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This article has photos and some video of other robots being built by teams that have already announced participation in the competition: http://robots.net/article/3453.html

Let me think... if Apple ever releases a personal robotic assistant... it might me called the iBot

Here's iBOT but those are wheelchairs... ah! an iBot Robot! Cool. Let's get ready for when the Apple iBot gets released in 8-10 years!

Considering this piece reads like the sleep-talking of a singularitarian

He runs in those circles:
Kurzweil Debates Gelernter at MIT
I'm shocked how many smart people have a deep intuition that computation can't underlie consciousness when we have so many formal results that the limits of computation are inscrutable (complexity theory).

Users Are Not Reactionary After All
I thought I would find a soul-mate in Gelernter, since I believe strongly in aggregating *my own* data, but in truth I don't get much out of his ideas. This is what I wrote to myself when I first read that piece:

Edge question 2010: made the absurd statement that 99.9% of the technocrats involved in creating the internet will be displaced when the system evolves to operate in a top-down mode. This is extremely insulting, because it implies the technocrats have created the system in the image of their personal limitations, and denies the possibility that we've chosen to work at this level because that's where the action is. If we'd started top down, the internet would have never made it off the ground.

Many of us were well aware that we were cutting rough stone to build a cathedral. I use a personal wiki to keep track of my ideas, and I rely heavily on being able to determine when I added a comment through the page history. The time axis can be immensely useful. Still, it doesn't strike me as a liberating force. I had an Econtalk lecture on my iPod that I ended up listening to in six minute chunks over two weeks. Time can be quite messy in its own right.

Gelernter might be brilliant on some level, but he's Ted Nelson brilliant, FWIW. I think the silver bullet is a metaphor. Gelernter thinks that metaphor is a silver bullet.

Open-source robotics hardware is all fine and dandy, but ultimately worthless without artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is Open-Source and needs Robot Bridgeware to connect open-source hardware devices to open-source AI Minds.

AI has been solved for open-source hardware in need of open-source intelligence.

I notice this is a verbatim copy of our story at robots.net. Isn't it normal to at least include a "via" link or something when copying someone else's stories? This isn't the first time this has happened...

Apple better start investing heavy in Clone technology or Robotics..... Here is a couple links to get you started Apple! http://robots.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning/ http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/5/9/ This may be an exercise in ethics and law, but at least the company will still be around!

From an older article which shows Microsoft's intentions:

Apparently this is now part of a larger strategy to create more University level students accustomed to using and developing proprietary software. "They have decided that the best way to increase enrollment is to work with universities to incorporate robotics and computer games into the computer science curriculum as class projects where students can exercise their technical skills." The robotics and computer games would be developed using various Microsoft proprietary software tools instead of the currently preferred Open Source/Free software tools.

Microsoft already has its sights on the robot biz: see Microsoft's Robots Will Assimilate You .

In other news, at a company conference in Boston, a Microsoft executive referred to the low-cost, user-programmable robot business as 'our house', and warned Linux to stay out. He went on to say "Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do ... Humanoid bots is our business, it's our house and Linux is not going to take that business."

2006 -- True Artificial Intelligence

2009 -- Human-Level AI

2011 -- Cybernetic Economy

2012 -- Superintelligent AI

2012 -- Joint Stewardship of Earth

...as well as http://robots.net/ is a community for robot hackers/hobbyists. Also http://www.xrobots.co.uk/ is a guy who builds human sized bipeds out of wood and other 'normal' materials

The CMU bashing here (and subtley embedded in the wired article--everybody loves an underdog) is not really valid.

According to The Grand Challenge Tracking Site:

Stanley's official time was 6:53 and CMU's was 7:04 minutes.

I don't think that ridiculing CMU as having a "poor strategy" for doing something in an additional 11 minutes that was impossible for the entire robotics industry just a year ago is very. . . wise.

Personally, I'm overjoyed that Stanley won it. I think he's an excellent system and that Stanford deserves the praise. (Besides, those b*stards at CMU didn't let me in for my undergrad)--but making fun of their 2004 'strategy' (when they went further than any other team) and their 2005 results (when they were a scant 11 minutes behind the leader, and were 2 of only 5 teams to have a 'bot cross the finish line) seems silly to me.

And for the people wondering: Stanley is rumoured to have run linux, though last I heard the team hadn't confirmed it. In fact, most of the qualifiers for the race were running at least one linux machine.

The AI4U textbook of artificial intelligence was thoroughly trashed with vicious reviews by malevolent miscreants on Amazon.

Complaining by the textbook author to one of the reviewers accomplished nothing

Association for Computing Machinery publishes the truth, but Amazon won't.

A rebuttal to Amazon AI4U reviews had to be published prominently on-line.

Slashdot coverage of AI4U was fair and open-minded, but there is no official review of AI4U on Slashdot -- until some brave, truthful, AI-savvy soul submits one.

AGI Radar is the ultimate antidote to Amazon review treachery.

1 par (element=0; element<SIZE; element++) {
2 seq {
3 par (element2=0; element2<SIZE-1; element2++) {
4 ifselect(element>element2) {
5 if(uList[element] > uList[element2])
6 comp[element][element2] = 1;
7 } else ifselect (element<=element2) {
8 if(uList[element] >= uList[element2+1])
9 comp[element][element2] = 1;
10 }
11 }
13 position[element] = SUM_OF_DIGITS(comp[element]);
14 sList[position[element]]=uList[element];
15 }
16 }

Woud the KuroBox suit your purposes?

Hmm... the Revolution Store and main web site appear to be undergoing some sort of maintenance at the moment, but the wiki is still online...

I originally saw this on robots,net, but it looks like it might suit your needs...

