Tag: robotics

Book-Text-Read-Zines · Digital Media · Technology

Robot Reading Robot Writing

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Computer-Authored Books Are On Sale On Amazon: It’s one of those cliches that everyone’s got a book inside them. And that doesn’t mean you’ve just chewed your way through War and Peace, but that we all have one novel sitting inside our brains, unwritten, just waiting to hit the Kindle bestseller list. However, writing a novel is tough—all those words, all those ideas, plus you have to put it all together in a narrative unless you want to go all Joycean—but then you’ll never get rich quick.

So, why not let an algorithm do the hard work for you? They owe us anyway for letting them take over the world. This is what programmer Philip M. Parker, a professor at INSEAD, has created: an algorithmic system that takes raw data from internet searches and databases and magics it into book form using a template, so that us non-machines can digest it easier. He’s managed to create hundreds of thousands of books this way and lots of them are for sale on Amazon through his name and his company EdgeMaven Media.

Text (Kevin Holmes) and Image (robotlab) via The Creators Project

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Robot book scanner reads 250 pages per minute: Created by Japan’s Ishikawa Oku Laboratory, the BFS-Auto uses high speed, automated page flipping and real-time 3D page recognition to accurately scan books at a rate of over 250 pages per minute. That’s about a novel per minute, an Oxford Dictionary in under 10 minutes, or an entire 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica set in roughly two hours.

Text and Image via DVICE

Performativity · Technology

DARPA’s Pet-Proto Robot Navigates Obstacles

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Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA’s Atlas robot, is confronted with obstacles similar to those robots might face in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). To maneuver over and around the obstacles, the robot exercises capabilities including autonomous decision-making, dismounted mobility and dexterity. The DARPA Robotics Challenge will test these and other capabilities in a series of tasks that will simulate conditions in a dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environment.

Art/Aesthetics · Performativity · Technology

Calligraphy robot uses a Motion Copy System to reproduce detailed brushwork

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A research group at Keio University, led by Seiichiro Katsura, has developed the Motion Copy System. This system can identify and store detailed brush strokes, based on information about movement in calligraphy. This enables a robot to faithfully reproduce the detailed brush strokes.

This system stores calligraphy movements by using a brush where the handle and tip are separate. The two parts are connected, with the head as the master system and the tip as the slave system. Characters can be written by handling the device in the same way as an ordinary brush.

Unlike conventional motion capture systems, a feature of this one is, it can record and reproduce the force applied to the brush as well as the sensation when you touch something. Until now, passing on traditional skills has depended on intuition and experience. It’s hoped that this new system will enable skills to be learned more efficiently.

Text via <strong>DigiInfo

Animalia · Design · Technology

Design and print your own robot: MIT project, funded with $10 million NSF grant, could transform robotic design and production

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MIT is leading an ambitious new project to reinvent how robots are designed and produced. Funded by a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the project will aim to develop a desktop technology that would make it possible for the average person to design, customize and print a specialized robot in a matter of hours.

“This research envisions a whole new way of thinking about the design and manufacturing of robots, and could have a profound impact on society,” says MIT Professor Daniela Rus, leader of the project and a principal investigator at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “We believe that it has the potential to transform manufacturing and to democratize access to robots.”

“Our goal is to develop technology that enables anyone to manufacture their own customized robot. This is truly a game changer,” says Professor Vijay Kumar, who is leading the team from the University of Pennsylvania. “It could allow for the rapid design and manufacture of customized goods, and change the way we teach science and technology in high schools.” Continue HERE

Text and Image via MIT News

Animalia · Bio · Design · Science · Technology

Soft autonomous earthworm robot at MIT

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Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this mechanism, called peristalsis, to get around, and our own gastrointestinal tracts operate by a similar action, squeezing muscles along the esophagus to push food to the stomach.

Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed.

Sangbae Kim, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, says such a soft robot may be useful for navigating rough terrain or squeezing through tight spaces.

