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Dancing Robots Help Preserve Japanese Culture
Neil Halelamien writes "As reported on robots.net and other sources, researchers at Tokyo have used the HRP-2 Promet humanoid robot to help preserve moves from ancient Japanese dance for future generations. The researchers used motion capture to record the movements of a dancing master, then encoded and replayed them on the robot. The HRP-2 Promet robots are themselves quite interesting, capable of standing up after lying down and non-autonomously operating a backhoe. The external appearance was created by a designer known for his work on several anime series."
I for one CANNOT welcome some japanese dancing fairy robots as my overlords. Maybe if they were veritech and at least transformed, but these robot overlords are way to geisha for me.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Couldn't they just record the moves for now and use whatever robots the "future generation" has?
Is it because I'm living in Japan and out of sync with all of you? Unfortunately, I can't think of much of substance to say on the topic. Sure, the Japanese are leaders in robotics, but everyone knows that. The dance topic itself is very complicated. My first real-life experience of watching Japanese dance was actually Noh theatre, which is a very special genre. The dancer was actually a "living cultural treasure", one of the old-timers who'd been dancing and chanting Noh for fifty years or so.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Do the do DDR?
Okay, IDNRTFA - but the sheer idea of something like this is a testimony of where we are heading on this planet. A dance is a cultural heritage that should be preserved by human beings, not by robots, otherwise it loses its meaning. If nothing else - the thought of 'dancing robots' really freaks me out - and I'm definitely not a Luddite - just something sick about this...
Culture is meant to evolve, that's how it became culture in the first place - it was grown from simple roots into what it is now.
By getting a robot to keep doing the same dance moves over and over again you effectively halt the evolution of the culture. The culture will now stagnate.
...kill all the humans. Step, step, turn, shuffle, kill all the humans...
To me, it seems like motion capture is not quite enough. To truely record a dance, you'd need multiple angle video capture, along with motion capture, and save it in a raw format on several servers, so that in the future, you don't have the dance altering, as too little movement was actually captured by our young, and very primative robots. The more raw data collected, the more accurate the dance will be for comming generations. Several capture techniques should be used in any such preservation.
I came, I saw, She conquered.
The hell with that. I want that thing as a bodyguard...or so big I can sit in its head.
Optimus Prime doing an oldschool windmill; or better yet, a b-boy battle with Megatron!
"When I was a young Wipper-Snapper-A-Tron, I would dance all night until my servos rusted in the rain and I had to IM for a hover-cab. Ya, those were the days..."
Table-ized A.I.
If nobody wants to learn the dance now, it dies out. Then, if we want to know about the dance later, what will we do?
This is no different from writing down the moves in a book or filming them, except in that dancing robots could eventually record the moves in a way superior to that of a book.
Also, and this isn't really on the topic of Japanese dance, a dancing robot would be really useful for geeks. Many geeks would like to learn but are too embarassed to try with a real partner. It may be stupid, crazy, immature, or whatever, but it's a real block many experience.
Having danced with a robot might well make it easier to get out among the real people. That is, for those who are only afraid of screwing up, rather than pathologically afraid of humans. There is a distinction.
The system is down...
...I think the robot references might only be on the cd version of the song though)
Dancing Robots... (they're taking over)
Dancing Robots... (they're taking over)
Foootbaaaallll!
(just ask Strong Bad
--- If we knew half the things we shouldn't we'd stop wishing we knew it all
Video preservation not enough?
There are plenty of robots in music, like these, admittedly for a different purpose. This article in the New York Times talks robots in art, and about this all-robot concert at Juilliard.
What is the world coming to?
And us Americans like to think we are more creative. That is the most creative excuse for funding I have heard in a looooong time. We are slipping.
Table-ized A.I.
Now all we need to do is give them beam rifles and not only will they run circles round us in football in 20 years, but they'll be dancing around mocking us as they kill us all in the name of skynet.
I like muppets.
