Slashdot Mirror
Fujitsu Releases Specs For Hackable Robot
S. Allen writes: "According to this article, Fujitsu will release the specifications to their RT-Linux based humanoid robot next week to encourage development and research. The article states, 'The software used to program Hoap-1 will run on RT-Linux -- a version of the open-source operating system that is designed for robotic applications, as well as data acquisition and systems control functions. Simulation software will let users test their code before letting it loose on Hoap-1'"
This is great!!! I've been trying for months to make the tape backup machines robot arm attack people!!! Now I can get a full robot thats meant to be hacked. :)
So instead of a bluescreen or a kernel panic message, this thing will just flail its arms about yelling "Danger Will Robinson"?
Check out this link for more info. This one is from MIT (quite a bit old, but it's still interesting read). And then of course there is the Humanoid Project.
Simulation software will let users test their code before letting it loose on Hoap-1.
Let's hope it's good stuff. How stupid would you feel being strangled by a rogue bot?
Writers imply. Readers infer.
28,000 pounds? You could by enough Aibo's to have your own football team of them.
Still, maybe that's a bargin to robotics researchers, would-be world dictators and the robot-porn industry. I think it's priced well beyond the reach of most OS developers.
Of course, it would make a great entry for BattleBots.
All you need to do is combine that robot with this thing, and you'll never need a real girlfriend again!
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It may be "the world's first attempt to sell a humanoid robot that users can program freely", but it surely is not the first robot that users can program freely. Researchers at universities want robots that have all/most of the hardware or software specs open. Like data sheets of electronic parts and source code of control software. And this has been the case for a long time. For example, these research robots have always been freely programmable.
for the less-dangerous (civilian vs military?) version:
diff -u post1 post2
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
ENEMY == HUMAN
IF SIGHT = HUMAN THEN
- KILL HUMAN
+ POKE HUMAN
OR ELSE LOOK HUMAN
DIE;
A picture of the Fujitsu Robot> Anyone got any better links than the one paragraph ones?? I did notice that Rodney Brooks is a Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at MIT. I wonder how much of COG is in the new robot??
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
48cm?! How am I going to get it to reach the stuff at the top of the fridge? Does it come with go-go-gadget legs/arms?
Although 28K (pounds) seems expensive for the average citizen, Fujitsu may have an un-tapped market in the city of Chicago if only the robot can be programmed to walk into a polling place and (punch 10) aka vote for Mayor Daley on election day.
..... it really is a much more elegant method than having dead people vote
The city would no dought buy 1000's
* Carthago Delenda Est *
these go very well together don't you think?
I want Linux used in business and science applications, but not when a firm is likely to restrict the most media-genic and lucrative uses, such as this robot, to a closed Linux.
This will popularize Linux, but the visibility, and the profits, will go to a particular group of Linux developers who tend to stand apart from the rest of the community.
In other words, the nerds who fall in love with this robot will also drift further away from the open Linux cultures; any use RTLinux gets is an attack on the open Linux culture.
Goat sex free since 2001
Smithers... release the robotic Richard Simmons!
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
U-Mass has a cool collections of Robot videos here from their Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics: http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/robotics-mpegs.ht ml
-- a must see for those interested in robotics.
here. Postercomment compression filter? WTF?
Just wondering if a virus was writen that made a robot freak out and kill someone if the owner of the robot would be responsible. If you so, if your desktop computer is infected and involved in a DOS or something like it, and cause damages are you responsible under the same logic.
Just a passing brain cramp, but it should be interesting to think about.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Of course we know that childern provide a better value work force than robots, but what about those pesky adults, in the western world it won't be hard to cut expences....
I used to love the idea of making a bipod robot when I was younger, now I they seem scarey... are we making suicide bombers for the west? I'm going to stop now...
M0571y H@rml355.
I don't know that I'd want to buy a robot if I knew hackers could take control of it. The consequences of hackers infiltrating a robot could range from the merely annoying to the catastrophic (especially if the robot in question is equipped with a rotary saw, a la BattleBots).
As well, has anybody assessed the national security risks associated with hackable robots, in light of the recent terror attacks?
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
the fujitsu site has abit more info and a picture
http://pr.fujitsu.com/en/news/2001/09/10.html
- MbM
It's a CD changer for a CD burner. (My sincere appoligies for slashdotting their webserver.)
My original goal was to create a cheap robot that:
can lift a fresh CD using suction cups (not shown in picture)
use eject & eject -t commands to open & close CD tray
burn CD via shell script
when finished, switch CDs and start all over
drive mechanism using cheap rotating threaded rod (worm drive)
wooden frame (cheap & easy to build)
use Jeremy Elson's Parapin program to control the device via parallel port
goal 1 - make it cheaper than $50 to build. using easy to find parts
goal 2 - make it easy for others to build.
The ultimate hack would be to combine it with a MP3 database, napster, perl script,and wget to download and burn the billboard top 40 (or similar concept)
A project like this is not meant to be practical.
Just something fun that hasn't been done before. Yes, I have seen a similar lego robot that works with a home audio system, but it only had about 7 disks available, it looked like a tough mechanism to integrate with a Computer tower, and the basic lego mindstorms sets sell for about $200.00
Comments/suggestions/related links welcome and strongly encouraged.
I post the news last time as soon as LinuxDevices has news on this and got rejected.
Now zdnet featuring this old news and got spotlighted? What's up with you editors?
