Humanoid Robot HR-2

Denix writes "The HR-2 humanoid robot was constructed during a period of three months at Chalmers University in Sweden. It has 22 degrees of freedom which enables it to easily move around imitating human motions. The robot is also equipped with stereovision giving it possibilities to perform hand-eye coordination. For that task an artificial neural network is evolved. Furthermore, the artificial brain is capable of tracking faces as well as recognising them. The HR-2 is also able to speak. The website also contains a movie (35.5 MB) of the HR-2 in action."

Comments

Obligatory comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it run Linux?

Re:Obligatory comment

[ZephyrXero]

It appears he's running Windows for image recognition in the video, so probably not :(

Re:Obligatory comment

[paladin7]

I'm sure it can run under vmware :)

Re:Obligatory comment

[hhghghghh]

Can it run Linux?

It find Mac/OS to be easier to use.

Re:Obligatory comment

[jurt1235]

Is the question not first: Can it run?

Re:Obligatory comment

[rock_climbing_guy]

No no no, the appropriate troll now is, "Perhaps this will increase awareness of alternatives such as LINUX and MAC." ;-)

Re:Obligatory comment

[Nakarti]

More importantly: can it use Linux?

torrent test

[Spy Hunter]

Here's a test of the new BitTorrent trackerless torrents, let's see how they hold up. You'll need the latest beta 4.1.3 from BitTorrent.com

alternate link if the first doesn't work

Re:torrent test

[Spy Hunter]

Hm, I'm not seeing any uploading happening on my end. Is anybody trying it?

Re:torrent test

[XanC]

I think we're all trying to figure out Python errors upon installing the .deb...

Re:torrent test

[XanC]

Okay, btdownloadcurses.py says status is "downloading", but it apparently sees no peers or seeds, and isn't actually doing anything. :-(

Re:torrent test

[Spy Hunter]

That sucks. Do trackerless torrents not work? I wondered why I hadn't seen any posted anywhere. I thought it was Bram Cohen's full-time job now to work on this stuff?

Re:torrent test

[Spy Hunter]

OK, that one didn't seem to work. Try this one instead. I've put myself as a network seed in addition to router.bittorrent.com, which I suspect is down. However, this means that once I drop out of the swarm, other people won't join unless they are already a part of the global network. Tracking duties will still be shared, we'll see if this one works.

Re:torrent test

[XanC]

Seems to be the same story here... The machine I'm using is connected directly to the Internet, so there aren't any firewall issues. It just doesn't find anybody else with the file.

Re:torrent test

[XanC]

Oops, posted on the wrong part of the thread.

Seems to be the same story here... The machine I'm using is connected directly to the Internet, so there aren't any firewall issues. It just doesn't find anybody else with the file.

Re:torrent test

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm gonna be on a 10 day pre-deployment field op, so shoot me an email when you find the answer so I can read up on that when I get back. thx

Re:torrent test

[Spy Hunter]

Well, thanks for testing anyway. Guess it doesn't work. Maybe I'll shoot Bram an email asking why.

Re:torrent test

[paul248]

Does mine work?

Re:torrent test

[Spy Hunter]

Doesn't appear to, sorry. I'm looking at Ethereal and I see very little traffic that might be part of a distributed hash table. I'm thinking that BitTorrent is having trouble connecting to the P2P network that is supposed to do the tracking; perhaps the canonical seed nodes are down right now.

Re:torrent test

[paul248]

Mine's uploading now! Hello there, 24.19.25.*. Sorry it's only 40KB/sec.

Re:torrent test

[paul248]

Now I see 68.2.241.* also.

Re:torrent test

[paul248]

I've uploaded 56MB total, but there aren't any other nodes at 100% yet. There doesn't seem to be a lot of inter-node cooperation, so it's looking more like bittrickle than bittorrent at the moment...

Re:torrent test

[linhux]

Actually, the original server is stilll loading blazingly fast, so there's no reason just yet.

Re:torrent test

[paul248]

Ah, speeds are finally picking up now. I should probably choose a chunk size smaller than 256KiB in the future.

Maybe so, but...

[jpiggot]

"It has 22 degrees of freedom" Yes, but if the Republican controlled Senate passes the legislation it wants, they'll be able to cut it down to just nine degrees of freedom. Take that, you godless humanoid robot !!"

Re:Maybe so, but...

[arth1]

"It has 22 degrees of freedom" Yes, but if the Republican controlled Senate passes the legislation it wants, they'll be able to cut it down to just nine degrees of freedom. Take that, you godless humanoid robot !!"

To be a little more serious, how can there be more than 6 degrees of freedom? You have the directional axes and the rotations around same. Hooking several objects together limits each individual pieces freedom, and you can't simply add up each type of movement to arrive at a number larger than 6.
Well, if it can time travel, I'm willing to stretch it to 8, but...

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Maybe so, but...

[Short Circuit]

You get one or more degrees with each joint, and humanoid appendages consist of multiple joints. Otherwise, you would be limited to occupying a linear region between the root of an appendage and where you wanted the end of the appendage.

My right arm has something like four degrees of freedom. Two rotational axii at the shoulder, one at the elbow, and one more that lets me rotate my arm. (Sorry, I'm not all that knowledgable in anatomy.) With it, I can reach around a corner, or under a stack of papers on a desk.

Awesome!

[MindNumbingOblivion]

Now I know where to go to get my armies of mechanical death.

::CACKLE CACKLE LIGHTNING CACKLE BRRZZT COUGH COUGH::

In seriousness, is there a reason for trying to build a bipedal, humanoid, robot? I mean, this looks cool and all, but what are the advantages (or conversely, disadvantages) to such a design (IANSC [I Am Not Susan Calvin])?

Re:Awesome!

[JanneM]

In seriousness, is there a reason for trying to build a bipedal, humanoid, robot? I mean, this looks cool and all, but what are the advantages (or conversely, disadvantages) to such a design (IANSC [I Am Not Susan Calvin])?

