The Geek Church

What you see in the photo here is the Hagent. I believe that its name is some sort of mashup of the words “heat agent”.

The Hagent is a robot programmed for one thing: to bring the heat into cold places. For example, if you have a fireplace in your home that is piping hot, the Hagent will warm itself by it, and then redistribute that heat to a drafty place in your household. I believe that it is black because this is a color that absorbs heat the best.

It looks like the Hagent is pretty small yet pretty big, but hopefully it has some moderately loud alert system so I don’t trip over it. Then again, I guess we are used to those Roombas that go around and clean our house.

Now here’s the big question: is it easier to built a house that keeps in warmth, or just make a robot so all the warmth within it is redistributed?

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Welcome to a new age of marketing, where androids are the new mannequins. By androids, I am not talking about the popular operating system, but something a little more “WestWorld” but slightly less “Blade Runner”.

Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University, who has created Geminoid android robots that look a lot like human beings, has now discovered a way that his realistic robots can be used for marketing.

In Takashimiya, a department store in Japan, has an unusual method of promotion for V-day as they have a lifelike android mannequin in a glass display. Apparently, it is designed to react with people’s reactions, and I have no idea what that means.

Why else would I post this video? Yes, someone made a robot that can react, to human reactions for Valentine’s Day, and then put it in a glass cage. This is why human beings are the creations and not the creators.

I have to admit, it is pretty impressive that someone made an android that can actually yawn when no humans are looking at her. Should I be impressed or concerned? I’ll let you decide.

Among its many possibilities, technology is often explored as a means of developing better forms of treatment for people with long-term physical and mental disorders. Recently, a research project was conducted at the University of Southern California to find a way to help autistic children become more sociable among other people. In this project led by USC computer scientist Maja Matari´c, a robot was created to assist autistic children in gradually adjusting to a social situation.

This robot is called Bandit, a two-wheeled, gray, humanoid machine with large eyes that is about the size and height of a regular kid. The machine is equipped with stereo cameras for eyes and infrared sensors which enable it to track a child’s current position and behavior and its wheels allow it to move independently as well. Bandit was also given programming to make it capable of doing facial expressions and movements as it attempts to engage socially with an autistic child. Currently, the robot only has the capability for performing basic social skills such as arm gestures and it’s not yet able to understand human speech. Furthermore, Bandit is operated remotely by a researcher who instructs it to act accordingly in response to a child’s reactions to the robot.

Maja Matari´c calls Bandit “a catalyst for social interaction”. The robot’s purpose to help autistic children overcome common weaknesses and behavioral tendencies such as inability to speak clearly, habits like hand-flipping and being obsessed with objects like toys and electronic devices. One autism expert from England is psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, who also commented on the issue of social interaction. He said that autistic kids tend to trust objects such as computers and electronic devices because they’re very predictable while people are not. The behavior of other people is less predictable and potentially distressing for autistic children, so they often find comfort in objects.

Matari´c intends to perfect Bandit eventually in other aspects of robotics such as artificial intelligence, machine vision, mechanical and electrical design, and signal processing. Then robots can be very effective in treating autistic patients through careful, social interaction without frightening them. Matari´c also hopes to make robots like Bandit available for the same cost as a laptop in the next ten years.

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In today’s culture, we continue to see the development of devices designed to be modern conveniences for our everyday life. Some examples include GPS technology for easy road navigation, Bluetooth headsets for hands-free phone calls and voice-controlled car stereos for convenient access to your music playlist. But now a robotic duo has been developed by Norris Labs to serve you cold drinks in the home.

Steve Norris from Norris Labs created two robots called Baxter the ButlerBot and RoboFridge and he named the pair, the Beverage Delivery System. Basically, this dynamic duo was designed to bring you a cold, canned beverage while you sit comfortably on your chair or couch. Furthermore, these robots work together to get the job done since they are a pair. Baxter operates as a delivery boy to bring you the drink while RoboFridge functions like a non-coin op vending machine to dispense the drinks for Baxter to deliver. In order to use the Beverage Delivery System, you make a drink request via remote control and the route to and from RoboFridge is given to Baxter through a wireless link. Routes for Baxter then come in the form of instructions for navigation such as ‘go to beacon,’ ‘follow line,’ and ‘turn right 90 degrees.

