RobotApocalypse
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Robot buys a scone in a coffee shop, that's all you really need to know (video)
Robots. Constructed by man to make our lives easier and provide opportunities for sloth that might not have arisen otherwise. One resident of Mountain View, California decided that commanding his Anybot to fetch a scone from Red Rock Coffee was a good use of the $15,000 telepresence automaton. And here we thought bot proliferation would either freak us out or engineer mankind's demise -- turns out it'll just add a few more folks in line while we wait to order our next cup of joe.
RoboEarth teaches robots to learn from peers, pour European fruit beverages (video)
It's not quite war-ready, but a new Skynet-like initiative called RoboEarth could have you reaching for your guide to automaton Armageddon sooner than you think. The network, which is dubbed the "World Wide Web for robots," was designed by a team of European scientists and engineers to allow robots to learn from the experience of their peers, thus enabling them to take on tasks that they weren't necessarily programmed to perform. Using a database with intranet and internet functionality, the system collects and stores information about object recognition, navigation, and tasks and transmits the data to robots linked to the network. Basically, it teaches machines to learn without human intervention. If the introduction of this robo-web hasn't got you thinking of end times, maybe this will do the trick: it's already taught one robot, the TechUnited AMIGO, to deliver a box of creamy fruit juice to a bedridden scientist. You can check out video of the newly appointed automated waiter after the jump.
Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video)
Augmented reality is swell, don't get us wrong, but it's no substitute for the real thing -- especially when that thing is a badass tricopter equipped with a jury-rigged firework cannon to rain down miniature hell. Swedish R/C enthusiasts built this first-person flying contraption to carry out a single mission -- destroy a series of hydrogen-filled balloons -- which will hopefully be hard-coded into future automatons too. After all, balloons could serve as an excellent distraction when they inevitably come for you. Still, there's no need to worry quite yet, so kick back and enjoy the video above while you contemplate humanity's end.
Quadrocopters learn to build things, when will humans learn to fear them? (video)
The GRASP Lab quadrocopters were impressive enough by themselves, all slashing and swooping through the air with unerring precision, but then their makers had to go and give them the intelligence to work in groups and today the inevitable has happened: they've learned how to construct things! Sure, the structures are rudimentary, but we can recognize the beginnings of human containment cells when we see them. Skip past the break for the bone-chilling, teamwork-infused video.
Mighty Car Mods details the rigors of zombie-proofing your auto (video)
Sure, there are plenty of folks who will teach you how to mod your car for speed, power, or aesthetics -- but what about the things that really matter? A recent episode of Mighty Car Mods detailed the re-tooling of a 1987 Nissan Pathfinder into a vehicle suitable for survival in the event of a zombie apocalypse (although we think it would help in case of a robot apocalypse as well). What are you waiting for? An ounce or prevention is worth a pound of cure, after all. Check it out the video -- and get prepared -- after the break.
Anybots QB hands-on
This week at GigaOM's NetWork 2010 conference in San Francisco, we briefly mingled with our robot overlords and survived to tell the tale. Anybots was letting its $15,000 QB telepresence robot decimate roam the crowd, and we were invited to interact with one and then take another for a spin by way of remote control. The experience was entertaining but still rather impersonal, mostly due to the lack of two-way video, something that's billed as "coming soon." There's no word on whether the robots -- which are starting to (literally) roll off the assembly line -- were amused or not. Based on our abysmal remote-control skills, we can only assume our lives were spared for one reason: to write this post. Take a look at our videos after the break! %Gallery-110307%
President Obama takes a minute to chat with our future robot overlords (video)
President Obama recently took some time out of the APEC Summit in Yokohama to meet with a few of Japan's finest automatons, and as always he was one cool cat. Our man didn't even blink when confronted with this happy-go-lucky HRP-4C fashion robot, was somewhat charmed by the Paro robotic seal, and more than eager to take a seat in one of Yamaha's personal transport robots. But who wouldn't be, right? See him in action after the break.
SRI's electroadhesion tech enables new army of wall-climbing robots
When the inevitable Robot Apocalypse goes down, you can credit SRI International for helping the forces assimilate. The aforesaid entity has apparently been toiling around the clock on a technology it's calling compliant electroadhesion, and to put things simply, it gives robotic climbers the ability to scale all sorts of walls made of all sorts of materials. Tests have shown wall-gripping robots climb surfaces made of steel, brick, concrete, glass, wood and drywall, which effectively eliminates any hope of you surviving the fallout based on the construction choice of your bunker. Thankfully, it does seems as if this could also be applied to human footwear, giving Earthlings at least a fighting chance of standing toe-to-toe with these guys on the side of the Menara Kuala Lumpur. Head on past the break if you're looking for a horror film. Or a demonstrative video... same difference.