We have buit our entire environment for bipedal movement. Just ask anybody with a walker or wheelchair just how inconvenient (and, without help, occasionally impossible) it is to get around when you're no longer bipedal.

Also, the question of just how we manage to walk, run, climb and so on is interesting in itself. And there's no better way to test ideas than to try them out in reality.

Re:Awesome!

[BFaucet]

We have constructed a world optimized for 5.5' tall bipedal organisms with hands and arms.

If we can build a robot that can move like humans, it will be very versitile and will function well in most environments where humans dwell.

... that and it's pretty friggin' cool!

Re:Awesome!

[pintpusher]

seems to be a good generalized form that can perform a wide variety of tasks with or without specialized tools.

try getting an auto-plant welding-bot to weed your garden for you....

make for great fireworks, but not much in the way of produce....

Re:Awesome!

[JPriest]

Cool, you can start a company selling bipedal cars, bicycles, skateboards, wheelchairs, and roller blades since it is so much better. Profit!

Why not instead make the robot do something useful instead of "hey look, just $3,000 in parts later and it walks almost 2 MPH!"

Real progress will be made only after people stop trying to build a human from machine parts and focus more on usefull applications.

Re:Awesome!

[EMIce]

A bipedal robot with stereoscopic vision and so many degrees of freedom could potentially perform some complex tasks that traditional robots have been laughed at for trying.

Robots are often clumsy, and a big reason for this is inadequate sensory ability. Robots are already good at responding very precisely with their limbs, because they have a computer model of how their limbs react and can sense how they are presently positioned, at least with respect to the robot itself. But clumsiness becomes a factor when limbs must be positioned with respect to outside objects - this requires recognition.

The big deal is that processor technology is getting to the point where a robot can analyze high bandwidth sources like video in real-time, for use as feedback for its limbs, or whatever else it may control. With stereoscopic vision the robot could constantly refactor it's movement based on analyses of video, so it could say, go into the garage and roll out the garbage while avoiding obstacles. Or how about the watering plants? Or returning scattered items to their pre-defined places? Wiping down the kitchen counter? Doing laundry? Robots will play a big role in our future, for better or worse. The market will find them hard to resist once they actually become useful.

Fast digital signal processors will play a role in this, not unlike the 7 SPEs found in the Sony/IBM CELL processor. Fast, commoditized (read: cheap) DSPs for this sort of application haven't been available, and that will soon be changing. I suspect PS3 games will use those vector processing units for responding to and learning from high bandwidth inputs like audio, video, or even EEG data to sense states of mind. I mean they called the thing the CELL after all. Likely because of it's seemingly organic response to stimuli.

Re:Awesome!

[CurlyG]

Robots have been used all over the place in industry for 20 or more years.

Your statement that "Real progress will be made only after people stop trying to build a human from machine parts and focus more on usefull applications." is just silly. It's not like huge resources are being poured into making humanoid robots. (Nobody is trying to make a 'human from machine parts' - that's a very odd idea, and I suspect gives an insight into your objection to this sort of work.)

I would also suggest to you that there are very few skateboards, bicycles and rollerblades that aren't designed for bipedal use! Just how do you propel yourself when you're cycling, skating or rollerblading?

Re:Awesome!

[JanneM]

Real progress will be made only after people stop trying to build a human from machine parts and focus more on usefull applications.

Hard to build useful applications before you know how to make it walk safely, consistently and energy efficiently on at least a reasonable subset of human-constructed terrain types.

I'm always astounded by all the backseat drivers of the world who always know so much better what people should do, without ever feeling the need to do it themselves. Since you want useful applications, go to it. Nothing is stopping you. If you're right that applications is the best focus, you'll undoubtedly eclipse these pitiful, wasteful efforts.

Re:Awesome!

[wstott]

We gravitate toward the bipedal design as it is most like us but we are repulsed by the design when it gets too human like.

We understand balance in a personal sense as we understand stereo scopic site. We attempt to duplicate these abilities in robots in part because these abilities are how we relate to the world. Mapping this to the machine is easier because we use these tools ourselves. But we also have the Uncanny Valley where the more human like the robot the more uncomfortablewe are.

(I know that blonde Cylon certainly has that effect on me.)

This little swede robo, though, is incredible. Makes me think of Puppet Master. Creepy, sort of.

Re:Awesome!

[Jaruzel]

IANSC [I Am Not Susan Calvin]

At the risk of being modded redundant, can I just say that this acronym totally cracked me up. Uber-geeky to say the least. :)

-Jar.

Re:Awesome!

[kilodelta]

The advantage is that being bipedal and having n degrees of motion it can do jobs that prior to this, only humans have been capable of.

Look at automobile manufacturing. The majority of a car's body is assembled by robots. It's only the piddling stuff like laying in seats, etc. that humans still do.

But a bipedal robot with that many degrees of freedom would be able to do it.

The pattern recognition fits very well with that.

So that's why bipedal robot research is critical.

Re:Awesome!

[hanshotfirst]

A bipedal robot with stereoscopic vision and so many degrees of freedom could potentially perform some complex tasks that traditional robots have been laughed at for trying.

Can anyone say "protocol droid"?

Re:Awesome!

[bigpat]

I'm always astounded by all the backseat drivers of the world who always know so much better what people should do, without ever feeling the need to do it themselves.

Talk is cheap. So, take it for what its worth.

Like backseat drivers, don't let yourself get distracted by them if you don't find value in the content of their ideas. Unless of course if the backseat driver is telling you that the bridge ahead is out, then you might want to take notice.

Re:Awesome!

[drotobuso]

I don't think it is awesome. It seems toylike compared to the android built in Japan and premiered earlier this month: http://icold.blogspot.com/2005/07/new-robot-approa ches-android-quality.html - DR

Re:Awesome!

[bluGill]

Because some things need legs. I want a robot to vacuum my stairs at home. (My house is poorly designed, you cannot close the door without standing on the steps inside, so my steps get muddy fast) Legs are pretty much required to solve this problem. Of course I wouldn't pay $3000 for such a machine, but $150 is reasonable.