Text via MIT

Animalia · Performativity · Science · Technology

With Willpower, and a Jolt of Electricity, Paralyzed Rats Learn to Walk Again

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A new kind of rehabilitation restored voluntary movement to rats with severely damaged spinal cords. The rat stood on its hind limbs at one end of a narrow runway. It wore a tiny black vest attached to a robotic arm that hovered above its head. Without such mechanical support, the rat would have fallen over—its spinal cord had two deep cuts, rendering its back legs useless. Rubia van den Brand, then a doctoral candidate at the University of Zurich, stood at the other end of the runway, urging the animal to walk. Although the robotic arm kept the rat upright, it could not help the creature move; if the rodent were ever to walk again, it would have to will its feet forward. For the first time since van den Brand began her experiments, the rat moved one of its back legs on its own—a small, effortful step. She ran to her boss’s office with the news and a crowd immediately gathered in the lab to watch what many had deemed impossible.

Excerpt from an article written by Ferris Jabr, Scientific American. Continue HERE

Human-ities · Performativity · Videos

On Cuteness & Manufacturing Trauma

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“Zack loves dinosaurs but until now he has never seen one bigger than himself. This is his reaction. Zack is 2 1/2 years old.”

Human-ities · Technology

Hail the Robotic Farmers and Pilots of the Future?

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If robotic pilots and farmers mean no more underpaid/mistreated immigrants and airplane pilots falling asleep or texting while bored, then I hail. If it means patrolling other countries without their permission and perpetuating pesticide spraying (and several other factors), then I disdain.

Here is what an article at WIRED has to say:

Fighter pilot Mary “Missy” Cummings saw it coming while landing her F/A-18 supersonic jet on a Navy aircraft carrier — the world-changing disruption barreling toward the present.

Instead of landing the multi-million-dollar machine on the small deck of the ship herself in the 1990s, a computer accomplished the tricky feat for her.

“Here the computer was taking off better than I could, landing itself better than I could and doing the mission better than I ever could,” Cummings said Tuesday during the Wired Disruptive by Design business conference. “It was really humiliating. That was what used to make me better than everyone else.”

Eventually Cummings took a step back, told herself the heyday of fighter pilots was over and joined the robots. She’s now an aeronautics professor at MIT working to tackle the monotonous work of flying, farming and other industries with autonomous drones.

Excerpt of an article written by Dave Mosher, at WIRED. Continue HERE

Prospero is the working prototype of an Autonomous Micro Planter (AMP) that uses a combination of swarm and game theory and is the first of four steps. It is meant to be deployed as a group or “swarm”. The other three steps involve autonomous robots that tend the crops, harvest them, and finally one robot that can plant, tend, and harvest–autonomously transitioning from one phase to another.

Prospero is controlled with a Parallax Propeller chip mounted on a Schmart Board. Its body is designed by Lynxmotion and the orginal programming allows it to walk autonomously in any direction while avoiding objects with its duel ultrasonic Ping))) without turning it’s body. Text via YouTube

Drones are planes that fly without a human pilot. The Obama administration has used drones in patrolling Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia and Libya. PHOTO: Flickr/James Gordon

U.S. Drones Patrolling Its Skies Provoke Outrage in Iraq

Performativity · Technology · Videos

ExoHand and CogniGame by Festo

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The ExoHand from Festo — an active manual orthosis with sensitive fingers.
The ExoHand from Festo is an exoskeleton that can be worn like a glove. The fingers can be actively moved and their strength amplified; the operator’s hand movements are registered and transmitted to the robotic hand in real time.

ExoHand – human-machine interaction

CogniGame is a reinterpretation of a well-known video game that was launched on the market in the 1970s. As in table tennis, the players used a joystick in order to move a bar up and down the screen to keep a ball in play.

CogniGame – control by thought

Digital Media · Performativity · Sonic/Musical · Technology · Videos

James Bond Theme performed by Flying Quadrotor Robots

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Flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame. The quadrotors play this “couch guitar” by flying over guitar strings stretched across a couch frame; plucking the strings with a stiff wire attached to the base of the quadrotor. A special microphone attached to the frame records the notes made by the “couch guitar”.

These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous, meaning humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled by a computer programed with instructions to play the instruments.

Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is home to some of the most innovative robotics research on the planet, much of it coming out of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab.

This video premiered at the TED2012 Conference in Long Beach, California on February 29, 2012. Deputy Dean for Education and GRASP lab member Vijay Kumar presented some of this groundbreaking work at the TED2012 conference, an international gathering of people and ideas from technology, entertainment, and design.

The engineers from Penn, Daniel Mellinger and Alex Kushleyev, have formed a company called KMel Robotics that will design and market these quadrotors.