CMU's first ever robot census: 547 (and counting)
Sure, we've seen an incredible amount of cool tech from Carnegie Mellon (usually on our way to a kegger on Beeler St.), but you might wonder exactly how many robots they have on campus. Well, maybe you don't -- but a first year doctoral student named Heather Knight does. A recent transplant from MIT, she's counted 547 robots so far -- but since these guys are all over campus, from the Robotics Institute to the theater and art departments, getting an accurate head count might take a while. But the project most likely won't stop there: upon completion of the university-wide project, Knight would like to see a nationwide census take place. We only hope this happens before it's too late. Update: The CMU Robot Census form is available here.
Robots learning our pain threshold by punching humans and seeing if they cry
The first rule of robotics is you do not talk about robotics that a robot should not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. But how does a robot know when its acts or omissions are causing nearby fleshies discomfort? The obvious way is to scan for the same signals of distress that we humans do -- facial, physical, and aural -- but another, more fun, way is to just hit people over and over again and ask them how much each blow hurt. That's what professor Borut Povse over in Slovenia is doing, in a research project he describes as "impact emulation," where six test subjects are punched by a robotic arm until they can't take it anymore. It's funny, yes, but it's also novel and a somewhat ingenious way to collect data and produce more intelligent machines. Of course, whether we actually want more intelligent machines is another matter altogether. [Thanks, Anthony]
Fujitsu's social robot bear is the supertoy of Kubrick's dreams, almost (video)
Ah, the Fujitsu bear cub social robot. What child or elderly person should go without a "people-friendly terminal" with snuggly-soft fur and a camera in lieu of the ever-popular button nose? The little guy made the rounds briefly earlier this year, but this is our first time making acquaintances. The duo waved at us, waved with us, laughed with (at?) us, and then at some point, decided to arbitrarily fall asleep and ignore us -- just like our actual friends! The representative told us this prototype -- with a reported 300 actions from 12 actuators (three face, three neck, and six in the body), 13 skin touch sensors, hand grip sensors, a tilt sensor, and a microphone -- is a ways off from hitting the childcare / nursing home market. For now, enjoy the pictures below and footage after the break... and if all this seems eerily familiar, hey, we're with you. A wink and a nod in that direction can be found via the second video. %Gallery-104247%
Audi robot arms take over London, write messages with LEDs day and night (video)
Here's yet another fine preview of the inevitable robot apocalypse -- car-assembling arms in the city center overlooking us feeble humans. For now, though, these machines are merely part of an Kram/Weisshaar art installation dubbed Outrace. Throughout the week-long London Design Festival, you can go to Outrace.org to submit a short text message that you wish to be displayed in Trafalgar Square, and with a bit of luck, the monitoring staff will pick up your greeting. What happens next is that the eight LED-equipped robot arms (KUKA KR 180; loaned by Audi) will start scribing your message in the air, which is then captured by the 36 long-exposure cameras surrounding the stage (even during the day, courtesy of welding glass filter), and it'll end up on the LED board as pictured. Stuck outside London? Fret not, as you can see the beasts in action via the website's live video stream, or you can watch bullet-time videos of each text submission on Outrace's YouTube channel -- you can see our message in both clips after the break. Enjoy! Update: Turns out the robots picked up our second message as well, and better yet, it was displayed during the day! Check out the new video after the break.%Gallery-102595%
Quadrocopters can now fly through thrown hoops, the end really is nigh (video)
The future of humanity is assured. Assuredly doomed, that is. That blur you see up above is one of our familiar foes, the GRASP Lab's autonomous quadrocopter, flying through a thrown hoop without the assistance of a human director. Yes, it's downright insane that we're allowing this so-called research to continue our descent toward the robot uprising -- where's the FBI, the CIA, hell, why is DARPA sleeping on this thing? The lethal precision of these quadrotor helis doesn't end there, however, as they've now been enhanced with the ability to recover from "extreme" starting conditions. In simpler terms that just means you can toss one up into the air and it'll right itself into a steady hovering position. From where it can strike upon the unsuspecting and complacent humanoid populace.