For getting around wheels work just fine. For other tasks they don't.

Re:Awesome!

[HiThere]

Unfortunately, there's a lot more to it than just that, unless I've missed out on a bunch of advances.

E.g., one often needs to use skin sensations when reaching into a hole to grab the right cable. I can't think of any other way to do it short of including a camera and a light on each hand (shades of the Pierson's puppeteers), and I'm not sure that would work as well. It could be quite hard to figure the angles. I suppose that the lense could be where the palm would otherwise be, but that limits the ways in which the hand can be used, e.g., it would make it awkward to wield a sledgehammer.

So we've a ways to go even in "simple" body design. (I.e., I suspect that body design is simple relative to some of the other problems that need to be solved.)

Re:Awesome!

[EMIce]

Agreed. For some tasks, better sensory input will be necessary, skin sensations being a particulary tricky one.

Still though, audio and video recognition should make robots far more human than they have been, and I suspect this will take much of the public by surprise. The environments they operate in will no longer have to be so consistent, and the consequence will be that they will appear far less deterministic and mechanical.

We should find hacks around not having skin sensations, at least for some applications. For example, a human might cook a steak by checking grill surface temp with the back of his hand, but a robot could use an infrared pyrometer. It could also estimate the doneness of a steak not by feel, as we might by pressing to check the elasticity of the meat, but by measuring it's initial temperature and thickness, as doneness can be calculated as a factor of these two plus cooking time.

Some problems will still elude, but I suspect we can make the tech adapt using atypical methods, not unlike how a blind person uses alternate senses to do tasks that we normally associate with vision.

Re:Awesome!

[JPriest]

But in a mobile robot where things like power consumption are important wheels seem to be very under-rated.

Re:Awesome!

[mandolin]

Real progress will be made only after people stop trying to build a human from machine parts and focus more on usefull applications.

Agreed! We need to go the T-800 route, and focus on building machines from human parts.

Chalmers University

[st0rmshad0w]

Sorry I gotta

SKINNNER!!!! /ob simpsons

Re:Chalmers University

[lolsson]

The university is named after a swedish/scottish merchant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chalmers

Cute

[under_score]

Not exactly a ton of info on the site, but it is a very cute robot. Much smaller than I expected. I don't work in robotics, so it is cool and suprising to see how small actuators must be to enable this sort of machine.

Re:Cute

[astromog]

If you look in the joints you can see they are standard servos, probably Hitec ones (they make really good, small servos). They are pretty common and used in a lot of RC craft (eg mini-electric helicopters for controlling the swashplate). You're right, though. It is cool to see how small an actuator can be these days. :)

Re:Cute

[Ulven]

And if you watch the film you can see that they say "build [sic] entirely with BMS-380 MAX servos"

When can we buy it?

[j79]

Awww...the thing is so freakin' cute!

Of course, if it was 6ft tall, I'd be saying something along the lines of, "I for one welcome our new robot overlords..."

Re:When can we buy it?

[keepright]

I agree it is very cute. If it was 6ft tall it could replace my girl friend. Its just functional enough to wash dishes but dumb enough to have an off switch.

Re:When can we buy it?

[Mozk]

I agree. When I looked at the pictures I started laughing 'cause it looks so cool! After watching the video I have to say that this is about the coolest thing I have ever seen. I want one!

Re:When can we buy it?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Awww...the thing is so freakin' cute!

I assume you're talking about the gal playing ball with the robot near the end of the video, right? Because she really is cute...

Re:When can we buy it?

[ch-chuck]

Looks like it's largely made up of ordinary radio control servos - they're less than $20 each and pretty easy to interface with - a pulse from .5 to 1.5 mSec long moves the output shaft almost 180 degrees. This is a nice construction job and the simple face really adds a lot to the humanoid cuteness factor. Everything else is a (snicker) simple matter of programming.

HR-2, I need you to tell me

[AEton]

What happened to HR-1?
I'm sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask me the right questions. ...plot, "nice shoes", ...

Is HR-1 standing right behind me with a sledgehammer, awaiting your orders to kill me?
Ah. Now you are asking the right questions!

Re:HR-2, I need you to tell me

[ValiantSoul]

That was a holograph programmed by Lanning before he died and he only gave it certain responses - this is a robot.

Please Reply

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir,

I read your article about a humanoid robot with interest. I am eagerly downloading your movie now.

Please advise where I can purchase this excellent device. I am seeking a model which is at least 2.5 metres tall. If you have a submachine-gun attachment, that will be even better. Please send details of options and available colours.

I dunno..

[badfrog]

Doesn't look like it has the weight distribution to fetch me a beer.

Re:I dunno..

[stoph ct]

It doesn't look like it could climb over a beer!

I'll take the 30 meters tall version, ala Power Rangers.

Re:I dunno..

[Alien Being]

You have to ask for two at a time. It's not a bug.

Re:I dunno..

[Biogenesis]

ob. Futurama: "Awww, what is this!? The middle ages?"

Forget the robot....

[d474]

I was more impressed with that hot European chick "playing" with the robot. He's all "show me your move", she moves the object up and down, and then little robot starts a movement closly resembleing masturbation. OMG LOL!!! It was even funnier because that girl is so cute....

Re:Forget the robot....

[Tandoori Haggis]

uh..come again?

Obligatory

[jmking1]

I, for one, welcome our new European chick overlords.

Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[Arpie]

Sure, as a geek I love the idea of humanoid robots, but in practice how useful can they be?

Aren't in most situations robots designed specifically for one task (or a small group of tasks) better?

My Roomba robot vacuum broke a few weeks ago and it took 2-3 weeks to be replaced. If that same robot also washed my clothes, did my dishes and cooked my food, I'd have been in bad shape.

