In the near future, we’ll begin issuing commands to our home robots by voice. But this will soon evolve beyond the mere one-way issuance of orders. For robots to be truly useful in our homes. it will be imperative that we be able to carry on actual conversations with them. But, just as you have no patience for slow response times on your computer now, researchers have found that you likewise will have no patience from a slow-to-respond robot. Even if that means filling awkward moments of silence with small talk, as your robot is thinking, humans need to receive near-immediate input. Toshiyuki Shiwa and colleagues at the ATR laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, set out to find out just how quickly domestic robots should respond to their owners’ requests by asking 38 students to give orders to a robot. The robot was set to respond in from anywhere from zero to 5 seconds. The students’ patience began to run out after 2 seconds, with 1 second being the optimal response time. However, and this is very interesting, the impatient students were okay with a slower response time if the robot filled in the time with “filler” words, such as “well” or “er.” When the this occurred, people did not notice the delay. In other word’s, make the robots more human-like. Uh, yeah, um, like, I agree. The study was presented at Human-Robot Interaction 2008 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Joseph Engelberger, often called the father of robotics, at 82 is still working to advance robotics. His work has long been in industrial robotics, but he sees robots moving from factories into homes, where they could be caregivers for the elderly and shut-ins. He and his partner Andrew Silverthorne are seeking funding to develop them through PALS Robotics. The acronym PALS stands for Personal Assistance Living System. Silverthorne says, “Nobody wants to be shipped off to nursing homes. The idea is that robots live at home with you for a buck an hour—that’s our pitch. ...They can’t do a lot of things for which you can call a visiting nurse, but they can help around the house a lot. ...They can do a lot of cleaning, they can operate in the kitchen.” He disagrees that robots should be single purpose machines such as robot vacuum cleaners like the Roomba; instead he is developing a versatile two-armed robot that can understand your voice commands and do household chores like unpack groceries, cook, pour drinks, vacuum, etc. For more information please read the Investors Business Daily article, His Robots Change Our Worlds.
Like to play catch with your dog? Who doesn’t. But, do you like to play catch, over and over and over. The darn doggies never tire of it. The maker of this video has found a way to let his Dachshund named Jerry play catch, while he goes and watches TV or has a beer. He’s created a robotic ball throwing machine that never tires. Watch the funny video.
I’ve seen all kinds of robot prototypes and experiments that mimic animals of one sort or another. But “BigDog” from the geniuses at Boston Dynamics takes the cake. Actually, if BigDog wants my cake, he can have it, while I run for the exits. He’s so cool, he’s kind of creepy. He trots around like a prancing horse going for the Blue Ribbon, but there’s just something about its leg movement that unsettles me. But I love it! He’s kind of like the Energizer Bunny, in that he’s just keeps going and going. He runs on snow, climbs up rocks and even jumps. I hope I don’t have nightmares tonight.
Are you unsure that robots will someday be able to blend into your home? Play with your kids? Be your buddy? Well, watch this little guy on a swing. Yes, he’s programmed to do this, but notice the smoothness of his movements. We’re getting closer, small advancement by little advancement.
Just how long will it be until you can talk to your home robot just like you would a member of your family and watch it react as if it were human, so much so that you could not even tell if it’s a robot? I don’t mean merely issuing commands to it, but actually “talking” to it. Have a conversation. Ask how “he” or “she” is feeling. And be interested. Not in the lab as a leading edge product, but in your home, and in your neighbor’s home. So what do you think, maybe 50 years? That’s a time frame that gets thrown out quite often by many scientists, researchers and futurists who are supposed to know about these things. How could it be any sooner, after all, after decades of work, we’re just now at the point where robot floor vacs, plastic toy pets and foot tall, metallic humanoids are the state of the art for the consumer. It’s a huge leap to full size, always on, full-sensory, life-like, complex-thinking robots that for all intents and purposes are “alive,” with the exception of a soul. Of course it will be 50 years—at least—right? Wrong. Expect sooner.
