Will robot pets replace the real thing? Sony’s Aibo pet robot dogs. — credit | Sony University of Melbourne animal welfare researcher Jean-Loup Rault, PhD says pets will soon become a luxury in an overpopulated, high-density world and the future may lie in robot pets that mimic the real thing. “It might sound surreal for us to have robotic or virtual pets, but it could be totally normal for the next generation,” Rault said. “Pet robotics has come a long way from the Tamagotchi craze of the mid-1990s. “You won’t find a lot of research on pet robotics out there, but if you Google robot dogs, there are countless patents. “Robots can, without a doubt, trigger human emotions,” Rault added. “Of course we care about live animals, but if we become used to a robotic companion that doesn’t need food, water or exercise, perhaps it will change how humans care about other living beings.” Rault says robot pets of the future could learn to think and respond on their own. And what about robotic cats? Sony | An Aibo demonstration.
Should humans be able to marry robots? (credit: AMC) The Supreme Court’s recent 5–4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage raises the interesting question: what’s next on the “slippery slope”? Robot-human marriages? Why yes, predicts Gary Marchant on Slate. “There has recently been a burst of cogent accounts of human-robot sex and love in popular culture: Her and Ex Machina, the AMC drama series Humans, and the novel Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” he points out, along with David Levy’s 2007 book, Love and Sex With Robots. But will the supremes’ decision open the door to robot-human marriage? Individual autonomy, the right of each of us to decide our own private choices. “While few people would understand or support robot-human intimacy today, as robots get more sophisticated and humanlike, more and more people will find love, happiness, and intimacy in the arms of a machine.” Amara D.
The Day You’ll Prefer Robots to Humans Finally, the robot revolution is arriving. There's a Cambrian explosion in robotics, with species of all sizes, shapes and modes of mobility crawling out of the muck of the lab and onto the terra firma of the marketplace, about to enter your home and your shopping experience. Here's why… 4 Converging (Enabling) Technologies Four converging tech areas enable the revolution. I write about this in detail (both the technologies and business opportunities) in my next book BOLD (coming out February 2015). Sensors: The sensors that cost you $10 today would have been military secrets costing you tens of thousands of dollars 20 years ago. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, there was a big move made in Q4 of last year when Google announced the acquisition of eight robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics. In recent months, we've seen the introduction of robotic guards (Nightscape's K5, for example) and Savioke, a robot delivery boy in hotels and hospitals. Here’s what’s most exciting for me…
Autonomous Reproduction: Evolving Robots Are Here A study by the University of Cambridge examined the "evolution" of robots, where a mother robot created increasingly successful offspring based on natural selection. A mother robot designs and builds her own children, with each generation better suited to the environment than the last. By the final round, she has produced a generation that is over twice as fit as the first. The experiment, conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge, aimed to test the customization and evolution potential capable by robots. “We think of robots as performing repetitive tasks, and they’re typically designed for mass production instead of mass customization,”says lead researcher Dr. Fumiya Iida. In their experiment, a mother robot built her own children and allowed them to run, using the total distance traveled in a certain amount of time as an indicator of fitness. The children were created using one to five plastic cubes with a motor inside. The robots “evolved” in the same way as animals.
Unmanned Ship Expected to Make Cross-Atlantic Voyage in 2020 In Brief Plymouth University in the United Kingdom revealed plans to build a "full-sized" autonomous unmanned ship. The ship will replicate the Mayflower journey across the Atlantic in 2020. Plymouth University is calling the project Mayflower Autonomous Research Ship, or MARS. Plymouth company MSubs will lead the project’s construction, but there’s potential regulatory issues with bodies such as the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency.The ship will be designed by Shuttleworth Design, and early renders show it has two outriggers. The researchers plan to try out new navigation software as well as alternative forms of power, including wind.The researchers believe this project has the “potential to transform and influence the future of world shipping.”
Microsoft “Project Premonition” Can Prevent Epidemics Before They Happen This new project by Microsoft will employ drones to conduct genetic tests on mosquitos, analyzing infectious strands and producing vaccines before any disease outbreak can occur. Malaria: the Secret Killer As a widespread disease that is transmitted by mosquitoes, malaria affects over 500 million people annually. Over one million people die each year from mosquito-borne diseases. In fact, for every war that America fought in the 20th century, malaria killed more people than the gunfire did. Microsoft saw it fit to put a stopper on these fatal insects. Drones in the Bug Battlefield Project Premonition consists of using drones to capture mosquitos and transport them to remote locations to analyze their DNA. The project also aims to combat other emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) such as Ebola, which were caused by previously unknown pathogens. The End of Epidemics Sources: Tech Times, CBS Seattle, Newsweek, Popular ScienceImage Credit: Youtube, Newsweek
untitled IBM sticks Watson's brain into a friendly virtual assistant In Brief Meet Amelia. She's a virtual assistant born out of a partnership between IPsoft and IBM's Watson. What It Is Amelia is a friendly virtual assistant designed for business environments. The Implications We’re going to be dealing with a lot of robots like this going forward, especially if there are tasks that require both skill and instruction. New Insect Vision Allows Robots to Consistently Hunt Down Their Targets - Futurism Robots with Insect-Like Precision Despite having a brain the size of a grain of rice, dragonflies can capture their prey with a success rate of over 97%. The University of Adelaide, which has delved into research on insect vision for many years, is using these insects for inspiration to build a robot that can more accurately capture moving targets. In a recent paper, the university’s researchers explained how their studies on human and insect behavior could be modeled in virtual reality simulations. The convenience of modeling such behavior in virtual settings has prompted them to build an artificial intelligence machine to pursue an object through improved visual systems. The Thrill of the Hunt According to Mechanical Engineering PhD student Zahra Bagheri, in order to quickly assess a moving object and orient itself to chase it, a robot needs “a combination of sharp eyes, quick reflexes, and flexible muscles.” Chasing Down the Target – Without Fail