News Links for: February, 2012

"If accepted by the animals, robotic fish may act as leaders and drive them away from human-induced ecological disasters that are affecting life in aquatic environments, such as oil spills, and man-made structures, such as dams."

"...it reacts to gestures and learns by watching a human colleague how to empty a dishwasher or clean the counter."

Given the current pace of technological development, does the "robopocalypse" scenario seem more far-fetched or prophetic? The fate of the world could tip in either direction, depending on who you ask.

PDF File: Some of the original research inspiring the design for nude.js, an open-source nudity scanner for child security filters, etc.
See nude.js at http://www.patrick-wied.at/static/nudejs/

PDF File: A Google/Stanford team explain how they set about extracting house numbers from Street View images. Histograms-of-Oriented-Gradients HOG, K-Means and Stacked Sparse Auto-Encoder algorithms are compared.

"...the program is designed to supplement its pattern recognition algorithms with human psychological traits..., We're trying to make programs that can discover the same types of patterns that humans see."

"You know what's missing in your life? Yes, that's right, a robot that wanders around your house seeking out bad smells and neutralizing them. Obviously there's a huge market for these things...,"

"The AI does not know any Thai at all but it picked it up quickly and learned to chat quite proficiently in the matter of a few weeks thanks to early adopters. Only the early adopters were all too eager to teach it politics and profanity."

The commander of the International Space Station, Daniel Burbank, shook hands Wednesday with Robonaut. It's the first handshake ever between a human and a humanoid in space...

Wake Forest University researchers are refining a genetically inspired algorithm that proactively discovers more secure computer configurations by leveraging the concept of "survival of the fittest."

Video: ABC News reporters discuss and review remote controlled aerial robots with cameras used by military, real estate agents, paparazzi, and everyday hobbyists. A wide variety of robot designs and their video capture are demonstrated.

A few recommendations on books and tools for studying machine learning.

Sebastian Thrun sent out an email to all Stanford Online AI Course participants announcing:
"Due to popular demand, we are teaching a follow-up class: AI for Robotics at www.udacity.com . Also due to popular demand, we now have a programming environment, so you can develop and test software. Our goal is to teach you to program a self-driving car in 7 weeks. This is a topic very close to my heart, and I am eager to share it with you. (This class builds on the concepts in ai-class, but ai-class is NOT required)."

"Siri is a breakthrough in voice control, sure, but she's also a breakthrough in computerized personality. The question is: Do we want our gadgets to have personality?"

"Nebulous attributions of morality's origin to supernatural sources will only confound our ability to program a thinking machine. Scientific grounding in the philosophy of morality via rigorous mathematical representations is the most likely route to progress..."

A Japanese-developed robot that mimics the movements of its human controller is bringing the Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar" one step closer to reality.

"Low-frequency signals, which are already used to communicate with submarines because they can pass through water, move well through materials that would block a high-frequency Bluetooth or cell phone transmitter."

"We're a robotics team that happens to be made up of girls, and I think that has a lot of advantages to it..., We look at things differently. Like when we try to solve things, we don't solve them by knocking things over like a boy would. We look at things more logically..."

Human waste might someday turn human urine or waste into useful electricity for radios or space robots..., "EcoBot-III was able to both eat and crap inside its lab environment."

"The GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is already famous for its quadrotor tricks..., Now, those big bad quadrotors have been shrunk down into much smaller 'nano quadrotors,' and the GRASP Lab has been playing around with lots of them..."

"As robots became more sophisticated and animations more realistic, it was found that our empathy for these human analogues grew with their similarity to ourselves. But there's a catch: As robots become increasingly humanoid in appearance and behavior past a certain point, a phenomenon known as the uncanny valley emerges."

Video: Dallas Personal Robotics Group's David Anderson provides tips, tricks and instructions for designing subsumption-based mobile robots.

Video: Constructed from Lego NXT components, this model of a working robotic factory system has four flexible arms (capable of motion in three dimensions) each packing a pneumatic gripper that can pick things off the line and sort them into the appropriate spaces.

"Road trains are ideal for rush hour traffic, where cars and trucks follow similar patterns each day. In those situations, it's really great for the car to take over..., I can spend the time any way I want. Want to read a book, check your e-mail or eat breakfast? In a road train, you can — without endangering the lives of those around you."

"Evi understands natural language..., You can talk to her like a normal person and she will understand what you are asking."
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.trueknowledge.android.evi
or
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/evi/id463296609?mt=8

"there are many challenges ahead, the biggest remains getting the robots to match the needs and expectations of the human mind..., How we interact with embodied machines is different than how we interact with a computer, cell phone or other intelligent devices...,"

Interviewer: "If I ordered a pair of shoes now, when do you think I can get them shipped to me?" CyberTwin: "Things often look more complete when they are in a pair, less lonely perhaps. Would you agree?" ELIZA, shoot me now.

"A vending machine that can estimate the age of a buyer could be useful for products that involve age control, such as alcoholic drinks and cigarettes."