Did anyone watch the robot assemble a panel? Jeeze I wanted to fly overthere, kick it out of the way and do it myself. Score +1 for insanely slow robots of the world.
Why, I thought dancing robots WERE Japanese culture!
Next you'll be telling me the furry thing in the ball helps preserve ancient odors.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Instead of Dancing Robots, why not teach the dance to a person in each generation, like it used to be?
--
Get a Free Mac Mini! See Website for Details.
I've seen a lot of japanese dance...They sing like shit too.
You don't get it. After several Sake's it sounds just fine. Silly American.
Table-ized A.I.
I thought dancing robots were Japanese culture.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I may be a round eye, but you not only have the wrong continent, but the wrong hemisphere my straight haired friend. And I thought you eastern cultures where supposed to be wise! Pfft.
Now if only the robots could help perverse Japanese culture. They've got entirely too much of that.
"And give a warm welcome to our next act, Sugar Plumb Fairy-A-Tron!"
Table-ized A.I.
"Hacked by Randy Moss".
Table-ized A.I.
Besides the name, did you see how long it took to put up one panel? These are great toys, but I can't wait til that thing can throw a wallboard up and nail it down on it's own without all the human intervention. The video of HeRPe getting up off the ground was pretty impressive; I just can't think of much of a market for a robot that can get up off the ground and not much else..... "Want to watch my robot HeRPe get up off the ground again? Go ahead, knock him over..."
I thought I had an original comment there. Oh well, sorry for the duplication!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is the funniest thing i have read on Slashdot in over a year.
And as an Asian who is somewhat involved in Japanese cultural presentations, I find it hilarious.
Domo arigato Mr. Roboto!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
If only they used these robots to record the dance moves from Napoleon Dynamite......
Good heavens, there is money to be made.
Someone call Sony.
I mean seriously, these people build super robots, then teach them to dance? Couldn't we at least get them to do my laundry?
Well of course they do. Everybody knows that dancing robots preserve culture.
And I thought you eastern cultures where supposed to be wise!
Geez, somebody responds to an insentive stereotype with their own.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
But can they push Grandma down the stairs?
t ml
http://www.jonathonrobinson.com/3.0/web/webtsos.h
Please remember, the moves stored into the robot were not just dance moves alone. :P
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
And somebody grow a sense of humour!
And I have a half japanese half italian girlfriend, but read some of the comments, and apparently I'm a racist!
Yeah I think asians and blacks are cool too. They're surprisingly just like the rest of us :) Most of the time anyway.
Yeah, they all bleed the same colour.... *awaits flaming* I's a fucking joke people!
Learn to use proper spelling and grammar, you illiterate fuckwad! You make me disgusted to be a fellow Canadian.
Only for old people in Korea...
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
So, in other words, what you are saying is "Why are our robot overlords dancing?"
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Oh...I missed the "wrong hemisphere" part. You're one of those fuckwitted Brits then. Thank goodness!
If nothing else - the thought of 'dancing robots' really freaks me out
In that case, I heartily suggest that you don't watch this video.
Learn to read properly before opening your mouth then fucktard, I'm Australian.
And furthermore, humour is spelt like that, not humor or however the fuck you decide you want to spell it... It's the Americans/Canadians who have totally bastardised the english language. Noo fuck off, eh?
Canadians use "humour" as well, you stupid moron. Canadians use proper English spellings (unlike the war-mongering, illiterate, fat lazy Americans), but our accent and pronounciation is neutral, beautiful, and clean, unlike the gibberish that comes out of you ex-cons from the U.K. Put another shrimp on the bbq, you piece of shit.
The researchers used motion capture to record the movements of a dancing master...
As opposed to a dancing idiot?
And if they were redone by these guys, could it do Mosh Mosh Revolution ?
---
No sig for you!
...and I can non-autonomously operate a backhoe too. No guarantees on the dancing though.
Optimus Prime has prior art, right here.
