Robotic AUR desk lamp doubles as collaborative lighting assistant

If you've just not been in the DIY spirit of late, and would rather your lamp console you than just brighten up your surroundings, the AUR desk lamp should do the trick. Concocted as part of a Ph.D thesis on human-robot fluency and nonverbal behavior, the robotic desk lamp "serves as a non-anthropomorphic robotic platform," and was conceived around a 5-DoF robotic arm to "evoke a personal relationship with the human partner without resorting to human-like features." The so-called objective lamp seeks to "explore the relationship that can be maintained through abstract gestures and nonverbal behavior alone," and is animated using a "custom pipeline enabling the dynamic control of behaviors authored in a 3D animation system." A lot of fancy phrasing, we know, so click on through to catch it on video and let things sink in.

[Via Pasta and Vinegar]

Click To Play

[fini @ May 27th 2007 7:34AM]

so it's just a lamp with face-tracking abilities - couldn't you just make that by strapping a light to a webcam?

[strider_mt2k @ May 27th 2007 7:34AM]

Looks like the beginning of glowglobes to me.

I like my old-fashioned verbal control schema: "Aziz, LIGHT!"

It's almost eerie how the light follows him, but I'd like to see this in a bit less of a controlled environment.

Something like this would be awesome for field service technicians whos lives would be made quite a bit easier if that stupid light could just stay RIGHT THERE.

[Grey Acumen @ May 27th 2007 7:39AM]

PIXAR!

Now all we need is the live action version of the brave little toaster ^^

[Roland Rohde @ May 27th 2007 7:45AM]

That lamp is really cool!
If it really could do what it does int that video without being remote-controlled, then I'd like to call one of those things my best friend... ;)

Now, is anybody going to post that old "I welcome our enlightening robotic overlords?" line soon or what?

[DarkFader @ May 27th 2007 7:52AM]

I, for one, welcome our enlightening robotic overlords :)
It also reminds me a bit of HAL9000 when it turned red.

[MrChimpy @ May 27th 2007 7:54AM]

My £2 LED head torch achieves much the same thing.

[Pauly @ May 27th 2007 7:55AM]

I'd rather have a real robot console me than a desklamp, but hey you take what you can get.

http://www.robotliving.com

[crazyreaper @ May 27th 2007 9:21AM]

i must have one, that is amazing, where do i sign up?

[Kenneth @ May 27th 2007 9:29AM]

@fini

You're a moron. When he goes up to the board, the lamp is facing the board not the man's face. Just shut up.

[fini @ May 27th 2007 10:02AM]

so it's got a tiny bit of offset going on - wow that's incredible!

[Othello @ May 27th 2007 9:51AM]

The most impressive part was where it turned red and found an object on his desk that he was looking for. That's neat.

[Kenneth @ May 27th 2007 11:05AM]

A bit offset? It ignored his face and went directly to the board to illuminate what ever he was drawing. Can you explain how the lamp is AHEAD of the guy's face?

Who the hell do you think you are to ridicule technology that you can't even comprehend? Quit flaming the article as if you know what you're talking about and post more legit explanations of your discontent.

Because degrading robotic technology down to webcam level without a thorough explanation does not cut it.

[Mike @ May 27th 2007 12:16PM]

Ummm... Why doesn't he just turn on the lights?

What's next? Perhaps the Nagbot (tm) that is going to tell you that you shouldn't be working in such low lighting conditions; it's bad for your eyes!

Mike

Hehe... "AZIZ, Light!" I like that. Good one strider_mt2k.