Grok Robots

Here is the final trailer for Pixar’s WALL-E. We catch glimpses of other robots and of course there is lots of running (or rolling (or flying)) around and fast cut so you can’t quite figure out everything that’s going on. But it is enough to see that WALL-E is in looooove.

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.”

In this photoshoot, a model and her robot do all the usual things you might suspect a model and her robot to do: hang out by the fireplace, dance and make out.This models dispels the unfair stereotype that all models only date those flashy modern robots from the Uncanny Valley.

Check it out here: foto_decadent: Marie Claire Italy, Marzo 2008

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.

Ask MetaFilter looks for example of robot voice, be it vocoder, talkbox or Speak’n'Spell. Add your examples in comments.

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.

I haven’t read Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs by David McFarland yet, but it looks good based on the publisher’s descritption:

How different might the minds of animals or machines be to ours? As David McFarland asks here, could robots ever feel guilty, and is it correct to suppose your dog can truly be happy? Can we ever know what non-human minds might be like, or will the answer be forever out of our reach?

Print and fold your own robot.

photo by jaime