I, for one, welcome our new Robot overlords.
Amazon announced recently that they bought a company named Kiva for $775 million. In cash. Kiva makes robots for fulfillment warehouses, of which Amazon has many. When I heard this news, I was all, robots are cool, but $775 million? But this short video on how the Kiva robots work made me a believer:
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I’m constantly advising my friends to send the dog to ‘the farm‘. (… and sell their children)
But since Sony discontinued their robot dog AIBO in 2006, what’s the best replacement?
Here’s cute and cuddly. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
…
I want to choke that baby seal already.
Perhaps a baby dinosaur. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
…
hmm … might have to keep the dog, for now.
(via Mashable – Can a Robot Ever Be Man’s Best Friend?)
For some odd reason the Japanese government is paying for construction of a 5yr-old-looking robot. And a 9-month-old baby robot.
Here’s the baby.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
link – Japan’s creepy kid robots perfect pals for Chucky
Seems they’re still decades away from an indecent Number 6. … I may not live that long.
In the U.K. we can see what’s yet to come in the other large cities of the world.
They have cameras everywhere.
One London bus has 16 CCTV cameras inside.
So far they’ve spent £500m on the Closed Circuit TV program.
Does it work?
Only one crime was solved by each 1,000 CCTV cameras in London last year, a report into the city’s surveillance network has claimed.
The internal police report found the million-plus cameras in London rarely help catch criminals. …
(article recommended by Stuart Green)
details on the brilliant social commentary
At my hostel in Edinburgh there’s a sign in the kitchen saying:
Food has been stolen from this kitchen. If it continues, we’re actually going to take the time to review the video camera monitoring it!
I think these cameras are inevitable. They don’t work now. But our robot overlords will improve them over time.
Warren posted photos from this very cool performance.
Stunning. Fun, funny and interesting. I was not expecting the dinosaurs to move so realistically.
more photos – flickr
New limited edition hi def projector, dvd player, ipod dock, sound system, card reader and entertainment system in an authentic R2D2 that you can control. He has hook ups for computer, gaming systems, sattelite, cable. Can even plug in your ipod to play movies up to 260″ diagonally on wall or ceiling.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Might be good for a homeless guy. R2D2 could trail along behind me wherever I go.
Details on my gymnastics blog.
I’ve cautioned that robots will take over the Earth.
In fact, Battlestar Galactica may foretell the future. The Cylons are yet taking baby steps:
The bad news: the U.S. military has commissioned a robot helicopter equipped with a rifle capable “of tracking and killing a particular individual.” The good news: the “particular individual” could be Geraldo Rivera.
And in what it calls an effort to “ease tensions,” South Korea is moving ahead with plans to post robot sentries along its border with the North — because really, nothing eases tensions between two historic rivals quite like the deployment of robots equipped with night-vision sensors and machine guns that open fire at the slightest hint of movement.
… The big hit of the recent RoboBusiness Conference in Boston was the unveiling of the Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot, or BEAR, from Vecna Robotics. This robot has a balancing system that allows it to crouch and race across a battlefield at up to 35 km/h to retrieve a wounded soldier and bring him to medics, before going back to fetch the four other soldiers it ran over and crushed while saving the first guy.
Macleans.ca – Canada – Opinions | Ladies and gents, I present to you: the apocalypse
The Japanese Science and Technology Agency should start working on constucting Battlestars next.
Apparently it emulates “the physical ability of a 1- or 2-year-old toddler, can turn over and stand up with assistance,” has 51 compressed air-powered actuators, and has 200 tactile sensors in its “skin.”
It sends so many shivers up our spine to think of the CB2’s lifeless putty coating as “skin” that it’s a wonder we’re even able to continue typing.
CB2 Child Robot is possibly the most disturbing machine ever built – Engadget
More photos and video on Tokyo Times.
Rick McCharles 