Anti-Jellyfish Robot Could Worsen Situation

Now this is called a major mistake – apparently, a robot whose sole purpose is to remove them nasty jellyfish from our waters could end up doing the exact opposite, that is, by ending up with more jellyfish than before. What you see above happens to be JEROS, also known as the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm, which is currently being tested before it is commercially released. A team of engineers over at South Korea has come up with JEROS, where it was designed to get rid of jellyfish swarms. Making use of a camera and GPS system in order to determine where the jellyfish swarms are underwater, it will then make a move in the right direction, where a huge net underneath it gathers the jellyfish before a special propeller is meant to make short work of them.

Unfortunately, according to Robert Condon, a research scientist with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab who studies jellyfish, he claims that the JEROS the jellyfish-destruction robot could eventually end up creating additional jellyfish. It might kill the jellyfish, but it does not do a good enough job to destroy the jellyfish’s eggs and sperm. Rather, it mixes it all up in one spot, which in turn increases the chance of them discovering each other. Talk about returning with a vengeance!

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  • Anti-Jellyfish Robot Could Worsen Situation original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Monsieur Robotic Bartender Intends To Deliver The ‘Perfect’ Cocktail

    Monsieur Robotic Bartender Intends To Deliver The Perfect CocktailAre robots about to take over the world? I suppose you could more or less say so, as they have already played a large role in places such as factories, doing highly repetitive tasks without ever getting tired or having to ask for some time off, or to even organize a strike simply because it does not have enough grease around its motors. Perhaps they might also replace your regular bartender at the local watering hole, as evidenced by Monsieur, a robotic bartender. The Monsieur happens to be a machine which will learn of one’s moods as well as preferences over time in order to concoct the ‘perfect’ cocktail.

    This is the result of a company which happens to be known as Monsieur as well, and right now, this particular robotic bartender is trying to sniff out $100,000 on Kickstarter. Just like a human bartender, the Monsieur is able to come up with a smart recommendations depending on one’s preferences, and you can even take advantage of a smartphone app so that you can place an order for a drink remotely. I guess there is one major drawback of the Monsieur, no matter how fantastic its mix of cocktails can be – it does not offer you a shoulder to cry on when you have had a particularly rough day.

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    A Perfect Cardboard Robocop Costume Is a Great Reason To Recycle

    Forget about reducing our demand for lumber, there’s no better reason to recycle than this remarkably detailed and accurate Robocop costume made entirely from cardboard, glue, and about twice as much dedication.

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    Boston Dynamics WildCat Robot Runs Free: Cheetah Unchained

    Boston Dynamics’ Cheetah robot impressed people all over the world when it proved that it can outrun even the fastest of our species. But some of you may have been thinking, what’s to be afraid of? It’s tied down. Unless we’re on the same treadmill Cheetah isn’t touching anybody. Well, it’s not tied down anymore.

    darpa wildcat cheetah legged robotmagnify

    Meet WildCat, the latest generation of the Cheetah. While its tethered predecessor has a recorded top speed of over 29mph, WildCat can “only” get up to 16mph. Not enough to outrun Usain Bolt, but enough to catch up to the average human, running at a full out sprint.

    Between drones and Boston Dynamics’ DARPA-funded cats and dogs, we should start looking into this Rapture thing.

    [via Boston Dynamics via Gizmodo]

    Today In Dystopian War Robots That Will Harvest Us For Our Organs

    dystopian war robots

    Welcome to our continuing series featuring videos of robots that will, when they become autonomous, hunt us down and force us to work in the graphene factories of Mars. Below we see Wild Cat, a fully untethered remote control quadrupedal robot made by Boston Dynamics, creators of the famous Big Dog. This quadruped can run up to 16 miles an hour and features a scary-sound internal gas engine that can power it across rough terrain. Wild Cat was funded by the DARPA’s M3 program aimed at introducing flexible, usable robots into natural environments AKA introducing robotic pack animals for ground troops and build flocking, heavily armed robots that can wipe out a battlefield without putting humans in jeopardy.

    Next up we have ATLAS, another Boston Dynamics bot that can walk upright on rocks. Sadly ATLAS is tethered to a power source but he has perfect balance and can survive side and front hits from heavy weights – a plus if you’re built to be the shock troops of a new droid army. ATLAS can even balance on one foot while being smacked with wrecking balls, something the average human can’t do without suffering internal damage. I can’t wait for him to be able to throw cinder blocks!

    Finally we present these charming self-assembling robots from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory which we covered earlier today. The robots exert an internal force to spin and then connect with each other using magnets, allowing them to fly into the air for a second and then fall down next to their brothers and sisters in exactly the right spot. This allows these completely featureless squares to form any shape they want and, like autonomous LEGOs, they can build complex devices out of a few simple shapes.

    “There’s a point in time when the cube is essentially flying through the air,” said researcher Kyle Gilpin. “And you are depending on the magnets to bring it into alignment when it lands. That’s something that’s totally unique to this system.”

    They may look innocuous but imagine these things self-assembling into, say, a wall, a door, or even a plate of explosives. They could sneak through pipes into your home and create a robotic assassin to destroy you in the sleep, thereby freeing up your “Schlafplatz” for other humans who have been reduced to sleeping out of doors after the robots took over most habitable locations for the storage of fermenting human slurry. Stay frosty, humans!



    MIT M-Blocks Self-assembling robots made real

    This week the former MIT student known as John Romanishin revealed a plan – and working demo units – of a modular self-assembling robot pods. These little beasts may seem the thing of nightmares when they move independently, attach to one another and stand up on their own – but they’re not currently in a […]

    Boston Dynamics WildCat quadruped robot gallops forth at 16MPH

    If the folks at Boston Dynamics didn’t terrify your most base instincts to flee from the oncoming robot armies of your nightmares yet, they’re about to now. This week the Boston Dynamics WildCat has been introduced – a four-legged running robot made not only to walk on all types of terrain, but to run at […]

    These Cubes With No Moving Parts Are Actually Self-Assembling Robots

    These Cubes With No Moving Parts Are Actually Self-Assembling Robots

    There’s no shortage of proposed ideas for self-assembling robots, but they’re usually either incredibly complex or just a little boring. In contrast, these adorable little cubes have no obvious moving parts—but can still climb over and around one another, leap through the air, or roll across the ground.

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    It’s Confirmed, DARPA’s ATLAS Humanoid Can Officially Replace Humanity

    It's Confirmed, DARPA's ATLAS Humanoid Can Officially Replace Humanity

    As we creep closer to the Robotics Challenge officially getting under way, Boston Dynamics gives us another glimpse of its DARPA-funded ATLAS robot being tested in the lab. This time we get to see the unsettling peek at our future carefully tip-toeing its away across a rock-strewn simulated debris field, with surprising ease and balance.

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    The Pentagon’s Super-Fast Robot Now Runs on Its Own

    Last year, DARPA unveiled Cheetah: a robot that could run faster than Usain Bolt. Now, the same team has managed to create a version that doesn’t need a power cord, making the electronic beast free to roam wherever it chooses. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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