Slashdot Mirror
Robots Do The Darndest Things
alito writes "15 years ago they couldn't get them to walk, now they are rollerskating (video). Read more about the 2004 Intelligent Robotics and Systems conference in this New Scientist article, and at the conference's site. Also shown at IROS, a childbirth simulator for obstetricians, a capsule that crawls through your intestines, and a 3-mm long swimming robot. (No, I don't get paid by New Scientist.)"
Do you even read the stories you post?
Bill Cosby interviewing some of those 'bots' :)
...we should be okay...
Doctor: Okay, put the robot in.
Patient: Doc, this feels a little funny...
Doctor: Nurse, which robot did you use?
Nurse: Oh dear god, I think I used the roller skating one!
Patient: AAaagggh...
Doctor: D'oh, there goes another one!
Nurse: Well, I'm off to check on the obstetrical robot!
Doctor: Make sure that one's not wearing rollerskates!
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
You know, not only did I not think that robot was great at roller-skating, I just can't think of any real use for a roller-skating robot even if it were a real ace at the sport. Meanwhile, my house could use cleaning, and there aren't any robots to do it for me (well, Roomba et al, but I'm talking real cleaning). I think there needs to be a reevaluation of priorities in the robot design field. Who needs another goddamned dancing/skating/stairclimbing robot?
is here.
Here is a mirror for the Rollerbot Video:
http://shell.athenet.net/~files/rollerbot.wmv
It'll probably get slashdotted too, but to sources are better than one right?
I think you may be missing the point. Rollerskating, running, walking, what have you, are important fundamental tasks that must be worked out before you will *have* a robot that can do something advanced like wash your dishes or walk you dog. If it can't rollerskate with perfection how do you expect a robot to perfrom a mundane task competently. I for one welcome rollerskating robots.
The robots is a small version of the Honda robot, both are not autonomous as they are controlled by a human operator. Just like UAV with a human on ground guiding it with a joystick.
These Japanese are playing stricks with the media saying they have advanced robots when in fact they are nothing more than radio controlled "toys"!
Who thought of The Matrix immediately after reading the blurb about "3mm swimming robots"
scary.....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Here's a mirror of the video. Not sure how fast it'll be.
From TFA:
Looks like Professor Xavier may follow shortly!
But seriously, this does seem to be a real potential benefit for all humans. We will effectively be able to extend our own bodies using robotic technology, perhaps controlling figher aircraft and other complex machinery with our minds.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
In my opinion, it is not a question of *when* we'll get trouble from the robots we're going to create, but what we're going to do about it.
We might as well start planning right now. The article in the posting, as well as numerous other reports, show that the robot mechanics is getting better and better. What is lacking, is some real AI. I think that within 30-50 years, if not before, this "problem" will also be solved.
That's when trouble starts. As Isaac Asimov shows in his literary "experiments" with the three laws of robotics, even *with* benign top priority imperatives NOT TO HARM humans, we may not be safe.
Given the mechanics and the AI, how will robots become a threat to us? Imagine a scientist in a robot laboratory sometime in the future. He/she has all the parts needed to produce the ultimate robot: agile and completely autonomous. I think the temptation will be too much for *any* person. It will be impossible to refrain from releasing a completely free and autonomous robot into society to see what happens. Imagine the excitement: This is comparable to a second creation; it is almost like being God.
Naturally, the robot will have a strong need for self preservation. So it will start to secure land, natural resources, labour, spare parts, factories, and so on, and build other robots and societies to fulfill these and other purposes.
This is when conflicts will start. Wars often start as a result of a disagreement over natural resources or land.
Ideas, anyone?
Seriously, the robot dancer/skater/stairclimber are all interesting but they run through what I assume is a static algorithm . . . what about inducing some disturbance and writing an algorithm to reject the disturbance to the robot's balance system.
The attraction for androids is only skin deep. Today's androids are just a mass of wires. Getting a robot to walk, shake hands, play chess, etc. is substantially different from a sentient machine.
Sentience impresses me, but a mechanical shaking hand does not.
Its walking akwardly while wearing wheels on its feet.
Which, to anybody who's learned to skate, is of course remembered fondly as those first steps before you learned why they made you wear those uncomfortable wrist guards.
Its a nice little robotic achievement, but its not skating.