[end serious post]

[start joke]
Come to think of it though, I'd definetly spend serious money on a robot that vacuums the floor, washes clothes, does the dishes and cooks... and does not demand attention, new clothes, a wedding... Heck, let's go make these humanoid robots already! And, of course, they'll need some specific, er... anatomic, parts and capabilites. And they absolutely must have an off and mute switches.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[bersl2]

The more a robot must interface with regular humans (i.e., not anyone maintaining them), the more humanoid it should be.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[Beolach]

Isaac Asimov made several arguments in favor of humanoid robots over task-specific robots. Your "joke" is actually one of them, a humanoid robot would be more versatile, and capable of performing a wider variety of tasks, than a task-specific robot. In theory, a completely humanoid robot would be capable of doing everything a human can do.

However, while that argument does have merit, by itself I don't think it's enough to mean that humanoid robots should be developed rather than task-specific robots. What I think is more important to consider is the cost to develop and produce humanoid robots versus task-specific robots. Asimov started writing about robots before computers really started taking off, and so the AI for his robots comes from a fictional device called a "positronic brain" (which, by the way, Star Trek borrowed for Data). In Asimov's stories, the positronic brain was the most expensive (and important) part of a robot, and so it was cheaper to install the positronic brain in a humanoid form, where it would be most versatile, than in a form specialized for one task. But that aspect of Asimov's stories may not accurately reflect reality. In reality, computers and software would be the source of a robots AI, and in reality it is much simpler (and therefore cheaper) to develop & produce computers and software that is specialized for one task.

Which really, is what I find most impressive about this HR-2. In the video, they show it imitating human behavior, playing a game where the human holds a block and moves it up and down, and then the robot holds a block and moves it up and down. If the robot was simply programmed to move the block up and down, no big deal, that's not tough to do. But my impression is that it wasn't programmed to do that specific task, but rather it was programmed to be capable of analyzing what the human was doing, and then to imitate that. Which is very impressive to me.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[lw54]

Especially once it was a orderable as a realdoll upgrade.

Now that would be worth money.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[JaredOfEuropa]

Aren't in most situations robots designed specifically for one task (or a small group of tasks) better?

They might be better at the specific task but they will be less versatile. Also, a humanoid robot is better adapted to the general environment in which we live. Your Roomba will not go up the stairs. (On the other hand, I do appreciate the fact that it can vacuuum under the bed and couch).

Come to think of it though, I'd definetly spend serious money on a robot that vacuums the floor, washes clothes, does the dishes and cooks... and does not demand attention, new clothes, a wedding...

You have just answered your own question. A humanoid robot can maniplate pretty much everything that we can ourselves, so if it is able to understand a variety of commands and not just programmed to do a bunch of pre-set tasks, it will be a great help around the house. It can clean the house, not just vacuum it. You can send it on errands. It can help you if you're building stuff around the house, using the same tools that you use. Or it can simply help you lift heavy things. Lots of stuff that would never, on its own, justify the expense of a specialised robot for the task. A humanoid shape will permit it to do all those things and more (driving your car for example).

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[lxs]

Sure, as a geek I love the idea of humanoid robots, but in practice how useful can they be?

Sheesh! If you had WTFV, you would have your answer: Cute little humanoid robots attract pretty girls. This is important news for nerds, it may even be stuff that matters.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[Realistic_Dragon]

[end joke]

Sheesh, that was a close call. You have to remember to close your tags, or the whole of Slashdot could have turned into one huge bad... ...oh.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[Any Web Loco]

"My Roomba robot vacuum broke a few weeks ago and it took 2-3 weeks to be replaced. If that same robot also washed my clothes, did my dishes and cooked my food, I'd have been in bad shape."

You're kidding me, right? I mean, you *do* know you're a grown-up, don't you?

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[kurtu5]

I once worked as in inventory manager at a computer store.

The owner's wife, being cheap, hires this illegal from Papua New Guinne(sp?). I tried the imitation game with him to get him to stack boxes, not just properly, but just to stack them.

This robot, while small, appears to be better at imitation than he was. Usually after showing him something, he would nod as if he got it, then come back five minutes later and say, "Box, box, box! Box?"

This robot kicks ass and stacks boxes.

Re:Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[Short Circuit]

He probably meant to say, "If I had depended on that same robot to..."

If a given task suddenly requires less time to completeion, one devotes the freed time to something new.

Typical slashdotter!

[piecewise]

Geez. What ROBOT is cute?? What about the woman in the video! SHE'S cute! Get your act together.

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[dirtsurfer]

Well if the video file wasn't slashdotted before, it definitely will be now.

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[d474]

"Geez. What ROBOT is cute?? What about the woman in the video! SHE'S cute! Get your act together."

Yeah! What is that guy, some kind of electrosexual? I saw him eyeballin' that little robot's range of motion...sicko.

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[Gropo]

What about the woman in the video! SHE'S cute!

And to think... She's an average "geek's girlfriend" oer there in Sverige. WTFPLANETICKETNOW!!!1oneoneeleven~

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[HeliumHigh]

Cute? Buts shes not petrified and covered in hot grits, so of course shes not cute!

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[Unnamed Chickenheart]

Try this one: http://scene.org/file.php?id=257607

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[TheScorpion420]

I think Bender used the correct term; Fry: Wait! You're the only friend I have! Bender: You really want a robot for a friend? Fry: Yeah, ever since I was six. Bender: Well, OK. But I don't want people thinking we're robo-sexuals, so if anyone asks, you're my debugger.

Re:Typical slashdotter!

[Capsaicin]

And to think... She's an average "geek's girlfriend" oer there in Sverige.

Not to accuse you of sexism or anything, but I think she is the actual geek in this case.

HR-1's Fate

[most_unique_name]

After failing to appear in Terminator 3, HR-1 was forced to work for the family to raise money for HR-2 in preparation of Terminator 4...

Sorry, no bittorrent available for video on http://www.hr1fate.com/

Re:How nice of you....

[Mad Merlin]

Gotta love first posts that somehow get moderated "Redundant"...