Video Produced and Directed by Kurtis Sensenig
Quadrotors and Instruments by Daniel Mellinger, Alex Kushleyev and Vijay Kumar

More information HERE

A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors navigate spaces with obstacles.

Digital Media · Games/Play · Motion Graphics · Performativity · Philosophy · Science · Technology

Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation

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Kyle Munkittrick: Mass Effect is epic. It’s the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more with a protagonist who could be the love-child of Picard, Skywalker, and Starbuck. It’s one of the most important pieces of science fiction narrative of our generation. Mass Effect goes so far beyond other fictional universes in ways that you may not have yet realized. It is cosmic in scope and scale.

Sci-fi nerds have long debated over which fictional universe is the best. The Star Trek vs Star Wars contest is infamous into banality, with lesser skirmishes among fans of shows and books like Battlestar Galactica, Enders Game, Xenogenesis, Farscape, Dune, Firefly, Stargate, and others fleshing out the field. Don’t mistake this piece as another pointless kerfuffle among obsessive basement dwellers. Mass Effect matters because of its ability to reflect on our society as a whole.

Science fiction is one of the best forms of social satire and critique. Want to sneak in some absolutely scandalous social more, like, say, oh, I don’t know, a black woman into a position of power in the ‘60s? Put her on a starship command deck.

Most science fiction, even the epic universes in Star Wars and Star Trek, pick only two or three issues to investigate in depth. Sure, an episode here or a character there might nod to other concepts worthy of investigation, but the scope of the series often prevents the narrative from mining the idea for what it’s worth.

Mass Effect can and does take ideas to a new plane of existence. Think of the Big Issues in your favorite series. Whether it is realistic science explaining humanoid life throughout the galaxy, or dealing with FTL travel, or the ethical ambiguity of progress, or even the very purpose of the human race in our universe, Mass Effect has got it. By virtue of three simple traits – its medium, its message, and its philosophy – Mass Effect eclipses and engulfs all of science fiction’s greatest universes. Let me show you how.

Read Full Article at PopBioethics

Art/Aesthetics · Human-ities · Performativity · Science · Technology · Videos · Vital-Edible-Health

PROSTHETIC AESTHETICS at SCIENCE GALLERY DUBLIN

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PROSTHETIC AESTHETICS: WITH STELARC, BERTOLT MEYER, LIZBETH GOODMAN AND RACHEL ARMSTRONG

Will people equipped with prosthetic technologies soon outperform “natural” abilities? How are we blurring the boundaries between human enhancement and body augmentation? How does the realm of prosthetics merge aesthetics and technology, in transforming the form and capabilities of the human body? How are artists, designers and scientists joining forces to push the boundaries of prosthetic technologies?

Join us for a panel discussion where we hope to address many issues raised in Science Gallery’s HUMAN+ exhibition with legendary Australian performance artist Stelarc (who has had a lab-grown “third ear” implanted in his left arm), medic and TED fellow Rachel Armstrong and SmartLab Founder Lizbeth Goodman, hosted by Science Gallery director Michael John Gorman

Also joining the panel will be Dr. Bertolt Meyer of Universität Zürich, equipped with a state-of-the-art i-Limb Pulse bionic hand.

Text via SCIENCE GALLERY

Image above: Prosthetic aesthetics arm by spiraltwist on flickr.jpg

Eco/Adaptable · Technology

Human Waste-Powered Robots May Be Future of Machines

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Human waste might someday turn human urine or waste into useful electricity for radios or space robots. EcoBot-III was able to both eat and crap inside its lab environment.

Today’s robots that fly, jump or roll around must refuel or recharge as does any gadget that runs out of energy. Tomorrow’s new generation of self-sustaining robots might keep going nearly forever by grazing on dead insects, rotting plant matter or even human waste.

The vision of robots capable of plugging themselves into the natural world of living organisms has begun taking shape in several labs around the world, and even NASA has shown renewed interest in powering space robots with microbes. But one British lab has already been building on the work of robotics pioneers to create small “EcoBots” that extract energy from microbial fuel cells since 2002.

“Robots that eat biological fuels could find enough fuel almost anywhere,” said John Greenman, a microbiologist at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, a joint venture between the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. “There is organic matter anywhere on Earth — leaves and soil in the forest, or even human waste such as urine and feces.”

Written by Jeremy Hsu, Scientific American. Continue HERE

Image: Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UK