Actual skating would involve a phase of sliding along between "steps".
You can't take the sky from me...
Oops fixed link.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
(No, I don't get paid by New Scientist.)
Obviously, you get paid by their web host who is now charging them $5 a gig overage charges.
Narrator [in movie]: Ordinary human dating. It's enjoyable and it serves an important purpose. [He turns the table over and a crying baby appears. He turns it back again.] But when a human dates an artificial mate, there is no purpose. Only enjoyment. And that leads to...tragedy.
[The woman behind him turns into a blank robot and the man downloads a celebrity onto it.]
Billy [in movie]: Neato! A Marylin Monroebot!
Monroebot [in movie]: Ooo! You're a real dreamboat (mechanical voice) Billy Everyteen!
Narrator [in movie]: Harmless fun? Let's see what happens next!
[The scene cuts to Billy's bedroom. He is kissing the Monroebot. Enter his mother.]
Billy's Mom [in movie]: Billy, do you want to walk your dog?
Billy [in movie]: No thank Mom, I'd rather make out with my Monroebot.
[Enter his dad.]
Billy's Dad [in movie]: Billy, do want to get a paper route and earn some extra cash?
Billy [in movie]: No thanks dad, I'd rather make out with my Monroebot.
[Enter his girlfriend, Mavis, from the café.]
Mavis [in movie]: Billy, do you want to come over tonight? We can make out together.
Billy [in movie]: Gee Mavis, your house is across the street, that's an awfully long way to go for making out.
Narrator [in movie]: Did you notice what went wrong in that scene? Ordinarily Billy would work hard to make money from his paper route then he'd use the money to buy dinner for Mavis, thus earning the slim chance of performing the reproductive act. But in a world where teens can date robots why should he bother? Why should anyone bother? Let's take a look at Billy's planet a year later. [The scene changes and a foam hand rolls across an empty American football field] Where are all the football stars? [The foam hand continues to drift across an empty laboratory.] And where are the biochemists? [The scene changes to a split screen of a pair of human and robots making out on beds.] They are trapped - trapped in a soft, vice-like grip of robot lips. All civilisation was just an effort to impress the opposite sex. And sometimes the same sex. Now, let's skip forward 80 years into the future. Where is Billy?
[The scene changes to a post-apocalyptic world. Billy is an aged man but he is still with his Monroebot and still making out with her.]
Billy [in movie]: Farewell!
[He dies.]
Narrator [in movie]: The next day Billy's planet was destroyed by aliens. [In the movie a fleet of flying saucers destroy buildings with a quick laser shot.] Have you guessed the name of Billy's planet? It was Earth. Don't Date Robots!
Making the QRIO skate is not really a big technological achievement considering that the leg motions have already been pre-programmed to get the robot to walk. It is really a matter of calculating the weights and trying to balance the robot while moving the legs to propel the robot.
Now, if they can program a neural network that changes the leg and arm movements in relation to a physics model, and have the robot learn how to walk and skate by trail-and-error, then I'd be more impressed. THAT is what we should aim for nowadays.
Being an ob/gyn myself, I read the article on the birthing simulator. Reminds me of the Star Trek episode when Warf delivers a baby and says, "That's not the way it happened in the simulator." I wonder if the simulator squirts body fluids, yells and curses like real life. There's just no telling where techonology will go next. Prostate exam simulator?
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
Please save us some time bringing up a player that cannot work. I have to do a search to find RealPlayer 10.
If it's windows media or apple player only, some us using only Linux would know not to bother.
Because of this, legged robots are back to walking, rather than jogging or running. The field has regressed since Raibert and Hodgins.
Are you kidding? The process is as automated as possible. The reader submits story and a script assigns a 1d20 probability in that story being selected (based on the karma and subscription status of the submitter, of course). If it manages to pass that AC rating check, the script assigns the story an editor name at random and publishes it to the front page. Of course, stories occationaly roll and natural 20, wence they are kicked to a live editor for approval. Obviously this isn't a common occurance as you can tell.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
http://www.caip.rutgers.edu/vrlab/publications/pap ers/1999_ieee_tbe.pdf , prostate examination simulator, there is one for the simulation of the female pelvis too .... no telling of what can be built given the time , money and idle brains of grad students