Exciting scientific developments descend upon us, as scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, have successfully managed to transfer an entire genome of one species into another — which grew and multiplied into the first species. Why is this significant? Because the next experiment involves creating and implanting a synthetic genome — the success of which could mark the creation of the first artificial lifeform and enable greater possibilities for biological engineering.
Some relate the idea of open-source only to software. The idea, however, has much more potential than that. Todays post is not on A.I., but is breathtaking nonetheless and tightly related to computer science: The open source movie project A Swarm of Angels was initiated in 2006, with the ambitious goal of producing a feature length film, raising a budget of $1.9 million USD. They are well underway, and if this goal is met, they will have succeeded in producing the world’s first internet funded, manned and distributed feature length film.
Microsoft recently demonstrated it’s multi-touch screen-table intended for companies and corporations. Similar to the features recently demoed in Apple’s iPhone, the table (named Surface) allows you to manipulate images, videos and documents using touch-screen technologies. But before Apple announced the iPhone and its patented technologies, Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel had demonstrated his very similar and jaw-dropping multi-touch display.
Over six thousand people have voted in the Who’s Afraid of Robots? poll (which will remain open indefinitely). Many people supported this effort (see below), propelling the entry to the frontpage of Digg, as I had hoped, which increased the number of voters and brought a heap of varying opinions on the matter. The survey’s results are quite intriguing.
In a previous post, Mass Producing Intelligence, I talked about working in the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and how I think it’s essentially a gateway to the mass production of intelligence. In the introduction of that entry, I mentioned that all scientific fields had one thing in common: Intelligence. Eli posted a good question, asking me to elaborate on that statement.
Let’s hope your passion for human health exceeds your resentment of (lesser-) animal cruelty. Here are two videos of monkeys slash mechanical arms, controlled using signals from their motor cortex via implanted electrodes. Neither of the videos are too clear on whether the movement sequences are limited to what’s shown (move forward, get fruit, bring back) — but I believe these are both rather old and outdated, so who cares. We just want to see the cyborg monkeys!
I love the graphical representation of electric activity in the analyzation software: Green horizontal lines with green and pale blue bars. Almost state of the art yet so retro-futuristic! No, really, they remind me of the first electrocardiograms. So many questions left to answer. Awesome.
Not often that I see blog entries on robots I haven’t heard about, but I guess I’d better get used to it given the coming (and current) increase in robotics. Here’s Chapit, a creation Raytron robotics company… or so it seems. Oddly enough, even though cited by multiple news sources as the creators, Raytron appears to have no pictures or mention of the robot on their page.
Anyway, Chapit is designed for home-automation and entertainment purposes, which I’m very happy to hear because I’ve felt for quite a while that the home-automation industry really needs a fresh breeze and a large dose of take-advantage-of-the-latest-technology. Most of the home automation companies out there care nothing of aesthetics and virtually exclude any intelligence in their machines (brainless-ugly-boxes are their flagship products).
Chapit is a fresh breeze, as I think his design is absolutely great. The white look is fantastic, and the placement and movement of his head and feet give him a compact yet incredibly lively appearance. His limited motorskills also partially make up for the fact that he’s stationary, and the multiple facial gestures add a robofriendly flavor. Chapit can help around your home by interacting with various home appliances, such as turning your TV and lights on and off. My source (below) mentioned tuning in on your favorite TV Show, which sounds plausible. Chapit is controlled via voice commands, and according to Raytron (I didn’t find a direct source) he comes with 100 words built in, but they additionally claim he can learn up to 10.000. For what exactly Chapit will use these 10000 words, and if he can use them in a sensible manner remains to be seen. My guess is that he uses it for general chit-chatting for entertainment purposes.
A great feature which is included in almost every new home entertainment robot coming out these days, is an internet/WiFi connection to be able to remote control Chapit through the web. While admittedly this is more useful for mobile robots, it’s a great feature. Especially if you can use VOIP with Chapit.
Check out the video of the little guy above, I’m sure you’ll like him (any inkblot earth reader speak Japanese and want to translate the gist of that video for us?). I hear that he’s due in stores 2008. Start saving up.
All this video needs is “Artificial Intelligence” in a big, fat font — flashing as the final message.
Nothing in the vid should come off as a surprise to the savvy — we’re living in an exciting time in the history of mankind. I’ve found people easily forget it in the busyness of our everyday lives, and in the pace of which things change. In a way, change has become such an integral part of our lives that it sometimes seems a constant.
Editors Warning: Take care in thinking about the video’s statements. Some may sound mindblowing, but are shallow, shaky and only included to impact you. Consider it practice in critical thinking.
A Mr. Robert Williams was the first man to be killed by a robot, in a factory the year 1971. There exists no detailed description online of how it happened — unlike the second recorded accident which has a very descriptive story, borderlining something you’d anticipate to read in a Frank Miller comic. According to Wikipedia, it was quite gruesome:
Kenji Urada (born c. 1944, died 1981) was notable in that he was one of the first individuals killed by a robot. Urada was a 37-year old maintenance engineer at a Kawasaki plant. While working on a broken robot, he failed to turn it off completely, resulting in the robot pushing him into a grinding machine with its hydraulic arm. He died as a result.
Pushed into a grinding machine. Could it be more horrifying? Well. Of course it could. It could have been one of Samsung’s autonomous machine guns following the orders of another human. Or a SWORDS armed Talon robot. In fact, shortly after Kenji’s death I’m sure an army general heard the news from one of his nerdier soldiers and responded through the thick smoke of his cigar: “What? Haha. A robot pushed him into a … hey. Wait just a minute, can we make something like that portable?”.
I illustrated Kenji’s death for dramatic effect, and in his memory. But let’s not forget, you need intent to kill someone. Which the robot obviously didn’t have, so it was just good ol’ human error that killed poor Kenji.
Why do I spend hours and hours hammering at a keyboard staring at indented sentences, lines and paragraphs of languages machines speak? Because all the countless fields of science; medicine, biology, mathematics, electronics and so on — have one thing in common: Intelligence. Without intelligence, there would be no science. And artificial intelligence promises mass producing it.
Exciting scientific developments descend upon us, as scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, have successfully managed to transfer an entire genome of one species into another — which grew and multiplied into the first species. Why is this significant? Because the next experiment involves creating and implanting a synthetic genome — the success of which could mark the creation of the first artificial lifeform and enable greater possibilities for biological engineering.
Some relate the idea of open-source only to software. The idea, however, has much more potential than that. Todays post is not on A.I., but is breathtaking nonetheless and tightly related to computer science: The open source movie project A Swarm of Angels was initiated in 2006, with the ambitious goal of producing a feature length film, raising a budget of $1.9 million USD. They are well underway, and if this goal is met, they will have succeeded in producing the world’s first internet funded, manned and distributed feature length film.
Microsoft recently demonstrated it’s multi-touch screen-table intended for companies and corporations. Similar to the features recently demoed in Apple’s iPhone, the table (named 
A Mr. 
