Robots updates
Jon Burnham curates this page of updates about Robots.
|
Are you ready for a robot that learns on the Internet?
August 2, 2011 byAmara D. Angelica
A humanoid robot that “learns from the Internet and from other robots” and can “think, learn, and act by itself” has been developed by the Hasegawa Lab at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, DigInfo TV reports.
OK, this is freaking me out just a little. I don’t want a bot that learns on the Internet how to make me green tea (see video), OK?
Call me paranoid, but what if it visits a site called “How to poison a human by spiking their green tea” and doesn’t have “poison = no no” coded in memory? I’m thinking a re-read of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in iRobot is in order right about now. Read the full article from kurzweilai.net here.
Foxconn To Replace Human Workers With One Million Robots
POSTED BY: Evan Ackerman / Mon, August 01, 2011 Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer from Taiwan with huge factories in China, generates about 40 percent of the global consumer electronics revenue by creating things like iPhones and computer components on giant assembly lines staffed by humans. Until recently, you'd probably never heard of Foxconn, but a series of worker suicides made us all take a hard look at where our electronics were coming from. Foxconn has made some improvements (including nets around tall buildings), but by all accounts, the core of the problem (the work) remains "repetitive, exhausting, and alienating."
Yesterday, Foxconn announced (at an employee dance party of all places) that they're planning on buying some robots to replace their human workforce. And by some robots, they mean one million robots over the next three years. So for every one robot Foxconn currently has working at their manufacturing plants, they're going to buy a hundred more. (Read full article here.)
Rumor has it (and we should stress that these are rumors) that the actual robots being deployed at the Foxconn plants will come from ABB. Specifically, they'll be ABB's Frida robot, although funnily enough, ABB "insists that its robot isn't designed to replace human workers, but rather to work alongside them:"
So, in a nutshell, this might be great news for ABB. It might be good news for Foxconn. But for any of the million or so people with a job, a home, and a life at a Foxconn plant, things may be about to get even worse.
The DIY Terminator
- Private Robot Armies And The Algorithm-Run Future Of War' by Greg LindsayToday In the latest installment of the Butterfly Effect: Predator drones are just the start of unmanned, autonomous warfare technology. But as the tech becomes more democratized and more deadly, what happens when anyone can assemble an army of killing machines? Read more here.
Robots in media
Clutch - "Burning Beard" DRT Entertainment via BlankTV
Keywords for Robots
Electronics, engineering, mechanics, software, Isaac Asimov, artificial helpers, artificial companions, autonomous robots, commercial robots, industrial robots, machines, automata, humanoid robot, Mechanical duck, Nikola Tesla, radio-controlled, science fiction, palletizing robot, programmable, pneumatic, hydraulics, flywheel energy storage, organic garbage, military robots, drones, nuclear fusion, nuclear reactors, nuclear fission, radioactive source, Red Planet, actuators, electric motors, DC motors, AC motors, portable robots, linear actuators, pneumatic artificial muscles, air muscles, shape memory alloy, nitinol, flexinol wire, Electroactive polymers, EAPs, EPAMs, piezo motors or ultrasonic motors, piezo elements, elastic nanotubes, prosthetic hands, electrodes, artificial skin, SmartHand, computer vision, sensors, electromagnetic radiation, visible light, infra-red light, optics, quantum mechanics, biological systems, manipulation, mobile manipulator, mechanical grippers, vacuum grippers, robot locomotion, mobile robot, rolling robots, wheels, gyroscope, inverted pendulum, Segway, NASA, Robonaut, spherical orb robots, six wheeled robots, tracked robots, hybrids, I Robot, Zero Moment Point, ZMP, hopping, Marc Raibert, MIT Leg Laboratory, dynamic balancing, TU Delft Flame, passive dynamics, locomotion, flying, snaking, skating, climbing, swimming, environmental interaction, navigation, ASIMO, EveR-1, Meinü robot, self-controlled cars, Ernst Dickmanns' driverless car, DARPA Grand Challenge, GPS navigation device, waypoints, radar, sensory data, LIDAR, video cameras, inertial guidance systems, navigation between waypoints, human-robot interaction, speech, gestures, facial expressions, command-line interface, C-3PO, speech recognition, robotic voice, Hanson Robotics, elastic polymer, Frubber, metal skull, Kismet, Nexi, social exchanges, robot paradigms, sensor functions, motion planning, artificial intelligence, autonomy levels, haptics, autonomous robot, teleoperation, task-level autonomy, operator, full autonomy, open-source robotics, evolutionary robotics, areas of robotics, robotics simulator, Hans Moravec, Principal Research Scientist at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, first generation robot, evolutionary robots, evolutionary computation, kinematics, dynamics, mechanics, Robotics Certification Standards Alliance, RCSA, AI, Entertainment, New Media
Beginning & Intermediate Robot Books
These books are recommended by hizook as excellent beginning & intermediate robot books:
External Links for Robots
- Robotics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Robotics Online is the premier resource from RIA, Robotics Industries Association, for industrial robotics and automation
- NASA Robotics - Robotics Alliance Project
- Industrial Robotics & Automation Solutions - FANUC Robotics America
- Robot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
