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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!
...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
I'm waiting to figure out whose voice controls our new robot overlords before making my allegiences known ...
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"
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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