Humanoid robots might also have uses for these artificial silicon retina microchips.
Robots with a sense of vision could use them to acquire humanoid eyeballs.
Artificial General Intelligence is a lot closer than many people realize.

Could the 3D Movement Recognition Sensors be used for enhancing artificial intelligence in robots?

I enjoy some blogs, although I have to admit that the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty bad. Here's a few which I personally find interesting and read regularly. I'm a neuro, space, and robotics geek, so the list is biased as such.

* Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) News: The most thorough spaceflight blog around, focusing on reusable systems.
* NASA Watch: A well-known site with regular critiques of NASA.
* Free Republic: Like slashdot, but for ultra-conservatives. I sometimes like to go there to get a better understanding of what goes through the heads of people who think differently from me.
* Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log: "Quantum fluctuations in space, science, and exploration"
* Democratic Underground: The extreme left's version of Free Republic.
* Instapundit: The slashdot-equivalent of political weblogging, with a somewhat libertarian slant. Known for causing "Instalanches" on innocent web servers, analogous to "Slashdottings."
* Daily Kos: Probably the most influential liberal blog.
* Transterrestrial Musings: a libertarian space analyst who helped me understand why it's possible to be intelligent and support the war in Iraq at the same time. He sometimes posts some fantastic satires.
* theferrett's livejournal: sometimes writes some very insightful and well-composed essays
* spacexploration livejournal community: Space-related miscellany and discussion.
* politicsforum livejournal community: Sometimes has some pretty intelligent political discussion.
* robots.net: Robotics news
* Space Politics: "Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway"
* Rocket Man Blog: Rarely updated, but has very insightful and informed analysis of spaceflight and rocketry.
* Howard Lovy's NanoBot: Nanotechnology news and commentary

The story of John E. LaMuth and his patent on the 10 laws was carried on Robots.net in August of 2003. Slashdot's running a bit behind on this one! http://robots.net/article/931.html

There was an Autonomous Lawn Mower Competition going on earlier this month - saw it mentioned on robots.net

Here's the original post from robots.net...

A recent National Science Foundation press release includes photos and video clips of the latest Scout emergency response robots. Scout is a small (100mm x 35mm) two wheeled, tube-shaped robot containing a video camera, IR range sensors, light sensors, pyroelectric sensors, and two-way radio links that support frequency hopping and encryption. MegaScout is a larger version that will eventually carry manipulator arms, grappling hooks, and may act as a mothership for the smaller scouts. The robots are designed to survive a six story fall or being thrown up to 100 feet into a disaster area. The Scouts are built entirely from off-the-shelf parts. The robots are being deveoped by Nikos Papanikolopoulos
and other researchers from the University of Minnesota Distributed Robotics Lab, the University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab, and the Caltech Robotics Group. More video of the robots performing amazing feats is available on the UMN website.

Here's the original post from robots.net...

A recent National Science Foundation press release includes photos and video clips of the latest Scout emergency response robots. Scout is a small (100mm x 35mm) two wheeled, tube-shaped robot containing a video camera, IR range sensors, light sensors, pyroelectric sensors, and two-way radio links that support frequency hopping and encryption. MegaScout is a larger version that will eventually carry manipulator arms, grappling hooks, and may act as a mothership for the smaller scouts. The robots are designed to survive a six story fall or being thrown up to 100 feet into a disaster area. The Scouts are built entirely from off-the-shelf parts. The robots are being deveoped by Nikos Papanikolopoulos
and other researchers from the University of Minnesota Distributed Robotics Lab, the University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab, and the Caltech Robotics Group. More video of the robots performing amazing feats is available on the UMN website.

UT Austin researchers developed a fuel cell powered by the glucose in human blood back in 2002. Here's a link to the story on robots.net

Toshiba's ApriAlpha can already use their laptop methanol fuel cell.

Also, tons more pictures linked at boingboing.net. I'm too lazy to post all the links so just go there and click.

There's even a photo of that exoskeleton for nurses that was mentioned a while ago.

finally something that matches the style,engineering and innovation of my R.O.B

Robots.net and Scientifinc American have some discussion on the differences between the Roomba and the Electrolux Trilobite, which has been selling in Europe from since last summer.

Living with a Trilo roaming our household, its sonar crackling now and then, when it looks for a power-up at its dock, is much like having a pet :)

J

Sorry, mixed them up. I've only the weak excuse, that Kitano works for Sony.

Kitano Lab's Pino is still more impressive, but costs about $30k (as sold by ZMP Corp. for research purposes).
This is a little bit more than the 6k, I've to admit.

For the price of Sony SDR-4X. We are back to guessing.
$30k-$40k is one guess. But the statement of Toshitada Doi (Executive VP), that the robot costs "as much as a car, a luxury car", makes me think, it will even cost a little bit more.

... let me see, clicking the link in my robots.net Slashdot sidebar confirms that, yes - they are indeed iRobot Packbots. ;-)

robots.net frequently has articles on Micro Air Vehicles and Micromechanical Flying Insect robots. The Berkley MFI Project Overview is another good place to get more info.

Perhaps I should have selected "Technology" rather than "Science". Anyway, I found it at robots.net, another mod_virgule site. Get your robot news there first!

After looking at it a minute, I realized the wording and the two links were lifted exactly from a story that appeared earlier today on robots.net. Looks like I'm not the only one that has a robots.net slashbox...

There are a ton of robots on the Mindstorms site and on robots.net that are much more sophisticated.

Anyone else reminded of ROB the Robot from the old first American Nintendo release?

:^)

Ryan Fenton

There are a number of other robot competitions, but they're a lot less commercial than BattleBots and Robot Wars, so they don't get the media attention. I don't consider BB and RW to be actual robots anyway, because they're radio controlled rather than autonomous. There's a list of many of the other competitions here.