Currently, this Beverage Delivery System known as Baxter the ButlerBot and RoboFridge is only effective when they’re used on the same floor of a building. Nevertheless, Steve Norris intends for Baxter to have the capability for multiple routes in different locations eventually. He went on to say that Baxter can handle carrying a canned drink just as well as an actual person would. He plans to improve the robotic duo’s bartendering skills for his home office as well. Thus, the day of robot servants in the home may finally be upon us. This new modern convenience may be embraced by the consumer if it becomes a mainstream product but it could come with some repercussions. Films of science fiction have taught us that machines tend to turn against the humans who use them. Nonetheless, an actual problem in reality might be obesity and poor health due to a lifetime of modern conveniences.

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Hey there, dear readers! Let’s take a moment to discuss public commuting. Of course, common options in commuting include buses, taxis, and trains. These options exist to serve people who don’t have their own vehicles and those who just want to avoid the issue of parking and spending gas money. But have you ever considered what public commuting could like in the future? How about a robot transport system that you can access through text messaging?

Yes, such a concept really is on the design table right now. It is called the Iris Autonomous Transport, which seems to have a large “eye” in its design, making the term “iris” appropriate in its name. You would use a text message to summon this self-operating commute vehicle and tell it your desired destination in the same way. Apparently, this conceptual vehicle would be relying on GPS technology to guide its navigation during travel from one location to another in a city.

However, if this Iris Autonomous Transport concept ever does make it into the real world, that might not bode well for public commute operators. It’s likely that bus drivers, train conductors and cabbies would never want this concept to be fully realized so their jobs won’t be threatened. After all, the idea of machines replacing human workers could be a legitimate concern in today’s technological culture.

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Development of military technology has recently taken an unexpected turn in the creation of new combat hardware. Apparently, remote-controlled robot drones are a frontier of great interest for researchers in Israel. They have actually created a small robot that finds and neutralizes explosives and enemy targets hiding on the battlefield.

Israeli scientists in the field of robotics developed a machine they call the Pincher. The purpose of this robot drone is to counteract the threat of hidden improvised, explosive devices (IEDs) by detonating them before they can be triggered by unsuspecting soldiers or civilians. The Pincher uses a small, eight-inch rocket called a pyrophoric arrow, which will embed itself into an explosive and burn it up after being fired. Of course, the idea behind this robot is to give military personnel the ability to go into hostile territory and flush out unexpected threats without risking the lives of one’s own troops.

However, the Pincher is only fifty square inches in size, so it’s small enough to be considered a children’s toy. Nevertheless, such a device could open new possibilities for attack and defense capabilities on the battlefield and preserving the lives of soldiers despite its size. After all, one should never underestimate the little guy in the art of warfare.

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If you grew up watching classic television shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman or even heard of them, then you should be familiar with the concept of using bionic prosthesis to make a human stronger and faster. On television, actors Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner portrayed characters who became superhuman when they received surgical bionic implants after their bodies were crippled in terrible accidents. As a result of their surgeries, these TV characters gained superhuman strength, speed and agility. Of course, prosthesis does exist in real-life for replacing limbs on victims of tragic accidents but those artificial limbs can’t make people superhuman. But now a company called Touch Bionics has made bionic prosthesis a reality in the real world.

They recently developed a new model of their original bionic creation the i-Limb Hand and it’s called the i-Limb Pulse. The i-Limb Pulse features controllable grip strength, miniaturized components and rugged aluminum construction that make it capable of lifting and carrying loads up to 200 pounds. This bionic hand was designed with high-frequency electronic pulses to drive each digit motor to gradually tighten its grip on objects such as shoelaces or belts and provide better control over intricate grasping motions. Bluetooth-enabled software called MyBioSim is also used to allow people to control preset digit and grip postures, like pointing an index finger for example and this software is used in Touch Bionics’ finger product ProDigits as well. Furthermore, the users of the i-Limb Pulse can also link it to a home computer and choose the grip patterns they want to use most, thus making visits to a prosthesis doctors obsolete. Both the i-Limb Hand and Pulse use faint signals on the surface of human skin called myoelectric impulses, which remain from surviving arm muscles. Then these sensations are utilized to drive the individually powered digits in the bionic hands and patients are trained to generate impulses for prompting the hands to produce specific finger actions like button pushing. The i-Limb Pulse will also be available in two different sizes for men and women.