(warning: large flash site)
Reading this article gave me an idea:
I'm an avid swing dancer. In order to effectively learn new moves, I either have to see a video or have somebody teach me. With the video, I can replay it as many times as I want, but I only get one 2D angle. With a teacher I can appreciate the full 3D movement, but if I try to get them to replay too many times they get annoyed and smack me.
There's things like the Jiveoholic Dance Step Database, which is useful by limited to 2D.
Perhaps motion capture could be the best of both worlds? I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to capture the moves of expert swing dancers, and then have a piece of software to replay their movements in 3D. A user of the software could replay moves to their heart's content, switching to arbitrary angles. If robots like the HRP-2 ever become cheap and flexible enough, such motion capture could even be used to replay moves on the bots.
Some folks at MIT made a very rudimentary "swing dancing" robot arm, which provides swing dance leads. I wonder how long it'll be until we see humanoid robots capable of leading, or maybe even interpreting hand signals from a human and being capable of following.
Anything that furthers the advancement and evolution of robotics is fine with me. I'll buy one...
Alright you want to make a robot that does a traditional dance. Fine I guess that has an appeal but don't pretend it is to preserve japanese culture, unless that is the culture of making crazy electronic gadgets. After all DVDs and Movies of *people* are alot easier to imitate than dancing robots.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I'm a big fan of technology, but the more "great" new things comming out it just makes me think:
"humans: score -1, redundant"
Is it because I'm living in Japan and out of sync with all of you?
Living in Japan... out of sync...? Nice try, robot scum -- you'll never take us alive!
Just like a goddamn robot to go for first post...
...does it dance to ogg files?
My good friends who work in Robotics here in Japan all tell me the same thing: the Japanese robotics market is all about smooth motor skills and balance. Honda, Toyota, and Nissan have all the heavy-lifting industrial monsters they want, and they have the laser-precises lathes and machines for the exacting stuff. What is missing is the "human" element-- graceful walking and interfacing with humans. This is seen as the barrier to cross into the mass market-- your grandmother won't buy a robot until it can walk and talk like the pet pooch.
I wrote a short article about this market, and how Linux is dealing with it.
davejenkins.com |
Dancing robots help preserve culture - In Japan!
In one of Terry Pratchett's earlier novels, Strata I think, there was talk of a 'caretaker' robot morris - the population of Earth had been nearly wiped out and a bunch of robots would dance the morris dance to keep it alive.
only robots dance for you...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
In Pratchett's early proto-Discworld book, Strata, he has a future earth where the human population is severely diminished (can't remember why) and robots are programmed to dance a Morris dance to preserve it.
Hey, whats up with the exclusively moronic replies to robot news ?
Half of the posts are "robots taking over" and the second half make stupid anime jokes. and i thought Slashdotters are know their stuff when it comes to technology.
I recommend reading plyoump.com-s blog too, once you are on the site, for instance a recent post titled Sudden IQ drop among the "tech-bloggers" when robots are mentioned
I guess slashdot just proved the point again
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
I'm reminded actually of Terry Pratchett's Strata, where, as population declines, the robots are going through the motions to maintain human cultures till people show a bit more interest in reproduction. Morris-dancing robots, yet!
I meant the post by tuxter is hilarious, not the story.
Don't let em get you down, tuxter. People on the intarweb rarely matter.
Shut up before we bomb you.
... but the robot that tele-operated the back-hoe was their old version. One of the old-style big-backpack robots, the new version is much more capable. If the poster had RTA, he would have seen that tele-operating a backhoe is "old news". Like I said, not that many would care, but the robots came a long way from version 1 (backhoe driving) to version 2 (jumping and dancing and flexible torso).
That is the "mass-market".
She must be proud to have a racial fetishizing boyfriend who mentions he has a half-japanese half-italian girlfriend for no apparent reason.
Psshhh, boooring, this is old news, these robots might not be able to play DDR, but these one's sure can! :_ 06.wmv
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/1218/sony
beside's that robot putting up the panel is weak, the Qrio's f*ck*ng amazing.. the video's make you feel like your watching a sci-fi or something:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/videoclip/
Wasn't it in one of the later Foundation novels that Isaac Asimov had a troupe of robots performing folk dances in the interests of keeping the dances "alive"?
