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Japanese Researchers Develop Sensor Skin
ScentCone writes "A University of Tokyo team has developed a flexible, laminated network of pressure and temperature sensors suitable for jobs such as robot fingers. Circuits as pressure sensors, and semiconductors as temperature sensors are not new, but the thin, networked laminate of the two is novel."
the porn industry will be the first to widely use this new technology.
Maybe now they can build better hands for their female android.
I wonder could this be adapted and built into prosthetics somehow? And if you combine it with some sort of ultra-thin LCD...
I, for one, welcome our new robo-skinned, chameleon overlords...
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
Robots so far haven't been the best looking things, as their inventors rarely see a need to cover them up with "skin" or something that looks vaguely aesthetic.
So maybe this will make new robots resemble something a bit more organic, by, say, colouring this stuff to look like human skin. I think this would go a long way in making them more appealing to the public.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
Since robot muscles are solved, this seems to be the key feature for future robots. ... Eureka!
I always wonder how will the robots detects presure at skin level
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
for teaching women how to give a decent blowjob
As opposed to an indecent blowjob, I gather.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
I for one welcome our new touchy feely overlords.
threadeds blog
Say what you will, the Japanese have picked up the gauntlet to the biggest nerd challenge of all, getting a girlfriend. They're going to build her, they have the technology. She will be stronger, faster, better! Like an Aibo, she will always be happy to see you. She will be soft and smooth and react to touch due to this skin. She will walk upright like a QRIO or Asimo, be able to perform complex pre-programmed moves. She will have a mute button.
...in Japan!
The future is here. Domestic girlfriends are fuel efficient and reliable
"Or how about a dildo with built in sensors for teaching women how to give a decent blowjob?"
No thanks, I prefer to use my old-fashioned teaching tool.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Do I really need to hear from my girlfriend that her robot is more sensitive than I am?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
at least something very similar to it, and patented by Sony: www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/smartskin BTW one of the developers of smartskin is the author of effectv.sf.net i'd rather add that slashdot news are getting lousier every day, please keep it up.
For starters, I was just going for a +1 Funny, but alas it seems I've just managed to be cryptic instead.
Second, if I'm to actually think seriously about it, whether the robot is pleasured is pretty much the last thing that comes to mind. Think of it as simply a feedback loop.
Think of it in terms of game design. You could just put the NPCs standing there and not bother with issues like AI or realistic reactions. They're just NPCs, right? Thy're there to be slaughtered. They're no better than cardboard targets, right? WTF do you care if they even try to defend themselves, or their team mates? It's not like they really have feelings or any real team spirit or anything, right?
Well, it turns out that nevertheless, people like it more when they see some believable reaction to their _own_ actions. If you gave someone a choice between two FPS games, (A) one where everyone sits around like cardboard targets, and (B) one where you can see reactions ranging from teamwork (suppression fire, flanking, etc), to panic, to whatever else, as a result of your actions, chances are they'll prefer B any time.
Or if we're talking robots, take some fine creations as the Aibo or various others. Some people buy an Aibo instead of just a statue of a dog. The point is precisely that you expect it to react to the environment or your actions, rather than just sit there looking like a dog.
So _if_ I were to manufacture a robot companion, I'd want it to act and react as much as possible as the owner's expectations of a real person.
The keyword there being "expectations", rather than being actually indistinguishable from a real person. E.g., someone looking for companionship that way probably expects something more along the lines of "co-dependent" than a realistic woman impersonation like "wtf, you never have time for me. If all that matters to you is World Of Warcraft, then I'm packing my bags and leaving." Again, not unlike game design and AI design: you have to match what the player expects, rather than create a perfect simulation or AI.
And _if_ that robot is also usable for sex, that would include sensory input and reactions for that. Ranging from moaning at the right time to pressure sensors to enforce some limits of what it's doing. (E.g., if it's giving the owner a hand-job, you don't want the robot to yank the guy's tool clean off.)
So there you go. Does that satisfy your curiosity?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
direct neural interface. basicly a chip that allow the sensors to talk to someones neural system so that one feel the pressure as if it was ones own skin.
that in my view is realy the holy grail here. to get the feedback loop that is our interaction with the world going while using something thats not flesh.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I am a minority in Japan, and find my current working conditions more than accommodating. Things change. We're not at war anymore. We haven't been for almost 50 years. How old are you, that you can remember all that?
The Chinese have also done horrendous things in their 5,000-year history (to pretty much everybody, and the only thing that stopped them from doing it to Japan was a bit of water and bad weather.) Speaking of Korea, do you also remember this? For sheer nastiness, the only thing Koreans have to fear is themselves.
War is ugly, but it is not unique to Japan. Nor is hatred fashionable, just because it seems to be fashionable right now to hate the Japanese. How can you pretend to be better than somebody when you can't even forgive them for something that happened before you were even born?
I come from America, and we've committed our share of war atrocities (a lot of them against the Japanese, and that's not counting the American ones.) Luckily, we're also powerful and usually on the winning side, so we get to help out with how the history books are written. It works out well for the whole PR campaign.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
I think that, if nothing else, a very realistic robot will be a good test to see if the uncanny valley actually exists.