Touch Bionics has scheduled a presentation of the i-Limb Pulse at Orthopaedie + Reha-Technik 2010 in Leipzig, Germany next week. Another new product in bionic prosthesis called the BeBionic hand will also be introduced at Reha-Technik 2010 by a company named RSLSteeper. BeBionic features powered wrist rotation and “flexion/extension,” as well as lifelike silicone skin covering available in 19 shades. Touch Bionics is now accepting orders for the i-Limb Pulse, their products are currently used by 1,200 people all over the world and shipping for i-Limb Pulse starts on June 1. However, the company has given no information about cost, which will be affected by factors such as socket design, artificial skin covering, and rehab. So, bionic prosthesis now exist for increasing your strength. Perhaps that brings us a step closer to creating superhumans in real life as well.

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Armed with a brush and a load of assorted paint, a skilled painter can take a blank canvass or flat surface and transform it into a beautiful work of art. Of course, painting ranges from being a personal hobby to a professional career for novices, students and veterans alike. Artists and art lovers often see beauty in the skill of a painter’s hand, signs of a signature style, displays of imaginative vision and deep expressions of personal emotions and memories. But does that same beauty exist in a creative work when a machine is the painter instead of a person? Decide the answer for yourselves today, dear readers, as we take a look at a self-operating machine designed to create murals.

This machine is called the Facadeprinter. The automated creation is controlled by software and basically functions like an automatic paintball cannon. It was designed to shoot a wall with dots of paint at a rate of two hundred kilometers per hour and its range is about twelve meters. This machine also has the capability to upload SVG images from a USB flash drive and it has a touchscreen that allows the user to overlay work on a photo of the printing area for proper scale size and alignment. Although the user must measure distance of the printing area and enter it into the machine manually, the printing software itself will make the necessary adjustments for correct perspective and ballistic distortion.

Furthermore, the Facadeprinter is able to fire five paintballs per second and the colored pixels left behind are five to ten centimeters in diameter. The machine also allows a person to use a laser display of a full-scale bounding box of the artwork on the printing surface to make sure that it’s aligned in the right position. So, mural paintings are now easily made with this automated device. Personally, I doubt that this Facadeprinter is capable of creating the same imaginative beauty that exists in a hand-made work of art, though.

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Autonomous robot technology seems to be a popular venture for researchers and developers these days. Currently, this technology is being applied in the development of smart vehicles designed to function independently without the need for a human operator. One example of this is the X-37B Space Shuttle created by Boeing, which took flight last night.

This robotic test craft had been in development for the last decade before its recent launch and DARPA actually took possession of it back in 2004. The plan for this autonomous spacecraft is to let it remain in orbit for two hundred and seventy days and it is supposed to return to Earth on its own by autopilot. According to Gary Payton of the Air Force, there is no estimation for the self-operating vessel’s return. It seems that they literally intend to wait and see if it will come back at all. Beyond that, specific details about the purpose of the experiment remain unknown.

However, if this project goes as planned, the X-37B Space Shuttle will make its return to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and should be ready for re-launch fifteen days later. Another test run has been scheduled for 2011. Well, DARPA and the Air Force should keep their fingers crossed and maybe they’ll see their robotic spacecraft’s safe return after 270 days.

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Research developers continue to devise new concepts in technology to help senior citizens and the disabled overcome the physical limitations on the human body caused by advanced age, injury and disease. Of course, known breakthroughs in such technology include hearing aids, motorized wheelchairs and voice amplifiers. Now a Japanese robot developer called Vstone and the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute from Japan have joined forces to create a robotic assistant for the elderly and disabled.

They call their creation Robovie-R Ver. 3. This robot is one hundred and twenty centimeters tall, weighs forty-three kilometers and is equipped with a number of features. It has eleven touch sensors, two USB cameras (one for each eye), two mono mics (for each of its ears), a total of seventeen joints, a speaker (for his mouth), network capability, a speed of 2.5 kilometers per hour, an aluminum frame and an optional laser ranger finder for avoiding obstacles. The robot also has a 336Wh battery as its energy source.

The Robovie-R Ver. 3 is designed to enter buildings on its own by using a building’s diagonal ramp and can lead a walking person by the hand while in motion. The robotic unit is currently available for order with a cost of $41,000. Personally, I think this robot actually resembles a children’s toy more than a sophisticated piece of machinery. It’s definitely an expensive toy, though.

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