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ICYMI: Farming indoors, realistic robot baby study and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-644584{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-644584, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-644584{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-644584").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: University of California San Diego researchers are using the creepiest baby robot you have ever seen (seriously) to compare how human babies get parents to respond with loving facial expressions. Canada is overhauling food production with LED lights, recycled water and conveyor belts in a way that could well be replicated in spaces across the U.S. And in a moment that makes us pause to marvel at technology, Bluetooth connected electrodes were used to help a paraplegic man walk for the first time since being injured.
UCSD's robot baby appears, is happy, sad, a little creepy (video)
Development on the UCSD's Diego-san has been underway for several years and now the robot child is read for his first home movie. The bot is being constructed to better understand the cognitive development of children, with a camera behind each eye recording (and learning from) human interactions around it. There are 27 moving parts in the face alone and Diego-san is able to replicate a whole gamut of emotions -- and give us shivers as he does. We've got some unerringly realistic footage right after the break.
Baby robot Affetto gets a torso, still gives us the creeps (video)
It's taken a year to get the sinister ticks and motions of Osaka University's Affetto baby head out of our nightmares -- and now it's grown a torso. Walking that still-precarious line between robots and humans, the animated robot baby now has a pair of arms to call its own. The prototype upper body has a babyish looseness to it -- accidentally hitting itself in the face during the demo video -- with around 20 pneumatic actuators providing the movement. The face remains curiously paused, although we'd assume that the body prototype hasn't been paired with facial motions just yet, which just about puts it the right side of adorable. However, the demonstration does include some sinister faceless dance motions. It's right after the break -- you've been warned.
Researchers working to teach creepy baby robot to talk
The iCub robot was already doing pretty well for itself in the creepiness department, but a group of researchers from the University of Plymouth are now working to take things one big step further, by teaching the so-called "baby robot" to talk (as opposed to teaching it baby talk). That will supposedly be done over the next four years, during which time the researchers will work with language development specialists who normally study how parents teach children to speak. Eventually, they hope that the robot will be able to perform basic tasks like stacking wooden blocks, and be able name objects and actions so that it can speak basic phrases like "robot puts stick on cube" or "I want more life, father." What's more, while the research hasn't even begun yet, one of the professors involved sees it as nothing short of a milestone, saying that "the outcome of the research will define the scientific and technological requirements for the design of humanoid robots able to develop complex behavioural, thinking and communication skills through individual and social learning." Unless the robot gets some ideas of its own, that is.[Image courtesy of BBC News]