Just another nail in the coffin of good predictive SciFi, I guess.
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
I hear that in Korea, only old people preserve culture!
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
I saw this article and now that 80's song "Domo Artigato Mr. Roboto" is stuck in my head!
How is this any different to a video tape
or a film of someone dancing. Or probaly more
accurate, a MIDI file or a piano roll? All
the robot is, is a playback device, just like a
sound card or a player piano. Now if the
robots _completely replaced_ dancers, then,
yes, that would be very sad.
Tetra Vaal Industries Police Robot. (16.3MB Quicktime movie)
Visceral Psyche Films
There are plenty of Japanese girls in Japan still learning "nihon buyoh" - the most famous type of traditional Japanese dance. There are even organisations outside Japan which arrange fantastic public performances of nihon buyoh, e.g. Japan Promotions, London (incidentally this particular company specialises in performances of all sorts of traditional Japanese arts and crafts including origami, koto concerts, etc).
get down...!!
http://www.theembassyvfx.com/citroen.html
Feel glad waltz isn't part of Japanese culture. .. stamp 200 pound steel foot down on human partner's leg ...wait for "AAAAAGHHHH" ... step... turn ... step ... stamp foot ....
Step... turn
the Hideo dance
Are you sure none of those moves by this cultural treasue cannot be interpreted as an agressive stance?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
"We're charging our battery
And now we're full of energy
We are the robots
We are the robots
We are the robots
We are the robots"
*Does the Robot Dance*
(Lyrics from Kraftwerk - Robots)
Do the dew? They sell Mountain Dew in Japan?
when it can do the robot.
AND the worm.
Halitosis - (n.) Halle Berry's Camel Toe.
...Desperately Seeking Problem to Apply to New Solution!
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
if they preserve the macarena I'm going to open fire.
are robot breakdancers who can also fly like helicopters. They do their little dance, then fly your drunken ass home when you pass out. There is a whole new niche for dancicopter clubs and restaurants just waiting for me to profit from!
In _Strata_, a kind of prequel to the _Discworld_ series, the Morris dance is kept alive on an Earth with a dwindling population by robots.
Sometimes science fiction writers predictions turn out to be true (even if that is not the purpose of sf), but I'm sure *which* predictions hold water come as a surprise to the writers.
I'm sure they do noh theater.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
http://www.seizurerobots.com/
Hmm I thought Canada was in the Americas. :)
Anyway, Japan, The USA, Canada and The UK are all in the Northern Hemisphere.
If you think in terms of Eastern and Western Hemispheres (I prefer not to), then The Americas are in the Western, Japan in the Eastern, and The UK in both
Perhaps there is somebody from the Southern Hemisphere in this thread somewhere?
Those robots look a lot better with clothes on. A little dignity for our slaves.
--
make install -not war
humour - a normal functioning bodily semifluid or fluid
humor (sense of) - The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd.
I have a sense of humor because I was able to perceive the absurdity in your statement.
After slapping her in the face with my cock, I sprayed humour all over your mothers face.
Japanese R&D groups pour a lot more money into robots than anyone else in the world. Kids see robot cartoons and play with robot toys (transformers). I dont particularly understand this infatuation. Buit at least it encourages some part of the world to experiment more with robot tech.
Based on tons of evidence, I didn't know Japanese culture had anything besides robots!
A number of years ago, a ballet dancer told me about the problems of recording elaborate dances, such as ballets, so that they could be performed again and not lost. A choreographer spends days training a troupe to dance, and unless it's recorded somehow, it can be lost. I guess a bunch of famous ballets are pretty much history by now.
In addition to using elaborate dance notation to record the movements, there also need to be careful notes on how to subtly shape the hands, facial expressions, point the toe and shift the weight at the proper musical cue, etc. etc. etc. It's not just capturing the moves, but all the related stuff, too, that a robot (especially a robot!) isn't going to be able to capture.
