Lab. I’ll be talking to you—then I’ll point, and up on the wall comes a Web page that relates to what I’m saying. It’s like Star Trek, in that the computer will always be available." [MIT Technology Review, via bOing bOing]

A very thought-provoking interview with Rodney Brooks (the Director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab) that is well worth your time. Plus, I'm adding Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us by Rodney Brooks to The Shifted Reading List. [The Shifted Librarian]

See also the iRobot site for more information.

Giraldo Robora

Wed, 20 Mar 2002 19:19:35 GMT

Roving reporter on battlefields could be a robot. MIT builds a robot news hound known as the Afghan Explorer. [USA Today : Front Page]

This is little more than a remote control car with a camera and monitor attached. Still, it is an interesting hybrid of technology.

Telepresence is a good idea, be it for hostage negotiation, reporting in areas that are hazardous to normal humans, or as a means of holding a meeting in hostile locations where a telephone or videophone are impractical to use.

Questions:

What is to keep the person on the other end of the 'bot from simply trashing the unit?
How do you insure that the unit gets back to you safely?
Is it possible to guarantee that the GPS and Cell phone data won't be used to track the location of the person on the other end? If not, why not use these bots as disposable scouts for rooting out enemy troops? Of course, they then cease to be robots if they are used for harming people.

Wed, 20 Mar 2002 15:01:40 GMT

Furrybot to Watch Over You. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a cute, furry robot, and it's the latest in retirement home technology. By Daithí Ó hAnluain. [Wired News]

(Cough) Nice scoop.

Tue, 19 Mar 2002 18:09:56 GMT

Sony's New Bi-Pedal Robot [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters] Also on FoxNews and BBC Sci Tech (with pictures) and SmartMoney.com

Very cool tech.

Higgins in a can? Or a walking version of the Teddy Bear that I commented on a while back? Simple versions of future search and rescue bots that will be ableto dig through rubble and find people? Imagine a team of sensor equipped AIBO dogs that report to a future version of the SDR-4X, who in turn feeds info to the humans who control them. The Aibos are equipped with infared sensors and have some sense of smell, looking out for urea, e coli, and blood. since they are smaller than most S&R dogs, and are literally built for this work, they can get into places that normal dogs can't, and can be fitted with sensors appropriate for their environments. Radiation, heat, biological, bombs, whatever you need. Need to scope out a building for anthrax? Tent it up and send in the bots.

Future versions of this bot could also serve as the personification of your own Major Domo/home server, following you around.

Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:15:23 GMT

Robot care bears for the elderly. Robot teddy bears are just one of the ways digital technology is being used to care for the elderly in Japan. [BBC News: sci/tech]

Commentary: Pretty cool use of tech to help keep track of how the elderly are doing a nursing home run by Matsushita. Yes, Panasonic's parent company. Currently the bears are wired into the network, but I am sure a wireless solution is on the way. The bears are used to monitor how the patients are doing, including noting how long it takes for the patients to respond to questions.

Looking at the advances made by Honda and Sony with their robot systems, both bipedal and quadraped respectively, I can see a point in time where people will have a robotic companion, equipped with a built in GPS and cell phone. Owners can then call for help when needed, take their medication on time, be tracked if they tend to wander off, and get directions should they get lost. This could work for kids as well.