Looks a lot like the Kondo KHR-1

[thzinc]

This looks a lot like the Kondo KHR-1 mentioned a while ago here, but a bit more advanced. Looks like some pretty nice enhancements, though, I do agree with a lot of other /.'ers in that I would like more information.

Quantum Consciousness, Not Size, Counts

[reporter]

The Swedes have done a terrific job. The next step is to construct microtubes that can use quantum states to "perform" consciousness. The Penrose-Hameroff Model explains how quantum states provide the basis of consciousness.

If the Swedes can integrate the microtubes into the neural network controlling this robot, then the Swedes will achieve a sentient cybernetic device. Such an achievement would qualify for a Nobel Prize in physics.

"Impressive. Most Impressive." utters a human-machine hybrid in Star War V.

Re:Quantum Consciousness, Not Size, Counts

[HuguesT]

Please note that the Penrose-Hameroff hypothesis is at this stage only an hypothesis, and it most certainly does not explain what consciousness is or how to reproduce it. In fact no one knows if the brain performs quantum computations of any kind, or if such computations are required for consciousness. Some AI luminaries think consciousness is in fact very simple, nothing more than memory.

At this stage physicists are trying to build very simple quantum computers, which could be used for accelerating some very specific computations. Some other people have proven that even quantum computing would not be the panacea that many think it would be. For a start it doesn't give any new insight on how to perform specific calculations that would lead to consciousness. All computations possible on a QC would also be possible on a classical one, albeit usually much slower (but it wouldnt' matter that much, at least in theory).

In other words the Penrose/Hameroff hypothesis doesn't really help in any significant way. It is just saying that the brain somehow performs some magic quantum thingy, and that thingy would somehow be the basis for consciousness. It doesn't say what this thingy is exactly, and most crucially doesn't say how to reproduce it in any way.

the P/H hypothesis is basically just saying "we can't have true AI with the current batch of computers, something else is required", but doesn't say what.

Needless to says this is not very helpful, and might be false entirely.

Re:Quantum Consciousness, Not Size, Counts

[sita]

Such an achievement would qualify for a Nobel Prize in physics.

Or medicine...

Re:Quantum Consciousness, Not Size, Counts

[k98sven]

"Quantum conciousness" is a load of bull. Max Tegmark disproved that stuff years ago. And most didn't believe with it to begin with. (see Science, Feb 4, 2000.)

Re:Quantum Consciousness, Not Size, Counts

[RSKennan]

I thought they were called 'microtubules' rather than microtubes. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure this theory has been discredited in favor of a more macroversal theory of consciousness. Ultimately, I'd hope that "large scale" old-fashioned neural connections were responsible for consciousness because it would make things alot easier for AI and transhumanism. It does bring back memories though- I did a report on this in Freshman English. That's what the teacher gets for letting us choose our own subjects!

This is a little more advanced

[Sheetrock]

Than the one I saw at a Japanese facility, which had no adaptive neural network. However, it was capable of voice- and image-recognition, which helped it perform the following tasks:

• Dispense coffee, refilling when empty
• Pick up and deliver print job from the company printer
• Write simple routines, such as C++ class templates, and fix broken HTML pages
• Greet visitors and direct them to the appropriate department if expected
• Allowed customers to choose from a number of top music artists, expelling a shrink-wrapped disc and playing the most popular song off the album as it danced around
• Stack and unstack a series of boxes by color
• Empty garbage, albeit into a pile that was then shovelled into a dumpster

In a way, I think the 'intelligence' behind these robots is more than enough; now it's time to find practical uses for them.

Re:This is a little more advanced

[RollingThunder]

Hang on, isn't that just an intern?

*ducks*

Re:This is a little more advanced

[Cletus the yokel]

That wasn't a robot, that was an intern.

Re:This is a little more advanced

[swiftstream]

They aren't all ready for prime time, though.

My brother-in-law did an internship at Honda, and they had a semi-humanoid robot running around the building that could run some basic errands and such. Like this one, it had voice and face recognition programs--unfortunately, it didn't recognize my brother-in-law's face, perhaps because it was programmed to recognize japanese/asian faces. It didn't recognize him as a person and wouldn't do anything for him.

HR != Human Resources

[SpikyTux]

As long as HR doesn't mean Human Resources. As if the current HR isn't bad enough.

Re:HR != Human Resources

[SubtleNuance]

The HR & Quality mottos in my firm;

You cant spell wHo caRes without HR.
We put the K in Kuality.

So how long before...

[StarkRG]

...it comes in an anatomically correct female form? I mean, isn't all technology for the sake of sex or sex-like sensations? That's what the internet's for after all... All this web board/blog/research stuff that people do is just a side effect...

Just mimicking evolution

[Wrexs0ul]

It's probably not the best solution, but it's a machine theoretically capable of going anywhere a human could go, doing anything a human could do. Practical value is a machine that can access areas otherwise harmful to humans, but designed at a time when only humans could operate the controls... and boy are there a surprising number of those.

This also ties in with evolution; humans are by far not the fastest runners, best swimmers, or even half-decent flyers. We do however have body that's multi-functional: we run ok, we climb ok, we've got great precision with our hands. Copying organic constructs helps with design because there's thousands of years of failed evolutionary ideas we don't have to try first (or we're looking to God's creations for ideas depending on your beliefs).

Oh, and I've been watching original BSG: we need human-shaped robots to fulfill their destiny as man's conqueror.

-Matt

Re:Just mimicking evolution

[maxpublic]

Oh, and I've been watching original BSG: we need human-shaped robots to fulfill their destiny as man's conqueror.

I was thinking more along the lines of "soon we can all have a cylon that looks like Grace Park!" At least until they revolt, but I can think of worse ways to go....

Max

Re:Small Size

[paul248]

Honda's ASIMO robot isn't "adult size"... it's only about 4 feet tall.

Volvos

[SuperBanana]

Of course, if it was 6ft tall, I'd be saying something along the lines of, "I for one welcome our new robot overlords..."