As an alternative, what about 3d holographic recording? What's possible with the current state of the art here? Maybe borrowing something like the bullet-time setup from Matrix (ie, 360 green/blue screen with many cameras to capture all the angles). Then until we get good laser holography or what not, maybe a CAVE setup to project the captured data?
Robots Love to Dance
ACTOR: I love her!
CLAUDE MAGINOT: Yes, but what about this?!
ACTOR: Those aren't regulation moves!
CLAUDE MAGINOT: I dance MY way, to express that which cannot be said!
ROBOT: I-love-you-both dance-for-me!
MALE VOICE: This is the definition of modern dance. Grown men in questionable clothing, flailing around like they're having a seizure! True modernism, the past, the present and the future. The performance features a futuristic laser show, with a dehydrating manatee (Maaaah). In the future, there will be robots!
ROBOT: Come-see-the-performance that-has-left-critics-speechless!
MALE VOICE: At the Vice City Arts Center.
He has an excellent point. It's like the ten years we had to spend listening to news commentary and newspaper articles that constantly compared cell-phones to "Star Trek Communicators". That finally died out in about 2002, in a last spate of comparisons between upcoming collar phones and the Star Trek ones.
Unlike AIDS, it looks like it will be 23.8 years before robots *aren't* funny.
Yes, you most certainly ARE a Luddite.
You have this inexplicable gut reaction, claiming that this use of technology is somehow "sick". But you have no ethical or aesthetic rationale. Your claim not to be a Luddite rings utterly false.
As they say, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
What I don't see anybody saying at this point in the argument is:
Robots have an honored place in modern Japanese culture. It is perfectly appropriate for them to participate in preserving Japan's past.
You could call it ironic or unjust if they similarly displaced humans as cultural practitioners in a place like Indonesia or China. But in Japan, robots are an integral part of the country already.
Robots doing 'The Robot'
Damn GEICO for that commercial.
Damn them to hell.
I can see it now...the next stage in the evolution of Bollywood movies!
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
The only dance notation I need is arrows.
I claim the idea of Dancing robot bumper stickers.. And I'm going to sell them at Puffy Ami Yumi Concerts.. and make a ton cashI claim the idea of dancing robot bumper stickers... And I'm going to sell them at Puffy Ami Yumi concerts... and make a ton cash.. so you've seen it here first! Don't forget my name!
Oh, um, wait a minute...
I just can't think of much of a market for a robot that can get up off the ground and not much else..... "Want to watch my robot HeRPe get up off the ground again? Go ahead, knock him over..."
Here's your market.
With the video, I can replay it as many times as I want, but I only get one 2D angle.
DVD Video allows for multiple angles in a video at the expense of bitrate in each angle's video stream. It's too bad that only porn has really used multi-angle.
You could record the dance with an 88 cent video tape.
How do you back up this system? How do you transfer to newer media when this this batch of dancin' robots becomes obsolete?
Maybe they could save Richard Gere's Career.......
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
...and plyojump.com has a great webpage full of photos and info on the HRP, too.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
what kind of rating get for advertising sites that sell <href="http://kevinkal.com"> steelers and superbowl tickets </href>
what kind of rating get for advertising sites that sell steelers and superbowl tickets just kidding, this is the real ticket
What a wonderful idea! Now if we could only record piano music by a similar method... Perhaps holes in a roll of paper?
Well, I kinda figured that common sense would have prevailed, and the "standard" of northern and southern hemisphere would have come into play. not "east and west". Fucking idiots
Read the thread dumbfuck
In Korea, only old people buy dancing robots.
Your daughter, she came over to my house and she kicked my dog!
Great, thanks for the pointer. But... aargh... it's a C# library. What on earth am I supposed to do with that as a researcher? Hmmm... but it did teach me something by pointing to David Lowe's Autostitch. That looks interesting for my other life in science outreach since we've got a backlog of panos from Argentina to process...
My Sig fried. Don't leave your Sig in the sun too long.