Georgia Tech gurus create deceptive robots, send army of Decepticons to UGA campus
A score from now, when the entire world is burning and you're fighting to remember just how rosy things were before the robots took over, you can thank a crew of brilliant researchers at Georgia Tech for your inevitable demise. Sad, but true. A new report from the institution has shown that Ronald Arkin, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing, has been heading up experiments that have introduced the art of deception to mechanical beings. Yeah, lying. On the surface, it seems that this bloke's intentions are good -- he'd like for deception robots (or Decepticons, if you will) to be used in military / search and rescue operations. According to him, robots on the battlefield with the power of deception "will be able to successfully hide and mislead the enemy to keep themselves and valuable information safe." They'll also be able to mislead your offspring and convince them to rise up and overtake your domicile, slowly but surely ensuring the eventually destruction of the human race. But those are just minor details, you know?
MQ-8 Fire Scout UAV resists its human oppressors, joyrides over Washington DC
A Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout UAV strayed into restricted airspace above Washington DC after departing Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland on August 2, the result of a software logic flaw that caused the operator to momentarily lose contact with the drone. Programmed to circle when communications are severed, the chopper failed to follow its failure protocol, instead heading twenty-three miles on a north/northwest trajectory -- which could have had serious consequences had it been equipped with 70mm Hydra rocket pods or Hellfire tankbuster missiles. Although this type of incident is rare, it is not unheard of: last September the Air Force had to take down an MQ-9 Reaper in Afghanistan when it failed to adhere to failure protocols after dropping communications with the ground. At least, that's what we'd like to believe... the alternative scenario is too frightening to consider.
Land of Giants turns power lines into works of art
Most of us take the aesthetic nature of power lines and pylons for granted. In fact, it's hard to remember a time before the things crisscrossed the landscape. That's why we were stoked when we came across this concept by Massachusetts-based architects Choi+Shine. Part infrastructure, part public art project, The Land of Giants would "[transform] mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape," by modifying existing steel-framed tower designs to create human-shaped towers that are repositioned for a wide variety of expressions (a number of which can be seen after the break). We love this idea, and we hope it gets implemented somewhere, if only to blow the minds of the people that will have to rebuild civilization after the impending Robot Apocalypse.
Artificial bee eye gives diminutive robotic air drones wider range of vision
We'd bother telling you up front that it also gives them a new sense of purpose, but you're already versed in how the impending Robot Apocalypse is going to go down. Wolfgang Stürzl and his best buds over at Bielefeld University in Germany have just published a report detailing how an artificial bee eye could improve the vision of miniature robots -- ones that fly, in particular. By using a catadioptric imaging system, which captures an image using both mirrors and lenses, they were able to utilize a single camera to capture a full 280-degrees of vision, and a lowly internal computer is able to stitch the two panes together in order to create a usable image that humans can interpret. The idea here is to provide more sight with less space, bringing us one step closer to actually having our very own 'fly-on-the-wall' moment. Comforting, no?
Revenge of the quadrocopters: now they move in packs (video)
In case you didn't find the original quadrocopter chilling enough, the GRASP Lab out of the University of Pennsylvania has gone and added a bit of cooperative logic to the recipe so that now multiple little drones can work together. Also upgraded with a "claw-like" gripper that allows it to pick up and transport objects, the newer quadrocopter can team up on its prey payload with its buddies, all while maintaining its exquisite balance and agility. Skip past the break to see it on video.
FURO robot waitstaff lull Koreans into a sense of complacency
Service robots are nothing new (and neither are dancing robots, for that matter) but unlike our old friend CAFERO, FURO has something of a human face. Of course, this is supposed to soothe and reassure us, but like the old robo-teddy we're pretty much convinced that this is yet another harbinger of doom. Developed by Future Robot of Korea (not to be confused with Furo, the Japanese robotics manufacturer) this guy can take credit cards and features a touchscreen display and that ominous, disembodied cartoon head. And it will do a two-step for you if you're nice! Video after the break.
Robots to invade Scottish hospital, pose as 'workers'
A new £300 million ($445 million) hospital is set to open up soon in Stirlingshire, Scotland. Why would you care about that? Maybe because laser-guided robots will play a fundamental role in the facility's daily running, including the disposal of waste, delivery of meals, cleaning of operating theaters, and (gulp!) drug dispensation. We're told they'll have their own underground lair corridors and dedicated lifts, with humanoid employees able to call them up via a PDA. It's believed that using robots to perform the dirty work will be more sanitary than current methods, but we have to question the sanity of anyone who believes this isn't the first step toward the robot rebellion. Well, it's been nice knowing you guys.