I’m telling you that this technology, these “beings,” will arrive sooner than that, considerably sooner. Fifty years may be close, but not fifty calendar years. Huh? I’m talking about fifty years worth of advancement as measured in our current rate of technological progress, which will occur in less than calendar years. You see, the pace of technological advancement progresses exponentially (which expands by repeatedly multiplying by a constant), not linearly (which expands by repeatedly adding a constant). In laymen terms, this means that each year the rate of change is faster than the previous. More technological advancement is performed in the same amount of time as we move forward into the future. Consider the telephone, which took about a half century to attain widespread usage. Contrast with this the later adoption of the cell phone, which took a mere decade. The further into the future, the shorter the time required for a unit of progress. It’s similar in all technologies.
Have you got kids? Kids that you know are bright, yet are bored to death with the math and science being taught in their school? It’s unfortunate because the number of jobs that require skills in math, science and technology is growing rapidly. Who’s going to fill these sought after, high-paying jobs? Don’t let your kids be passed by, by their more educated and determined counterparts in countries like India and China. It’s a competitive, flat world now, and others are out to eat your kid’s lunch, literally. But you can get them educated, and more importantly, excited, in science and technology by getting them into the cool hobby of robotics.
In Rochester, Minnesota, companies are helping with their involvement in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit organization and program that matches professional engineers with teams of high school students. The teams compete to build a robot with certain design requirements. The winners are chosen by not only whose robot performs the best, but also by sportsmanship, teamwork and the ability to work under pressure. Interestingly, FIRST students are more likely to say they expect to pursue a career in science and technology, and nearly four times as likely to desire a career specifically in engineering.
But, what can you do for your kids if they are not in Rochester, and if you cannot find a similar program where you live? Easy. Buy them a LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot building kit. It’s the best $250 you will have ever spent on your child’s education. It’s the easiest way to start learning robotics. A simple robot can be built in as little as 30 minutes. Yet it’s no mere toy either. Your child will be able to build incredibly smart and advanced robots as well. The product comes with an NXT Intelligent Brick with a 32-bit processor, servo motors, a visual sensor, a touch sensor, a light sensor, 519 LEGO TECHNIC elements, 4 input ports, 3 output ports, a display, speakers, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth support, and software that works with both the PC and Mac.
And your son or daughter needn’t work alone. There is a huge community of kids through adult LEGO hobbyists online, and likely in clubs in your town, that are always willing to help, share ideas, and show others their creations. Working with others, or on their own, LEGO Mindstorms NXT will inspire and educate your child while offering excitement and loads of fun.
You can easily spend $250 on a toy or electronic gadget. Don’t waste it something just offers play time, or something that just blows out your kid’s eardrums. Buy something with some educational value that just may be what it takes to propel a child into an exciting and rewarding field of study and work.
With all the discussion of future sex with robots, particularly since the recent publication of David Levy’s book, Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, we thought it would be fun on this Friday to show you a video of last month’s David Letterman’s “10 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Having Sex with a Robot.” Enjoy.
Husqvarna held a London roofttop demo of the world’s first solar hybrid robot electric lawnmover! It’s called the Automower Solar Hybrid, and looks like other robot mowers with one beautiful difference—it has a solar panel on the top. On a sunny day the the panel and the internal battery will keep it running for an hour. And if this wan’t enough of a green machine, 90% of its parts are made from recycled materials. Not sure what the US price and availability is yet, but in the UK it will set you back £2,000.
When I go to the gym, I’m always fascinated to watch just how much money people will spend to pay for a personal trainer, who basically just tells them to do their exercises. And I am also fascinated that people also pay companies like Weightwatchers and Jenny Craig just to be told to stop eating so much. Soon, low-willpower exercisers and dieters will instead be able to spend their money on a weight loss coach named “autom” who will help its owner track diet and exercise.
Cory Kidd, Ph.D., an MIT researcher and the Founder/CEO of Intuitive Automata, Inc., has developed a robot that functions as an exercise and diet coach. It talks to you about how much you’re eating and exercising, asking the user to input data on a touch screen, and then offers encouragement and advice. Researchers found that users stayed on their weight loss program nearly twice as long as those who used traditional computer programs or handwritten logs. Now if you could just get one with legs that will go to the gym with you.