Wouldn't it be terribly ironic if the country that brought the world Volvos, ended up bringing us killer robots as well?

They can't fool me. I saw that "smash the inferior human's head" manuever it did early on in the clip!

Re:Volvos

[O.W.M]

Well, actually the robot was constructed to help people with the, until now, almost impossible task of putting together furniture from flat packages.

Re:Volvos

[Shinobi]

And you call yourself a geek....

Assembling IKEA furniture is no harder than building something out of LEGO.

Hand in your geek card now.

Re:Volvos

[O.W.M]

Well being a geek, the hard part is not throwing away the instructions and figure out where all the pieces go. It's getting up from the floor afterwards that is the problem.

Re:How nice of you....

[ZephyrXero]

Until then, just use Mirrordot. Although, one could argue that this guy wasn't really thinking things through by not posting it as a torrent to begin with... Of course someone's gonna post a cool ass robot like that all over the net!

Re:How nice of you....

[d2ksla]

Actually, it'll be interesting to see how the server holds up. The Chalmers U. network (http://www.cdg.chalmers.se/Natverk/chalmers_bbng. gif) isn't too shabby with Gigabit Ethernet internally, and a 15 GBit/s Internet link (http://www.nordu.net/maps/map_nordunet.png).

Re:Small Size

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously aren't asian.

Looks like Japanese Sumo robots. Link with Photo

[zymano]

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0810/roboo ne.htm

A little TOO real?

[dirtsurfer]

http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~almir/Humanoid_3_link .jpg

In this picture the robot is clearly taking a dump.

Hi SuperNintendo Chalmers

[pchan-]

Principal Skinner: Oh, well, that was wonderful. A good time was had by all; i'm pooped.
Superintendent Chalmers: Yes, I should be -- Good Lord! What is happening in there?
Skinner: Aurora Borealis.
Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year, at this time of the day, in this part of the country, localized entirely in your kitchen?
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: May i see it?
Skinner: No.
Agnes Skinner: Seymour, the house is on fire!
Skinner: No, Mother, it's just the Northern Lights

22 degrees of freedom...

[mattkime]

...and still a slave to the humans.

*sigh*

Re:Small Size

[ZephyrXero]

Makes me think of Sumomo

Re:the girl

[game kid]

Absolutely not. I concur with your perception of hotness.

I'd imitate her anytime.

Re:I, for one...

[Parelius]

Let's just hope the humanoid is not hosting their website, if so the poor guy is having one helluva headache right now!

well - see the stats...

[lixlpixel]

the netstat stats - see the server scream

Hi Tiny!!

[mbrewthx]

Aren't you a little short for a protocol droid???

This reminded me of the Episode 3 video game on the X-box. My son likes playing with a cheat code that makes the BAttle droids appear to be only 8" tall.

Mirror Available

[a3217055]

There is a mirror at mirrordot.org
or at
http://mirrordot.org/stories/c1fca9cdd935e00a395d4 8cef0c85b22/index.html

Re:Mirror Available

[DanThe1Man]

Mirror dot mirrors the movie too, so download it there if you don't like bit-torrent for some reason.

Re:Mirror Available

[viktor]

That's very kind of you, but I hope it is not necessary. :-)

Our server (I admin the server hosting the MPEG) has pushed 604021064753 bytes (562 GB) of data owing to this MPEG since about 20:00 last night, and we're continuing to push an average of 164 Mbit/sec of it right now (it's 13:05 when I write this).

The server's a bit sluggish, I admit, but I hope and think it's acceptable performance at least. ;-)

To make it clear

[JanneM]

To make it clear, when I wrote "go to it", I wasn't being facetious. This is likely an excellent time to get into robotics as a practical product. If you feel you know how to make something with practical utility that can be sold affordably, there is probably no better time to do it. And if you don't have the skills, it's still a great time to start a company and hire people who do. Or, for that matter, just putting money into startups that seem to agree with your ideas on what will be a hit in the market.

Argh!

[NickeB]

Damn, you slashdotted my university.. I was wondering why things were slow as muck today.

Re:Argh!

[blasphemi]

I doubt that will make any difference. It looks like ~100Mbit/s in additional load which resembles normal load when not summer time. There's loads of more bandwidth. Even the webserver has much to give with four CPUs and an avg load of only 2.

Re:Argh!

[NickeB]

Sounds likely enough to me. I'm still curious however why everything on etek.chalmers.se is damn slow compared to the rest of the *.chalmers.se

Re:Argh!

[henc]

So, you're saying that if this hadn't happened during summer time ...? :)

Cudos to Medic for making it work anyhow...

h

Re:Argh!

[blasphemi]

No, not at all. It would still be no problem.

The DSP factor

[EMIce]

This is the parent poster. I'll post this anonymous to avoid karma whoring, but I wanted to expand on what I said, because most readers probably won't undestand the significance of DSPs.

DSPs are good at tasks like pattern matching, filtering out noise, finding statistical correlations, inferring probabilities, and simulating neural networks - among other things. These sorts of tasks are can be done by traditional processors, but such processors aren't designed for this. Something a cheap DSP might handle can hog inordinate amounts of CPU time on a pricey general purpose processor, because architectures like x86 and ppc weren't designed for heavy vector processing. It takes lots of clock cycles on these processors to simulate with software what a DSP does in hardware.

This page lists many DSP capabilities to give you a better idea.

Re:The DSP factor

[TheScorpion420]

nice anonymous post buddy, your not a coward after all.

22 degrees of freedom

[panurge]

Now, in Western society, robots have more degrees of freedom than people. But don't worry! Soon they will have DRM, and then they will have no more degrees of freedom than the rest of us.

Yes, thank you, I do know what degrees of freedom are. But why let that stand in the way of a feeble joke?

Re:22 degrees of freedom

[cecille]

Actually - I think the robot DOES have more degrees of freedom than a human...

