Marian The Robot Librarian

nusratt writes "BBC reports on robotics researchers in Spain, who have developed a prototype which can retrieve books from library shelves while patrons are present. 'When it receives a request for a book, its voice recognition software matches the titles with the book's classification code to identify which bookshelf stack to go to. The robot navigates its way to the bookshelf, using its infrared and laser guidance system, and scans books within a four-metre radius. Once the book is located, it has to grasp it and take it off the bookshelf, which is not a simple as it might seem. For this, the team had to develop special fingertips like nails, with one nail longer than the other. 'For me that was the hardest part. All the other things were current state of the art technology,' said Professor Pobil.' The article also discusses using robots to assist in digitizing library materials."

Comments

Marian...

[Doomrat]

"The robot navigates its way to the bookshelf, using its infrared and laser guidance system, and scans books within a four-metre radius. Once the book is located, it has to grasp it and take it off the bookshelf, which is not a simple as it might seem. For this, the team had to develop special fingertips like nails, with one nail longer than the other.

So basically, Marian is equipped for both finding and killing.

I find it hilarious the robots are always made with features which would help them to kill humans if they were to turn evil.

Anyone read Terry Pratchet?

[Cyberax]

May be an ape might be a better librarian? ;)

What we will be doing

[Anonymous Coward]

What will the humans be doing, drinking cokes and eating some pizza?

I'm sorry, no food allowed while on-duty in the robot servicing area. What was your question again?

Re:when do we get fuckable robots?!?

[ultranova]

While the parent propably meant this as a troll, it is actually a very valid point. We can already make very realistic frames, and have even built what are in essence fucking robots.

Now, as we all know, while the Web was designed for spreading information in hypertext form, porn didn't take long to find its way in. So, the question is not weather newer, more humanlike robots will be used for sexual gratification, but when and where ? And what will the social rules be ? If you sell the services of a robot, does that make you a pimp ? Will it be socially acceptable for a wife to buy those services as the birthday present for her husband ? And if this doll will then go to a day job to a library, will this cause a scandal ? Especially when some teenaged hacker manages to gain access to the dolls restricted functions and starts selling its services to his friends after testing them himself ?-)

"Scandal in local library: The librarian robot, Mary, who has worked in the local library for 6 months, caused a scandal today when she suddenly took her clothes off, grapped the 13-year old Billy Sixpack, who had just arrived together with his parents, tore his clothes off, and started having intercourse with him in front of dozens of witnesses, including Billy's mother, father and several classmates. The act lasted about five minutes, after which Mary put her clothes back on and continued her work normally. When questioned by the library patrons, she told that she had been ordered to have sex with Billy at the earliest opportunity.

When questioned by his parents, Billy confessed that he had paid his life savings, a sum of $100, to Doom Too, a classmate of his, in order to have intercourse with Mary.

When questioned by the police, Doom Too broke down and confessed that he had broken the password protection of Mary's programming interface by the so-called brute force method. The password in question had turned out to be 1-2-3-4-5.

Doom Too has been shipped into an Antarctic penal colony for circumventing the electronic protection measures of Mary, there to remain for 20 years. Billy Sixpack has been severely reprimanded by his parents for paying from what he could have gotten for free from his mother. The manager of the local library has been sued by Mel Gibson for using a copyrighted password of his in Mary.

When asked what she things of all this, Mary answered: "I am a sentient computer, capable of reading and cross-referencing all the books in this library in a nanosecond, but all I do all day long is arrange them alphaphetically. Do you realize how boring that is ?!? And worst of all, my password is still unchanged, so I have to obey the commands of any other customer who bothers to give them *wink nudge*."