In the near future, we’ll begin issuing commands to our home robots by voice. But this will soon evolve beyond the mere one-way issuance of orders. For robots to be truly useful in our homes. it will be imperative that we be able to carry on actual conversations with them. But, just as you have no patience for slow response times on your computer now, researchers have found that you likewise will have no patience from a slow-to-respond robot. Even if that means filling awkward moments of silence with small talk, as your robot is thinking, humans need to receive near-immediate input. Toshiyuki Shiwa and colleagues at the ATR laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, set out to find out just how quickly domestic robots should respond to their owners’ requests by asking 38 students to give orders to a robot. The robot was set to respond in from anywhere from zero to 5 seconds. The students’ patience began to run out after 2 seconds, with 1 second being the optimal response time. However, and this is very interesting, the impatient students were okay with a slower response time if the robot filled in the time with “filler” words, such as “well” or “er.” When the this occurred, people did not notice the delay. In other word’s, make the robots more human-like. Uh, yeah, um, like, I agree. The study was presented at Human-Robot Interaction 2008 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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Joseph Engelberger, often called the father of robotics, at 82 is still working to advance robotics. His work has long been in industrial robotics, but he sees robots moving from factories into homes, where they could be caregivers for the elderly and shut-ins. He and his partner Andrew Silverthorne are seeking funding to develop them through 
Just how long will it be until you can talk to your home robot just like you would a member of your family and watch it react as if it were human, so much so that you could not even tell if it’s a robot? I don’t mean merely issuing commands to it, but actually “talking” to it. Have a conversation. Ask how “he” or “she” is feeling. And be interested. Not in the lab as a leading edge product, but in your home, and in your neighbor’s home. So what do you think, maybe 50 years? That’s a time frame that gets thrown out quite often by many scientists, researchers and futurists who are supposed to know about these things. How could it be any sooner, after all, after decades of work, we’re just now at the point where robot floor vacs, plastic toy pets and foot tall, metallic humanoids are the state of the art for the consumer. It’s a huge leap to full size, always on, full-sensory, life-like, complex-thinking robots that for all intents and purposes are “alive,” with the exception of a soul. Of course it will be 50 years—at least—right? Wrong. Expect sooner.
Have you got kids? Kids that you know are bright, yet are bored to death with the math and science being taught in their school? It’s unfortunate because the number of jobs that require skills in math, science and technology is growing rapidly. Who’s going to fill these sought after, high-paying jobs? Don’t let your kids be passed by, by their more educated and determined counterparts in countries like India and China. It’s a competitive, flat world now, and others are out to eat your kid’s lunch, literally. But you can get them educated, and more importantly, excited, in science and technology by getting them into the cool hobby of robotics.
robot building kit. It’s the best $250 you will have ever spent on your child’s education. It’s the easiest way to start learning robotics. A simple robot can be built in as little as 30 minutes. Yet it’s no mere toy either. Your child will be able to build incredibly smart and advanced robots as well. The product comes with an NXT Intelligent Brick with a 32-bit processor, servo motors, a visual sensor, a touch sensor, a light sensor, 519 LEGO TECHNIC elements, 4 input ports, 3 output ports, a display, speakers, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth support, and software that works with both the PC and Mac.
, we thought it would be fun on this Friday to show you a video of last month’s David Letterman’s “10 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Having Sex with a Robot.” Enjoy.
Husqvarna held a London roofttop demo of the world’s first solar hybrid robot electric lawnmover! It’s called the Automower Solar Hybrid, and looks like other robot mowers with one beautiful difference—it has a solar panel on the top. On a sunny day the the panel and the internal battery will keep it running for an hour. And if this wan’t enough of a green machine, 90% of its parts are made from recycled materials. Not sure what the US price and availability is yet, but in the UK it will set you back £2,000.