Great video from a cultural anthropologist for Kansas State University. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]
Posts filed under Robots Are Our Future
The Future is Here (an occasional series)
Some good links from Kurzweilai.net Bionic hand controlled by the mind
A highly functional bionic hand which was invented by a Scottish NHS worker has gone on the market. The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient's mind and muscles.
Robot insect takes off for the first time
A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) - The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles. The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
Much of what we have been seeing in science-fiction movies over the last 50 years and have dismissed as fantasy, will actually come true in the next 20 to 30 years, included automated, robotic war and the merging of man and machine.
Military Builds Robotic Insects
Those of you who have heard my "robots are coming" speech know that I expect intelligent and highly capable machines within a generation. The first generation of these robots are here now.
See this article below about robotic insects with attack capabilities. Just imagine how dangerous and scary these things are in 3-4 generations with some emergent intelligence.
Full article from Wired here.
If you feel something crawling on your neck, it might be a wasp or a bee. Or it might be something much more dangerous.
Israel is developing a robot the size of a hornet to attack terrorists. And although the prototype will not fly for three years, killer Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, are much closer than that.
British Special Forces already use 6-inch MAV aircraft called WASPs for reconnaissance in Afghanistan. The $3,000 WASP is operated with a Gameboy-style controller and is nearly silent, so it can get very close without being detected. A new development will reportedly see the WASP fitted with a C4 explosive warhead for kamikaze attacks on snipers. One newspaper dubbed it "The Talibanator."
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This means preventing the target from carrying out its mission, rather than destroying it, Davis says. A truck, for example, can be put out of action by destroying its tires; a MAV can do this by squirting them with few milliliters of a catalytic de-polymerization agent, causing them to disintegrate rapidly.
A Robot in Every Home
Nothing more to be said. Just read the article
A Robot in Every Home
By Bill Gates
Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when--or even if--this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world.
Of course, the paragraph above could be a description of the computer industry during the mid-1970s, around the time that Paul Allen and I launched Microsoft. Back then, big, expensive mainframe computers ran the back-office operations for major companies, governmental departments and other institutions. Researchers at leading universities and industrial laboratories were creating the basic building blocks that would make the information age possible. Intel had just introduced the 8080 microprocessor, and Atari was selling the popular electronic game Pong. At homegrown computer clubs, enthusiasts struggled to figure out exactly what this new technology was good for.
But what I really have in mind is something much more contemporary: the emergence of the robotics industry, which is developing in much the same way that the computer business did 30 years ago....