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.
Via: BotJunkie
Parents instinctively and naturally teach babies how to talk, but how does that work, exactly? Researchers at at the University of Plymouth will try to find out. Over the next four years robotics experts will work with language development specialists will work with a one meter tall humanoid baby robot named iCub in an attempt to discover exactly how language development works. The team’s findings will hopefully lead to the development of humanoid robots that think, learn and talk. With a bit more technical jargon, Angelo Cangelosi, Professor in Artificial Intelligence said: “The outcome of the research will define the scientific and technological requirements for the design of humanoid robots able to develop complex behavioral, thinking and communication skills through individual and social learning.” Maybe they should just do want a lot of parents unfortunately do these days, just plop iCub down in front of a TV.
Despite all the controversy about whether or not we will require home robots to look human or not, technology that literally brings a human face to robots is moving forward at a rapid pace . Nowhere is robotics advancing as quickly as it is in Japan, where exciting projects are underway in their university labs. At one such lab in Tokyo, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic human expressions - happiness, anger, fear, sadness, surprise and disgust. But it does more than create these expressions on command; it is connected to a database of words clustered by association and responds to various words, reacting to their meanings. For example, the robot—named Kansei (meaning sensibility)—reacts to the word “war” by quivering in a combination of fear and disgust. Why is this important? “To live among people, robots need to handle complex social tasks,’’ said project leader Junichi Takeno of Meiji University. “Robots will need to work with emotions, to understand and eventually feel them. Hiroshi Ishiguro—maker of the Geminoid robot—at Osaka University agrees. “In the end, we don’t want to interact with machines or computers. We want to interact with technology in a human way so it’s natural and valid to try to make robots look like us,’’ he said.
There is a debate going on about the ideal form factor of robots. iRobot, of Roomba and Scooba fame, says that robots should not be of humanoid form. “Forget the anthropomorphic features,” says iRobot CEO Colin Angle. But science fiction legend Isaac Asimov disagrees, believing that human form robots are more practical since everything in the world is already built for the human shape.
But do consumers have a preference? New research provides some answers and, interestingly, it is based upon personality types. A team led by Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn at the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Computer Science concludes that people with more extrovert personalities tend to choose more human-looking and human-sounding, humanoid robots, while more introverted people tend to prefer mechanical-looking robots which by, the way, very well could have a head, but a metal head.
“After years of investigating Human Robot Interaction with hundreds of participants, we have looked at proxemics, an area which has not been studied before, and condensed all of this information into an empirical framework,” added Professor Dautenhahn. “Also, rather than producing a robot and then finding an application for it, we have involved people in the development of these People Bots right from the start.”
Proxemics? I learned a new word today.
”Not exactly ready for Prime Time, but I have to admit incredibly impressive, this kitchen service robot built by professors at Tokyo University gives us a glimpse of how robots will help us around the house. The guy isn’t very fast, but the humanoid robot has enough delicate dexterity and precision that he can pour tea and wash up after. The robot is the result of four years of hard work using cutting edge technology gathered from more than 40 Robotics and Information Technology professors at the University of Tokyo.
The recently released ComputerWorld report, Personal Tech: Top Ten Trends, placed home robots as the number three top trend, right behind number one flash-based subnotebooks, and number two free internet access. They peg 2008 as the year that “very intelligent and very affordable” home robots go mainstream, and for this they thank the move to having a WiFi-connected computer as the robot’s brain instead of having it onboard. In doing so, the cost of the robot’s “brain” is removed from the price tag as will now be handled by the PC or other computer or game platform you already own.
In particular, as examples of home robots to come, they mention the Hanson Robotics’ Zeno humanoid and a rumored comeback of Sony’s AIBO robot pet dog. The incredibly cool Zeno (click image above for a video) will be very human-like, with the ability to walk and talk, show emotions, make eye contact and know you by name and what you look like. Sony will possibly bring back its ABIO robot dog as the new and improved ABIO PS. But this new version moves the robot’s brain out of the dog and into a Sony PlayStation. The new pooch will respond to your voice commands, and with the cam on its forehead, it will guard your home, even emailing you photos of any intruders. Here’s a video of the previous version of the ABIO. As you can see, the original is great, so we have high hopes for the successor.
Here is a video of the current and now discontinued AIBO, playing with a cat.
Zeno Robot:
Sony AIBO Robot Dog
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