Ladies and gentlemen, we’d best get ready to welcome our new robot overlords – an AI has just made it onto a company’s board of directors. The intelligence, known as Vital, was promoted to the board by Japanese venture capital firm Deep Knowledge, for its ability to pick up on market trends humans might miss.
Looks like comedians are the latest in a long line of professions that can start feeling threatened by the robot revolution. Earlier today, Japanese scientists unveiled EMIEW2, a conversational robot with its own sense of humor – and the ability to tell when one of its jokes has fallen flat.
On June 12, the World Cup in São Paulo is going to be kicked off in a very unique fashion: a paralyzed young adult will walk onto the field in a robotic exoskeleton to deliver the first kick. There are some who trumpet this as a step towards making wheelchairs obsolete…but is it?
While most of us were eagerly readying ourselves for Easter, NASA was hard at work on something completely different. A team from the space agency was in Nanaimo last week, collaborating with robotics firm Seamor Marine on a project which could just change the face of space exploration.
Still the most memorable robot in film history, R2-D2 has also become a
popular embodiment for a variety of toys and gadgets. This set of R2-D2 Measuring Cups and Spoons
pays tribute to the movie star in its likeness and adds a surprise
element to your kitchen counter. This Lucasfim licensed charmer makes a
super gift for a fan too!
If you weren’t already a little jealous of the guys at Willow Garage, today’s story might just push you over the edge. They’ve trained their PR2 platform to fetch them beer while they’re working. Yeah – not only can they drink on the job, they’ve a robot assistant to bring it to them.
Over a decade ago, Honda unveiled the revolutionary ASIMO, which today remains one of the best-known humanoid robots in the world. Since unveiling it way back in 2000, Honda has been hard at work making the robot better, faster, and stronger – today, we saw the result of that work.
So, uh…fair warning, thisz story might potentially be a little bit not-safe-for-work. Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have designed several mice-shaped robots whose only purpose is getting it on. Apparently, this is supposed to help them study evolution.
Weird.
Today, we’ve been given a glimpse into the future of the workplace. Not surprisingly, it involves robots. Microsoft’s Situated Interaction Project is a near-fully automated, robotic workplace, designed to show that robots and humans can interact – and work together – on a meaningful level.
Have you ever wanted to create your own robot? Thanks to a researcher at MIT, you now can – provided you have a few simple electronic components with a total value of about $20. Oh, and paper. Lots of paper. Yes, I’m serious.
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