- BBC NEWS | Technology | Nasa investigates virtual space » The US space agency is exploring the possibility of developing a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.
- Library of Congress Taps Web 2.0 for User Photo Expertise » As part of an effort to expand access to its photograph collections and tap the collective knowledge of user-generated content, the Library of Congress Wednesday launched a pilot project with photo-sharing site Flickr to publish some 3,000 photos. – New Y
- The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science »
- GeForce 9600GT Benchmarked Out in the Wild » NVIDIA’s upcoming 9600GT graphics card lives up to the company’s performance claims
- Discount Electronics »
- LITTER KWITTER » The Original Cat Toilet Training System.
- CIA: Hackers Shook Up Power Grids (Updated) | Danger Room from Wired.com » Hackers have tried to extort money from overseas utility companies. At least in one case, the Washington Post reports, the online attackers messed with an electrical grid, disrupting ing power in several cities.
- America’s Army game player saves real life » with no previous medical training, except from the game
- Rendering Games with Raytracing Will Revolutionize Graphics »
- RoboPult » Robot catapult hurls flaming fireballs
- Super Nightvision Headset Hack! » turn an old VHS camcorder into a nightvision scope.
- ‘Darkest ever’ material created » The material was created from carbon nanotubes – sheets of carbon just one atom thick rolled up into cylinders. Researchers say it is the closest thing yet to the ideal black material, which absorbs light perfectly at all angles and over all wavelengths.
- Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision » Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.
- Chris Oliver’s Weblog : Weblog »
- JavaFX »
- In-Desk Dock for iPod » Belkin
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- Create Quick Linker Widget » Amazon
Posts Tagged robots
extrinsic
Jan 21
Robot Cat
Aug 31
Leave it to the Japanese to think of the perfect cat. the problem is, cats are fun because of the mostly weird things they do, not entirely from the old purr and pet. Still, at least there’s no litter to clean with this one.
iRobot teams up with TASER manufacturer to make a non-lethal (for most) taser robot. The name of the new company will be Cyberdyne Systems. Going from house cleaning to war robots in one fell swoop!
I, for one, salute our new robot overlords.
WWII Mechs duke it out
Apr 26
This viral video has been sweeping over the net and coming at me from every direction. I usually don’t repost ones that are so widespread, but, since drzy has taken a turn towards robots lately, I feel I must.
So, I give you Nazi, American, and even Japanese mechs in an alternate past… a short CG film by the folks at cee-gee.net.
Guitar-Hero-playing robot
Mar 24
Here’s a robot done by some GarageGeeks guys that physically plays Guitar Hero. They call it Guitar Heronoid. With the help of some optical color sensors, a programmed “brain”, and some, uh, “extra” appendages (one hand with an extra finger for that elusive orange guitar button) it powers through the songs like a pron00b.
But this is a good thing, because moments after they conquer our video games, the robot armies will be setting us up for Matrix battery-mode.
South Korea is actually holding a conference whose purpose is to develop laws to ensure that humans do not abuse robots, and vice-versa. They are calling it the Robot Ethics Charter.
I think it’s a little odd, since there are no self-aware or sentient robots, yet. But it’s very novel that a government is choosing to make official laws governing things like robot ethics. Even though the Asimov robot laws were mainly intended for the robot itself, the South Korean laws seem mainly for the human facet.
“Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives,” Park Hye-Young of the ministry’s robot team told the AFP news agency.
“Others may get addicted to interacting with them just as many internet users get hooked to the cyberworld.”
Maybe they were frightened by the upsurge in sexy robots, or possibly the emergence of robots that think humans taste like bacon.
Even more likely: they watch too much Battlestar Galactica.
Japanese researchers at NEC System Technologies and Mie University have made a robot that is designed to analyze wine.
At the end of the robot’s left arm is an infrared spectrometer. When objects are placed up against the sensor, the robot fires off a beam of infrared light. The reflected light is then analyzed in real time to determine the object’s chemical composition.
The key quote that prompted the title…
When a reporter’s hand was placed against the robot’s taste sensor, it was identified as prosciutto. A cameraman was mistaken for bacon.
Roach pilots a robot
Jul 30
Galloping Robots
Jul 15
This Korean corporation, Robo3, seems to have the capital to make robots purely for enjoyment. They have a ridable robot, complete with dinosaur and dog models, full dinosaur robots, serving robots, puppet-show robots, and human-like female robot.
I fully approve.
Some University of Michigan students built a robot that physically solves a Rubik’s Cube as a class project. In the video below it solves a particular cube pattern in 54 seconds.
Robot Pacman
Jun 21
At IREX 2005, an electronics show in Japan, they demonstrated this robot Pacman game. A physical Pacman board with a robot Pacman controlled by remote control. The ghosts are just decoration on this model, but all of them light up, and the Pacman really picks up the “pills”. How cool would it be if the ghosts really chased him and turned blue when he picked up the power pills?
The project is actually Namco and Bandai sponsored, so I’m not sure if it’s a game that will be released, or just a fun demo to promote some other product.
Here’s a video of it in action.
Links and video from Akihabara News.
The race is on to keep humans one step ahead of robots: an international team of scientists and academics is to publish a code of ethics for machines as they become more and more sophisticated. “Dilemmas may arrive sooner than we think”, says Henrik Christensen. “People are going to be having sex with robots within five years.”
