"In November of 1928, a truck pulled up to The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and unloaded the pieces of an interesting, complex, but totally ruined brass machine. The family who donated it kept it for many years because they understood that it had once been able to write and draw pictures. The machine, however, had been in a fire and needed significant work. After careful study and restoration by staff, the Franklin Institute began to realize the treasure it had been given..."
Read it here: [link]
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
New Yorker: "Robots that Care"
Blurb:
"Born in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia, Maja Matarić originally wanted to study languages and art. After she and her mother moved to the United States, in 1981, her uncle, who had immigrated some years earlier, pressed her to concentrate on computers. As a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matarić wrote software that helped robots to independently navigate around obstacles placed randomly in a room. For her doctoral dissertation, she developed a robotic shepherd capable of corralling a herd of twenty robots"
Read it here: [link]
"Born in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia, Maja Matarić originally wanted to study languages and art. After she and her mother moved to the United States, in 1981, her uncle, who had immigrated some years earlier, pressed her to concentrate on computers. As a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matarić wrote software that helped robots to independently navigate around obstacles placed randomly in a room. For her doctoral dissertation, she developed a robotic shepherd capable of corralling a herd of twenty robots"
Read it here: [link]
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Bacteria Game Theory
Blurb:
"(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists studying how bacteria under stress collectively weigh and initiate different survival strategies say they have gained new insights into how humans make strategic decisions that affect their health, wealth and the fate of others in society.
Their study, published this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was accomplished when the scientists applied the mathematical techniques used in physics to describe the complex interplay of genes and proteins that colonies of bacteria rely upon to initiate different survival strategies during times of environmental stress. Using the mathematical tools of theoretical physics and chemistry to describe complex biological systems is becoming more commonplace in the emerging field of theoretical biological physics."
Read it here: [Link]
"(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists studying how bacteria under stress collectively weigh and initiate different survival strategies say they have gained new insights into how humans make strategic decisions that affect their health, wealth and the fate of others in society.
Their study, published this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was accomplished when the scientists applied the mathematical techniques used in physics to describe the complex interplay of genes and proteins that colonies of bacteria rely upon to initiate different survival strategies during times of environmental stress. Using the mathematical tools of theoretical physics and chemistry to describe complex biological systems is becoming more commonplace in the emerging field of theoretical biological physics."
Read it here: [Link]
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Creepy Trio Robotic Heads
"Creepy" as described by several user comments on the page. My biggest question is: How DO we make them NOT creepy?
Read it here: [link]
Read it here: [link]
H+ Magazine Article: Can "Terminators" Actually be our Salvation?
Blurb:
"In a fascinating paper entitled “How Just Could a Robot War Be?”, philosopher Peter Asaro of Rutgers University explores a number of robot war scenarios.
Asaro imagines a situation in which a nation is taken over by robots -- a sort of revolution or civil war. Would a third party nation have a just cause for interceding to prevent this?
Asaro concludes that the use of autonomous technologies such as robot soldiers is neither “completely morally acceptable nor completely morally unacceptable” according to the just war theory formulated by Michael Walzer.
See Also
Just war theory defines the principles underlying most of the international laws regulating warfare, including the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Walzer's classic book Just and Unjust Wars was a standard text at the West Point Military Academy for many years, although it was recently removed from the required reading list."
Read here: [link]
"In a fascinating paper entitled “How Just Could a Robot War Be?”, philosopher Peter Asaro of Rutgers University explores a number of robot war scenarios.
Asaro imagines a situation in which a nation is taken over by robots -- a sort of revolution or civil war. Would a third party nation have a just cause for interceding to prevent this?
Asaro concludes that the use of autonomous technologies such as robot soldiers is neither “completely morally acceptable nor completely morally unacceptable” according to the just war theory formulated by Michael Walzer.
See Also
Just war theory defines the principles underlying most of the international laws regulating warfare, including the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Walzer's classic book Just and Unjust Wars was a standard text at the West Point Military Academy for many years, although it was recently removed from the required reading list."
Read here: [link]
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
'MELISSA' Robot Hand
!!!Update:
This (top picture) is the "God Hand" version of the MELISSA hand, and it's smaller. However, it's 3 times more expensive at around $1,800 (¥180,000 - 189,000)!!!
This is a great hand for KHR-1-sized humanoid robots. Looks like it was used for the Samurai of Kuroda robot (previous post). They're kind of pricey, though - around $600 (¥60,000 - 63,000) for both, and ~$50 (¥5,000 - 5,250) for one finger! I would recommend this if budget is not a problem. Image and price information are from: [link]
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
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