Grok Robots

Are photos taken by robots (such as the photo above of a martian avalanche taken by a robotic spacecraft) eligible for a Pulitzer Prize? According to officials at The Pulitzer Prizes, the answer is yes.

In response to a query from Grok Robots, Sig Gissler, Administrator, The Pulitzer Prizes, responded:

If the photos were published in a newspaper and ultimately chosen, we would have to figure out how to
allocate or explicate credit.

Now that photos by robots are eligible, who should get the actual credit? Manufacturers? Programmers? The robots themselves?

Jalopnik got the controls to a robot tank, and as you might imagine his write-up tended towards the gushing. His post would be worthless without a movie so he was sure to include one!

Guess who got handed the manual remote control pendant for BAE Systems’ Black Knight fully autonomous tank? Yeh, I’m in as much shock as you are but can’t stop thinking “Holy shit, I drove a robot tank! ROBOT. TANK.”

Astronauts will be assembling Dextre, a massive robot designed to help with repairs in space. As this is real life, there is little chance the robot will go rogue and attempt to take over the station. However, the astronauts seem compelled to tempt fate and invoke just about every evil-robot movie cliche in an attempt to jinx things:

“Now I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re worried it’s going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it’s operated and it doesn’t have a lot of its own intelligence … But I’ll tell you something … He’s enormous and to see him with his giant arms, it is a little scary. It’s a little monstrous, it is.”

Foreshadowing - a valuable literary device. But, of course nothing could go wrong once properly assembled.

“I feel kind of like dad on Christmas Eve, you know, opening up this present and trying to put it together for the son or daughter and going, ‘Whoa, what have I gotten myself into here with this ’some assembly required’ part of the space station,” Foreman said.

Well, the important thing is that he has no subconscious imagry in his head that might influence him while assembling the robot.

Reisman, who will be moving into the space station, can’t wait to see Dextre rise from its shuttle transport pallet, rotating up “almost like it’s Frankenstein’s monster coming alive.”

Ok, the really important thing is that there is no hint whatsoever that whoever designed it had ulterior motives.

That said, Linnehan acknowledges it’s “a cool project” that reminds him of Japanese animation shows from decades past, namely Gigantor the space-age robot.

Really. It will be fine. No one is nervous.

The Japan Times has an interesting article profiling RT Corporation CEO Yukiko Nakagawa.

Another turning point for Nakagawa was her encounter in 1989 with Micromouse, a small maze-solving robot that moves autonomously and senses obstacles. Nakagawa says she fell in love with the palm-sized robot when she first saw one while studying systems engineering at Hosei University in Tokyo.

A lot of people put down a lot of the successful robots on the market as “dumb robots” but I think the above quote illustrates the value of exposing people to any and all types of robots as often as possible. You never know which one will kick-start someone’s brain into wanting to learn more about robots/science/math/etc.

The classic dilemma: you are out with friends and having a great time. You’d love some pictures to capture the moment, but you fear that the mere act of taking out your moment will alter the mood. Now imagine your personal swarm of nanobots jumping into the action instead, taking pictures unnoticed. When you return home, you sort through and assemble the perfect set.

Well, keep imagining because swarming botarazzi are a long way off. However, you can enjoy the award-winning camera bots who emerged victorious from the Mindstorms NXT Camera Bot Building Challenge.

This is Phoenix, the winner of the latest contest over at Trossen Robotics. While friendly so far, Phoenix is the stuff robot-gone-wrong movies are made of: a super-agile robot controlled using Microsoft Excel.

We may never get to test who really would come out ahead in Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla, but in the case of dog vs. robot dog a new study finds that people bonded with Aibo just as well as his flesh-and-fur counterpart.

Those who visited with AIBO took a little longer - about a week - to warm up to the metallic creature. Over time, they grew more comfortable with AIBO, and petted and talked to him. He responded by wagging his tail, vocalizing and blinking his lights.

It is good to see Aibo still doing quality work despite getting the axe from Sony. My favorite thing about the article is the fact that the only picture they show is a woman with Sparky, the non-robot dog of the study. “Oh, so that’s what a non-robot dog looks like!”

An interesting liveblog of a 3-day robot engagement training from Walking With Robots.Always good to recruit the next generation of robotocists early!

Work on the Blue Brain project is ahead of schedule:

Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. “If we build this brain right, it will do everything,” Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? “When I say everything, I mean everything,” he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face.

Robots and videogames unite to provide a unique sort of physical therapy in MIT’s Newman Lab for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation.”

“The recipe for successful robot rehab, in other words, is deception.”

NOTE: DecepTION not DecepTICONS. They are careful not to mix those up. After the last time.