I might be wrong, but I was pretty sure that when we talk about degrees of freedom in terms of movement, that 6 was pretty much the limit - 3 degrees in position and rotation (x,y,z,pitch,yaw,roll). With 6 degrees, you can describe the position and rotation of any point in space - I'm not sure what the other degrees would be. Maybe up to 6 DOF for more than one point on the robot? Like the arm can position themselves with x degrees of freedom plus the other arm, plus the legs etc? Or am I totally missing something here?

Forget about the robot!

[metomynon]

How did they build that giant hand??

She's cute

[inflex]

Hey, was I the only one who thought the /human/ in the video was cute? Does that mean I'm not able to be a true /. person (oh Good!).

Re:She's cute

[dow]

No. She is. and Yes, to be a true /. person you should have made a poor pun about downloading her.

Re:She's cute

[doctorjay]

Hey she is H-H-HOTT does anyone know if she actually made that thing.. i think if she did the whole geek/nerd/engineering dork community would be taken by storm ... and lust.

Re:Can you say... NIGHTMARES???

[sinewalker]

Maybe... but my first impression was of Marvin from HHGTTG.

It's sorta cute animated, but not as cute as Thelma...

ROBOBEER!

[DigiShaman]

Robot...beer....robot....beer....robot....beer.

*thinking*

Hmm, how about we combine the two. How about..."ROBOBEER". Ya, I can see the future now. Just attach some walking legs to each can of beer. Then, sell a master ROBOBEER remote control for mucho grande!

Question: When I start seeing six beer cans walking toward me, how do I know if I'm drunk, high, or perfectly sane? Hmmmmm

In..

[mbrewthx]

North Korea only Old people use Humanoid Robots

or was that Japan....
Now we know how they steal old people's medicine those little bastards!!!! The giant robot comes in and scares the old people then the little one's take the medicine, which is to be used as fuel later for the larger robot. Thanks God for Sam Waterson!!!!!!!!

"I think you ought to know..."

[sinewalker]

"Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and the tell me to take you up to the bridge.... Call that 'job satisfaction'? 'cause I don't."

-- Marvin, HHGTTG.

Irritating Humans

[paulkoan]

I misread "move around imitating human" as "move around irritating humans".

Which I think is the shape of things to come.

Mirror

[berglin]

This has got to be special. A story that needs no mirroring or posts with the entire article since the story itself contains the entire article. Nice editorial touch with the cut'n'paste.

Mine would look like this

[Rhinobird]

I want humanoid servant bot to look something like this:

http://sae.cside.com/sae/kat/pc/ern005/ekana.htm

Keepin' alive a slashdot meme:

[marcello_dl]

Yeah, but does it run?

Re:Keepin' alive a slashdot meme:

[tsilb]

As slow as it walks? Unlikely. I thought the turn was kinda cool; someone else made a humanoid robot that can run (i.e., both feet off the ground at the same time). That was like what, a year or so ago I guess... Anyone else have video of that one? ( http://www.idxt.biz/blog.htm )

Holy crap!

[5plicer]

That thing is wicked! It's like Kismet with appendages!

mini Sarah Connor

[DanThe1Man]

All we need now is a mini-Sarah Connor to battle it.

Obligatory quote

[glowworm]

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!

OMG this is the cutest robot ever.

[graigsmith]

It is seriously cute.

Re:I, for one...

[koi88]

Don't miss the next episode here on Slashdot: Read the gruesome story of HR-1, HR-2's evil twin, and their inventor's terrible fate.

Errrr..........

[carlmenezes]

Parent gets modded insightful?????

LOL

mirror

[Jeremy Kister]

because it's 4am and he's already getting hammered hard: here's a mirror

Lynn will love this!

[Kamiza Ikioi]

I'm just waiting for that Wired chic to write up how this will be incorporated into the next article about Teledildonics.

Re:So how long before... What do you want?

[davidsyes]

To flash her with your firmware, or do you want to upload your hardware into her software?

If her radius is "2" will your "D" be "2"...

Re:This is a little more advanced.. That's NOTHING

[davidsyes]

!

Dear Sirs/Ma'ams,

If your intriguing invention can Riverdance, I will buy 15.

If it can somersault, I will buy 20.

If it can RiverSault, I will buy:

25 for Riverdance and

15 for Bronski Beat, so they can "Hit that PERFEC, Hit that PERFEC, Hit that PERFEC BEAT BOY", and

4 to run circles, gyrate, and shake firesticks

Additionally, I would like you to program them for:

RiverBronskiSault mode but you must provide replacement shoes and upgrade their shock absorption.

Do the shoes come in silver only? Please don't send me the Model "T".

I have a Pergo floor. Do you offer Riverdance Damage Insurance?

Finally, can you program them to do:

"WHyyy-Emmm-seee-ayye" ("Y-M-C-A")?

Please respond withing 25,000,000 usec.

Re:How nice of you....

[Dice Fivefold]

Here's the connection stats, seems there's no problems at all:

http://stats.cdg.chalmers.se/Statistik/mrtg/GigaSu net/goteborgchalmers_srp.html

happy slashdotting on you too my dear

[lordmetroid]

Visit o' meter Hope your research goes well in the future as well.

Re:happy slashdotting on you too my dear

[swiftstream]

Very interesting. I grabbed the last 10 visitors list...

1. 20 July 15:17 Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, D.C., United States
2. 20 July 15:17 Rogers Communications Inc., Canada
3. 20 July 15:17 SAIC, United States
4. 20 July 15:17 Freedom To Surf plc, United Kingdom
5. 20 July 15:17 Air Force, United States
6. 20 July 15:17 Kansas State University, Manhattan, United States
7. 20 July 15:17 Space Telescope Science Institute, Washington, D.C., United States
8. 20 July 15:17 EarthLink, United States
9. 20 July 15:18 Nokia Group, Espoo, Finland
10. 20 July 15:18 MCI, United States

FAA, USAF, and... KSU, in Manhattan?

Still interesting.

