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Voice-Controlled Robosapien
robotsrule writes "Robosapien Dance Machine, a free, open source program hosted on SourceForge, now uses the CMU Sphinx 3.5 speech recognition engine. The Sphinx 3.5 engine is also a free, open source program on SourceForge. You can now control your Robosapien robot using just your voice as well as build fun complex scripts to make your Robosapien robot dance, do comedy skits, and other performances. Currently the software uses the USB UIRT infrared transceiver to talk to the robot. Support for other infrared devices is being added this month. There is a short unrehearsed movie of the robot responding to voice commands that you can watch."
An alpha software written in Delphi using a pre-alpha library, that's /. quality!
Bliss.
[1] Port is only needed because RoboS is too short and weak to actually open a standard fridge door.
Kill!
...welcome our new voice-controlled robot overlords.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
This looks very cool. It's one example of the great things coming from FOSS. I anxious for when robots that can do useful tasks will become available. I'd be willing to pay top dollar for a robot I could program.
I'm waiting to figure out whose voice controls our new robot overlords before making my allegiences known ...
No idea, but the webservers of the world deserve a day of rest, before the slashdotting begins anew on Monday.
Oh no... it's the future.
Is there an open source design available for the USB UIRT?
~kyoorius
What, and cut into their TV watching time??
:)
No, no, Slashdot reading is strictly for work and college
It's because nobody is at work! Do you know anyone in IT who doesn't spend at least some of their day on /.?
The Robosapien Dance Machine is a free open source software program that unleashes your Robosapien's funky inner soul!
Robots used to be referred to as "clunky", or "junky", but now..... funky!!
Don't get me wrong, this is cool and all, but this isn't really a voice controlled Robosapien.
All the hardcore voice-recognition stuff happens on the PC which then just sends the movement commands via infrared to the Robosapien - just like the included infrared remote control.
Good idea though - just not exactly portable.
they're too busy eating their lobster in their mansions and making love to their hot super model wives. after that they drive around in their new european sports cars throwing candy to all the orphans who parents were killed by Microsoft.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
One priority is the goal of constructing Mecha in a way that will be affordable to civilians and not just commercial entities. There are plenty of pretty pictures and info here. See also these larger more recent pics
I can just imagine a mosh pit filled with these things.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Just be sure not to get too attached to your robosapien, or people will start thinking you're a robosexual.
It's OK! I'm a limo driver!
Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.
Interestingly, the Robosapien and variants of software to control it are a few of the intermediate steps necessary for humans in general to accept robots as and for what they are.
/. don't really know what autonomous robotics is about. This is just how it is.
Currently, cute toys, or dangerous machines (like auto manufacturing) is about the limits of what is acceptable. Most people, even on
There have been studies that show that if a robot has a very realistic human face and features, it is viewed initially as disgusting or evil. There is an aclimatization time before humans get used to a machine that has such features. There is even a name for this reaction??
We, in general, are not yet ready to pay for something that might be described as a man-sized robosapien. Currently, the price of such would be in the 100s of thousands of dollars, if it were possible. Batteries just don't last long enough for that.
It is silly things like voice control of a toy that will help pay for and develop technologies that will lead to the grail of man sized Robosapiens, in-car AI, home care robots, hospital asset and stores management, and many other things that are just out of range right now.
We are not far from being able to replace the grocery stock boy (you can bet Walmart will be on the bleeding edge of that one) and several other things that are just begging for robotic labor. (sweeping parking lots, lawn care, etc.) There are a lot of efforts being made for farm machinery because it lowers the cost of production in areas where there aren't people waiting for the jobs.
Anyway, its good to see efforts being made outside of educational and governmental institutions, especially open source efforts.
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I doubt that voice controlled Robosapians will make robots must have household items, but it gets us to maybe generation-3 home robots with only a couple of more generations before they explode in usefulness and ubiquity.
In about 1980 Heath-Kit tried to make a generation 1 home robot take off in popularity - the HERO 1 - it didn't succeed. A shaky low mobility box manually programmed with a small keypad was no ones' idea of a personal 3PO or R2-D2, though Heath certainly was hoping to cash in on both the early computer craze and Star Wars popularization of robots.
Personal robots largely disappeared from public view until Honda of all people pioneered and popularized a walking robot - the P2 (of course P2 was far too expensive to be a personal robot). I was only aware of the P2 and P3 before Asimo, but this link shows a long research line stretching back to 1986 with the E0 through E6 predecessors to the P series. Still when one saw the P2 walking in 1993, one got the feeling we were on the edge of big things to come. Sadly things have not progressed quite as quickly as one might have expected. Like AI, making practical personal robots is proving to be quite challenging. Hopefully voice control in such an inexpensive walking robot takes us a little further along the curve.
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Robosapien comes with the ability to respond to noises out of the box.
The manufacturers instructions for programming it to act as a noise sensitive guard are here.
Apparantly their next product is going to be a robot dog... everything goes round in circles
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Service me!
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that."
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
Shouldn't it be called Dance Dance Robosapien?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
And before anybody says its not a toy because of how complex its walking system is....well, give it normal sized feet so that its not impossible for it to fall over and then I'll consider it little more than an expensive toy with a good PR team behind it.
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Forgive me if you like toy robots :) That's between you, your therapist, and your AIBO.
...
:)
I'd like voice recognition in my computer (which, Yes, is next to my bed, and my bed is where I'm typing from at the moment) to do things like
- Set an alarm clock ("Alarm Clock, wakeup call seven thirty.")
- Listen to audio programs without turning on the monitor (when you want to sleep, and can't, I don't like turning on my monitor again just long enough to pick a new program to lull me to sleep; would be better to say "Audio player, MP3, ocean sounds.")
- connect to VoIP services ("Vonage Call Claire.")
So I'm glad to see it in robots, if that's what gets people interested enough to make progress -- it's like a casino; those shrimp are my bonus because of what other people like to do
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5