Robotics posts

Today’s advancements in technology have made automation a part of our daily lives. Many of the tasks that were once performed by humans are now done by computers and in some cases, robots. As the trend continues, will we see humans replaced in many job functions by robots? That’s the question that our friends at Mindflash explore in their most recent infographic. While it’s hard to imagine a robot paralegal today, it’s not as far fetched in the very near future as we might expect. Click to enlarge. …

In the oft-siloed world of grad school, MIT’s Media Lab leads the way when it comes to creating environments that foster interdisciplinary exploration. New discoveries routinely get shared between seemingly unrelated fields and lead to unexpected applications. This approach is broken down by our friends at Online PHD. There are times when accidents turn into breakthroughs. MIT Media Lab has a knack for putting together circumstances and environments that are conducive to these “accidents.” Click to enlarge. Created by: Online PhD…

The TED2011 Conference unveiled new technologies, encouraged imagination, and highlighted innovation as some of the most brilliant minds in the world converged to discuss everything from the seemingly mundane to the biggest problems plaguing the globe today. On the last day, emotions were touched by film critic Roger Ebert as he, his wife, his friends, and his Macbook moved the audience in ways they did not expect. For months I’ve been combing through various TED Talks from this year’s conference. The best was the very last one. “These are my words but this is not my voice,” the computer voice…

Every now and then you come across something that’s, well, different. It’s hard in today’s world where so many products are simply variations of others. Creativity seems to be dying with the compact disc. The “different” that popped up was these geekaliciously epic 3D Steampunk Robot Magnets. Steampunk is getting old and robots are so yesterday, but there’s something about these little contraptions that screamed at me. I haven’t bought any yet – hard to swallow at $15 a pop – but by golly there’s a yearning that will need to be quenched. Someday. …

It proved that it could beat the best Jeopardy! champions in the world at their own game. Now, IBM’s Watson will try to help doctors make better medical decisions for their patients. WellPoint, Inc. and IBM announced an agreement today to develop and launch Watson-based medical solutions. It will be the first commercial applications of the IBM Watson technology. The program, which is scheduled to roll out next year, will begin by assisting nurses who manage complex patient cases. It will help the insurer to review treatment requests from medical providers. Stage two will put the technology…

Cleverbot is a novelty AI program designed to mimic human interaction and allow people to “talk” to it conversationally. It is often clever, sometimes funny, but mostly random. Here, Igor Labutov, Jason Yosinski, and Hod Lipson of the Cornell Creative Machines Lab put two cleverbots head-to-head to and let them converse. They argued. They went random. It worked nicely. As HotHardware said, “When Two Chatbots Talk Hilarity Ensues.” Yes. Yes it does. …

The dream of making the perfect robot that can do a lot of our human activities may have found a simple solution in Swarmanoid, an open scientific project whose goal is  the design, implementation and control of a novel distributed robotic system. Rather than build robots that can do many things, they build many robots that can do one thing and have them work together to accomplish their objectives. The video below has the robots working together to retrieve a single book. It may sound simple, but when was the last time you saw a robot that could retrieve a book? That’s what I thought. …

What if every wall in your home was a digital display? What if your kitchen table would set itself and also be a touchscreen-enabled entertainment device. What if your kitchen counters were “smart” enough to know what items were on it and had the ability to react accordingly, keeping coffee cups warm and iced-tea cold? These are some of the questions that Microsoft asked when designing what they consider to be the “home of the future.” If it seems very much like Star Trek, only better in many ways, many would agree. The difference is that all of this is possible in the early 21st century, well ahead of…

The concept of robots that learn may seem relatively simply. We see robots and machines that are able to perform complex tasks flawlessly and many believe that this type of technology means that artificially intelligent robots are right around the corner (or here already). The biggest challenge has been in programming robots with the ability to adjust to changing environments and circumstances, applying what they know and extrapolating what they do not know to make a proper choice in new situations. Sounds easy, but it’s not. Not yet, at least. Researchers in Japan have developed a “Self-Replicating…

Man has possessed the power of technology-assisted flight for over a century now, but the way that birds are able to fly is something that has eluded us until now. We first covered the Festo SmarBird earlier this year. Now, TED and Festo team leader Markus Fischer give us the flight of the bird once again, this time to a standing ovation in England. As a bonus, Fischer voice has a striking resemblance to a former governor of California. …