So it isn't a worthy news until your Greatest ZDNet featuring it?
Mod me down if you like, you ZDNet dude.
I noticed some Insecto Bots in a local KB Toys this week. I know B.I.O. Bugs aren't slated to hit stores until 9/30/01, but does anyone have any opinions on them? Does anyone own an Insecto Bot yet?
Any chance either toy might be nifty for more than 15 minutes (unlike the Furby we all bought after that article in Wired before its release)?
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Quick!
Go to Freshmeat
Read the names of the first two projects. What are the odds?
Maybe it'll be a little further down, but you'll know the ones I mean.
Jonathan
I don't think the cost matters at all. Since there's a simulator, you can at least write your own code for it, which can then be used by the people that CAN afford the robot. Isn't this what open source is all about?
RTLinux is a hard real-time operating system that handles time-critical tasks and runs Linux as its lowest priority execution thread. In RTLinux, a small hard-realtime kernel shares one or more processors with standard Linux. This allows the system to run accurately timed applications to perform data acquisition, systems control and robotics, while still serving as a standard Linux workstation. - from RTLinux
I wouldn't say you're stupid, but isn't typing "www.rtlinux.org" easier than posting a question on Slashdot?
RTLinux provides a REAL TIME operating environment. Many people make the mistake of thinking this means "fast." In reality, you have an environment for real time programs to run in, and then a version of Linux run in its own thread. The difference is that Linux only gets PART of the processor time, the rest devoted to programs designed to operated on a real time OS/in a real time enviroment, which is quite different from what Linux provides. Real time enviroments handle memory different as well as their process queues (where the OS hands actual executable code off to the processor).
They also provide preemptive multitasking, where a program can use a interrupt or similar service to get to the head of the ready queue, rather than the back.
Also, the treatment of memory provides for some unique interprocess communications techniques that are ONLY available under certain RTOS environments.
In essence, it's not the LINUX that is real time, but the OS, which gives the LINUX a share of processor time/memory, which allows for a linux style interface to a real time system.
I was searching for mainly pictures, and i found the following:
:)
http://pr.fujitsu.com/en/news/2001/09/10.html - a generic article with a picture. Discusses specs.
It looks like it will be rather expensive, they have set the price to "open" with a sales expectation of 100 over three years. It has 20 degrees of movement. It uses RTLinux(like the other article mentioned) and uses USB to act as the "Direct Interface and Robot's Internal Network." also, it mentions that HOAP-1 stands for Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform
Imagine - a small army. A cluster if you will. wouldn't that be "wyrd"
Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public. - Frank Zappa
Robots today are like computers were yesterday... We are underestimating their use and capability.
We just haven't figured out what to do with them yet.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
These things better have the three laws of robotics built into the software. They go a little like this.
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I can see a few scientists overlooking this little ruleset and losing some limbs to Fujitsubot 2001.
The reason it is (relatively) cheap, hackable is probably because they are looking for good software to run future robots. For example someone may work out a good algorithm that combine robotic vision and motor control to make some kind of rescue bot that can crawl into small places. Or work out a way for a robot to be able to right itself if it falls down.
:-)
I bet their idea is to have generic robots that can do many different tasks base solely on the software; rather than spending lots of money building very specialized robots that can only do one or two things. Actually this is just like real human! We are more or less the same physically, but we are trained to do many different tasks without growing extra arms or eyes.
So if you work in an university with a good size robotic research group you can probably convince them to send one to you for free
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Maybe I'm missing something obvious but, I'd like to see what this device looks like.
A one banana problem.
-
Stiquito for Beginners : An Introduction to Robotics
-
Stiquito : Advanced Experiments With a Simple and Inexpensive Robot
And it comes with a kit (attached to the book) that includes the nitinol wires that act as the muscles. You'll have your own creepy crawly insect-bots running in no time...I've been asking myself the question for some time...
And I'am too dumb to find it on YaExAltahoocitevista...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
It proves him to be a man a taste, and of no small persuasion 8)
Just his 0.2 yards 8|
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
This is a very cool robot, but the price is rather high, is the $40000 range. It is mostly geared to colleges :-(
As the press release says they are targeting to sell 100 robots over a span of three years.
Who is going to have the means to purchase these? labs, schools, corporations. not you and me brotha...
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
I knew what the net was going to look like in 1990, and ruined 10 good years of social life trying to make the first MMORPG... My other two ideas for money was Instant messages or an auction site.
Now we're REALLY close to AI. About 100,000 man hours away. Or less if we use already known components.
Just 2 things are needed: 3d robotic imagination, and sensory devices to interpret the world.
If the robot can understand the world, then it can use a game playing algorithm to make the best method of achieving a goal via subgoals....
And for natural language understanding, just picture old school Zork. If it doesn't understand what you're saying, it will either guess in context, or ask you flat out what you mean.
Then you finally can get computers to read books etc. The difference between a robot and a human are the top level goals. Humans are controlled by pleasure and pain chemicals: drugs, learning, sweets, sex, moving, sports. Robots will need the top level goals given by humans, so robots can be used as slaves. "Hey robot go shovel the snow out of my driveway."
More crap about this at:
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/
I can TOTALLY code this from start to finish, but it would take me like 20 years. If someone gave me a 3d engine, I could probably get it done in 5-10... But if I had smart people working with me, its no more than a 2 year task.
God spoke to me
I think it's great, but we need more info.