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The walking robot unveiled for the first time

Myon is an 1.25 meters humanoid robot, whose body parts can be removed and reattached without loosing full functionality. It was revealed to the public for the first time at the International Design Festival DMY and the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin) and it caused an extremely high interest.

The robot is the final product of a collaboration between Bayer MaterialScience AG and the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory (NRL) at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Cologne-based design studio Frackenpohl Poulheim. The outer shell that gives the human-like appearance to the robot is a polycarbonate called Makrolon® from Bayer MaterialScience, that also protects the electronics inside it.

The eight-year-old-sized robot is meant to interact with humans, “that’s why we wanted Myon to project a friendly, positive persona even though it’s obviously not actually a person,” said André Poulheim, one of Myon’s designers, to BayNews. “Otherwise robots can seem a bit threatening if, say, their shoulders are made too broad.”

The European research project ALEAR (Artificial Language Evolution on Autonomous Robots), carried out by Dr. Manfred Hild and his team at the NRL studies how autonomous robots move. Walking, for example, is a very complex process that depends on the body’s structure, and so the six autonomous body parts of the robot are a major advantage, as movements can be developed individually and lead to an overall behavior.

Dr. Lorenz Kramer, the project’s supervisor and responsible for the Robotics section at Bayer MaterialScience explained that “the robot’s esthetic design and degree of mobility presented particular challenges when it came to selecting materials. The material must not impede the overall functionality and it must be suitable for the creation of specific shapes.” After tests, the glass-fiber reinforced polycarbonate Makrolon® 9425 and the transparent Makrolon® ET3113 were the materials chosen for Myon.

This robot is just an example of the technological advancements nowadays. Scientists are working on several robots can could, in a near future, help the elders in care homes and hospital, as it is currently happening in Japan.

Myon will also be presented at K 2010 in Düsseldorf from October 27 to November 3, 2010.

via Myon the Friendly Humanoid Robot – The walking robot unveiled for the first time – Softpedia.

By David Gelernter

What does it mean to think?  Can machines think, or only humans? These questions have obsessed computer science since the 1950s, and grow more important every day as the internet canopy closes over our heads, leaving us in the pregnant half-light of the cybersphere.  Taken as a whole, the net is a startlingly complex collection of computers like brain cells that are densely interconnected as brain cells are.  And the net grows at many million points simultaneously, like a living or more-than-living? organism.  Its only natural to wonder whether the internet will one day start to think for itself.Or is it thinking already?

Read more: Edge: DREAM-LOGIC, THE INTERNET AND ARTIFICIAL THOUGHTBy David Gelernter.

Very impressive indeed.

(read more @ Hacked Gadgets)

The CCC/CRA, a consortium of academic computer science departments (essentially), has a roadmap to future robotics that has some implications for the Feynman Path.

(read more @ the Foresight Institute)

You can download the full report here (PDF)

An invasion led by artificially intelligent machines. Conscious computers. A smartphone virus so smart that it can start mimicking you. You might think that such scenarios are laughably futuristic, but some of the world’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) researchers are concerned enough about the potential impact of advances in AI that they have been discussing the risks over the past year. Now they have revealed their conclusions.

Until now, research in artificial intelligence has been mainly occupied by myriad basic challenges that have turned out to be very complex, such as teaching machines to distinguish between everyday objects. Human-level artificial intelligence or self-evolving machines were seen as long-term, abstract goals not yet ready for serious consideration.

Now, for the first time, a panel of 25 AI scientists, roboticists, and ethical and legal scholars has been convened to address these issues, under the auspices of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in Menlo Park, California. It looked at the feasibility and ramifications of seemingly far-fetched ideas, such as the possibility of the internet becoming self-aware.

(read more @ NewScientist)

The Futuris series on Euronews produced an excellent segment focusing on advanced robotics research taking place in Italy and Spain that will eventually enable robots to co-exist with humans on city sidewalks and streets while performing helpful services.

It’s really interesting to see the difference in approach between the groups in the two countries. To us, the Italian group appears to have paid much more attention to the overall estetic design and outer appearance so that the robot projects an open and welcoming presence, while the Spanish group seems to be more focused on the technical challenges.

(via ROBOT DREAMS)

EVER had the feeling something is missing? If so, you’re in good company. Dmitri Mendeleev did in 1869 when he noticed four gaps in his periodic table. They turned out to be the undiscovered elements scandium, gallium, technetium and germanium. Paul Dirac did in 1929 when he looked deep into the quantum-mechanical equation he had formulated to describe the electron. Besides the electron, he saw something else that looked rather like it, but different. It was only in 1932, when the electron’s antimatter sibling, the positron, was sighted in cosmic rays that such a thing was found to exist.

In 1971, Leon Chua had that feeling. A young electronics engineer with a penchant for mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, he was fascinated by the fact that electronics had no rigorous mathematical foundation. So like any diligent scientist, he set about trying to derive one.

And he found something missing: a fourth basic circuit element besides the standard trio of resistor, capacitor and inductor. Chua dubbed it the “memristor”. The only problem was that as far as Chua or anyone else could see, memristors did not actually exist.

Except that they do.

(read more @ NewScientist)