Hasta La Gadget!

Remember Bot & Dolly’s awesome Kinetisphere from Google I/O 2012? Today the San Francisco-based design and engineering studio released Box, a film of the first ever synchronized live performance featuring projected 3D computer graphics, robots and actors. Imagine two Kuka industrial robots moving walls around and a projector displaying CG onto them in complete sync. Add a second projector aimed at the floor. Now introduce an actor and capture the entire scene with a 4K camera mounted on a third Kuka robot in sync with the other two. The result is a mind-blowing experience that takes CG into the real world. Flat walls transform in to 3D cubes, objects levitate and teleport — it’s magic.

In fact, it’s even more impressive in person. The company believes that “this methodology has tremendous potential to radically transform theatrical presentations”. We briefly talked with Tarik Abdel-Gawad, Creative & Technical Director and Bradley G Munkowitz, Design Director (of Tron fame) about the technology behind the performance. The project uses two IRIS and one SCOUT robotic motion control platforms (based on Kuka robots) plus two powerful high-resolution projectors. Bot & Dolly’s in-house software, which integrates with Autodesk‘s Maya, is used to synchronize and control the performance. As such, the work serves “as both an artistic statement and technical demonstration.” See the video for yourself after the break.

Filed under: Misc, Robots, Alt

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Source: Bot & Dolly

Are robots taking over the world? Well, the answer might be yes, although to have the kind of robots that we have seen in Will Smith’s I, Robot, is still a far fetched scenario, but we are definitely not going to deny that such a thing can happen down the road. However, if there is one domain that robots might creep in slowly but surely, it would be the role of a bartender. “James” is a robot that has been designed to be a bartender, and chances are it will be one of the most fair and attentive mixologist whom you will ever come across.

James was not named so just out of fun, but rather, his name is an acronym for “Joint Action in Multimodal Embodied Systems”. This means James was designed to have a low tolerance for those who are impatient and want to force their way to the head of the line for some drinks, and he is also able to deliver an equal pour without taking into consideration a flaw in some human relationships – favoritism. James will be able to draw from his “experience pool” thanks to surveillance footage that hails from bars in Scotland and Germany which are then fed into its memory banks. Such data lets James to pick out customers who want its attention, and James was also programmed to carry out small talk when prompted.

Robot Bartender Lets You Drown Your Sorrows original content from Ubergizmo.

Designing a robot that can mix and pour the perfect martini isn’t terribly difficult—once you get the portions and motions nailed down, it’s good to go. But designing a robot bartender that’s also able to discern who at a noisy crowded bar is looking for a drink—based on subtle gestures or posture—is a whole other level of complexity that researchers at Bielefeld University in Germany are trying to crack.

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It is one thing to feel sad whenever your family member or pet dies, but what about things? You can always buy a new notebook if it is broken, and so too, can you replace your iPhone if the screen is cracked, or you dropped it into the swimming pool. However, should you feel down when your robot “dies”? In a particularly interesting research that was conducted by Dr. Julie Carpenter at the University of Washington, it seems that bomb disposal soldiers, regardless of their geographic area, see their robots as more than just tools, but rather, nearly elevated to the status of pets.

This emotional connection could be due to the fact that the soldiers do take care of the robots well, considering how the robots actually go out and risk all of their nuts and bolts on behalf of their robot master. Over time, they pick up the robots’ various quirks, what the robot is able to do, and what it cannot. Not only that, these soldiers train with the robots every single day. Needless to say, when something goes wrong and Murphy comes knocking on the door, a wave of possible anger and/or sadness will sweep over the soldiers, that sometimes even they themselves find it difficult to process. Carpenter said, “They’re struggling with how to categorize the robot. On the one hand, they’re very clear that it’s not something that’s organic, and they unanimously define the robot as a tool. But they’re still struggling with how to act toward it. The dynamics between the user and the robot are somewhat similar to how they used to use canine working dogs.It’s something that they take care of every day and maintain, something you’d have to do with a dog.”

Some Soldiers Affected Emotionally When Their Robots Go “Boom!” original content from Ubergizmo.

As if there were any doubts that the future of aviation doesn’t involve humans at the controls, Boeing’s Unmanned Little Bird is the first helicopter to take off and land autonomously, choosing a safe landing site using an on-board laser LIDAR—a combination of light and radar—scanner.

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