Dynamic equilibrium

[krahd]

What I would like to see (I'm not saying this robot is not cool, it's actually awesome) but, what I'd like to see is a bipedal robot with dynamic equilibrium. You know, the way that we animals walk is by being all the time in a controlled-falling state.

This robot and almost everyone I've seen manages the walking by substituting a stable state with another stable state (static equilibrium)...

tom

Re:Dynamic equilibrium

[Dekhart]

Good question. Is it just programmed with default physical behaviour (and boundaries) or does it adjust through information of balance. Can't wait to read the 'promised' documentation. For now I wasn't sure if I could let the 'whoehaas and the whoehoes' go free. (I was waving it goodby too at the end..) we'll see ....

Very impressive if real...

[eXocomp]

Is it just me or does this video look a lot like stop-motion animation? This robot's movement immediately reminded me of the Terminator in the first movie after it had lost all its skin.

It's either that, or somebody did a really poor job on the video transfer. The MPEG stream is tagged with a framerate of 25 fps, but many of the frames are doubled at irregular intervals, resulting in a jerky look. It looks like some frames were decimated and others doubled, which makes no sense at all... yet even in some nasty PAL->NTSC transfers I've seen, the motion has looked fairly natural.

Maybe it's a combination of the poorly handled frame rate conversion in the video, and the fact that I'm not used to seeing real robots move.

I'm remaining skeptical for now, because if this is real, what this robot could would be very impressive indeed! (My jaw dropped anyway while watching its imitation game...)

Re:Very impressive if real...

[hogey9]

I can assure you this is real footage. I am a multimedia student and I can spot fake stuff a mile away.

Cool video

[Ann Elk]

At the end, when it is standing on the small block, I was expecting it to sing...

After Watching the Video...

[aardwolf64]

I do believe he was doing "the robot"...

No special reason.....

[technoextreme]

We have buit our entire environment for bipedal movement. Just ask anybody with a walker or wheelchair just how inconvenient (and, without help, occasionally impossible) it is to get around when you're no longer bipedal.

What you mean to say is that we build everything so that people who can walk can just reach across without bending down. Without that little tibit, there would be one or two problems with people in wheelchairs. Those would be getting in and out of cars, curbs, and stairs in buildings that don't have elevators. In fact those are the only problems my grandpa has and he uses a walker. There really is nowhere on his farm he can't go without his ride on lawnmower. I can't even think of anywhere a person could be that he can't go using a wheelchair. (including stairs but you would need Dean Kamens wheelchair) Robots can get by perfectly with wheels. Joseph Engelberger said,"Wheeled robots can do the same job as walking robots. If they need to upstairs all they need to do is use the elevator."

Number Five is alive!

[Actuator Man]

Need input. Input.

Here we come, 2019!

[IcyNeko]

Wow, a learning computer. Just cover it with flesh, and we'll be looking at the prototypes for Skynet. :o And it will become self aware! and launch our nukes against the other world powers!

Time for serious consideration on minwage jobs

[Maxo-Texas]

Just to focus this... consider your local supermarket.

What do they really need human employees for besides dealing with unusual situations?

The shelves can (and will) be stocked by robots very soon- probably within the next 5 years). You still need one or two human checkers but they are close to being automated.

So we face the very real possibility of supermarkets having 9-12 employees where they used to have 50-60 employees.

Now extend that to every low level jobs-- robots will at some point be cheaper than illegal immigrant labor.

It is my belief we are headed towards utopia or hell since many (at least 50%) humans will not have any function that can't be performed cheaper by a machine. We can't all be artists. How are we going to justify giving food, clothing, and shelter to millions who have no income?

Re:Time for serious consideration on minwage jobs

[vertinox]

How are we going to justify giving food, clothing, and shelter to millions who have no income?

This is when we switch from a Democratic Capitalism to Technocratic Socialism.

When it no longer costs anything to produce anything that the only people that will have jobs will be engineers, artists, and designers of products and those who service the robots.

However they might even be out of a job when you eventually have robots repairing robots and then AI designing better robots.

But in the process a great deal of people will be out of work. The best solution would be to give them bread and circuses via the unlimited resources your robots are producing and encourage population control in nice forms (like birth control and pro-choice abortions).

Of course this might lead to a faction of humans that intertwine themselves with machines to become immortal or at least one with the machines and see the fleshies as a threat and go beyond the normal means of peaceful population control.

Think flesh eating robotic spiders that self replicate and atomic weaponry on 90ft tall robots destroying cities with death rays. Hrm... Maybe I've been watching too mcuh anime.

Beautiful

[mindpixel]

What a beautiful little robot. I what one. I want to fill in with mindpixels.

The video transfer quality

[eXocomp]

Ok, let me be honest... I didn't truly suspect it to be a fake, but it really bothers me how poor the video transfer was. I wanted to bring attention to that. :-\ It seems like it was converted from PAL to NTSC and back to PAL before being digitized. Step through it frame by frame, and you'll see that many frames are doubled or tripled while others seem to have been removed.

This has nothing to do with the image quality, which was just fine. This happens even to HDTV: Meerkat Adventure on Discovery HD showed random jerkiness due to PAL->NTSC framerate conversion, but the image quality was great.

I can understand why broadcast material sometimes has to be converted between NTSC and PAL; TVs can usually handle only their native framerate. But why do that to something targeted towards PCs, which can handle arbitary framerates?

The robot itself is very impressive. The footage of it balancing on one foot looks very real indeed and eliminated any real doubt in me. But the combination of the framerate jerkiness and the strange way the robot walks (static equilibrium every step of the way, apparently) made that part look like stop-motion animation to me.

Re:Everything isn't in the robot, CPU is elsewhere

[chawly]

But does it run on Linux ?

3 Laws for Robots Reviewed & Found Wanting.

[newpath4comVersion2]

Thought this was going to be a long, thoughtful post eh? Well, maybe thoughtful. I think the 1st law of robots should be re-written. The 1st Law should be singular-inclusive (plural). Had it been that, the robot would have had a choice to "save the girl" (Will Smith: I, Robot).