Adroit Droids

From MIT Technology Review:

"After 50 years of research, scientists have yet to build a robot that can learn to manipulate new objects as proficiently as a one-year-old child. Robots don’t react well to new situations; most of their movements must be programmed in advance. Some use sensors to fine-tune their movements in real time, but they generally don’t retain and interpret the sensor data. So while they might navigate a room without bumping into things, they can’t stop to help rearrange the furniture.

But now advances in sensors, software, and computer architecture are beginning to give robots a sense of their “bodies” and of what sorts of actions are safe and useful in their environments. The results could eventually include more effective robotic assistants for the elderly and autonomous bots for exploring battlefields and space."

One Million Roomba brand vacs an Inflection Point

From HiddenWires:

"In a major milestone for the consumer technology industry, iRobot has now sold more than 1 million Roomba(R) Robotic Floorvacs. A burgeoning number of robotics innovators have been inspired by the success of Roomba to move beyond the primarily theoretical applications to which robots had previously been consigned and are now beginning to create robots to help people do real tasks in the home.

'The $200 mobile robotic vacuum cleaners and other such devices that are making their way into the consumer world, signal the beginnings of the development of a new industry focused on cost-effective mobile devices that can assist and entertain us in a variety of ways,' said Strategy Analytics' Neena Buck, whose report 'Mobile Service Robots: Entering the Commercial World,' was included in the 2004 World Robotics study created by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. "

NASA testing Robot Satellite Seeker

From Discovery Channel:

"A high-stakes test to determine if a robotic probe can automatically find a satellite and maneuver around it will take place next week off the California coast.

After a ride to space aboard an air-launched Pegasus rocket, NASA's Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology spacecraft will get to work. DART's mission is to see if a robot can handle a task NASA previously has trusted only to astronauts: linking up two spacecraft in orbit. "

NASA testin Robot Satellite Seeker

From Discovery Channel:

"A high-stakes test to determine if a robotic probe can automatically find a satellite and maneuver around it will take place next week off the California coast.

After a ride to space aboard an air-launched Pegasus rocket, NASA's Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology spacecraft will get to work. DART's mission is to see if a robot can handle a task NASA previously has trusted only to astronauts: linking up two spacecraft in orbit. "

Advent of the Robotic Monkeys

Wired News

"If a monkey is hungry but has his arms pinned, there's not much he can do about it. Unless that monkey can control a nearby robotic arm with his brain.

And that's exactly what the monkey in Andrew Schwartz's neurobiology lab at the University of Pittsburgh can do, feeding himself using a prosthetic arm controlled solely by his thoughts.

If mastered, the technology could be used to help spinal cord injuries, amputees or stroke victims...

The prosthetic limb, the size of a child's arm, has working shoulder and elbow joints and is equipped with a simple gripper to grasp and hold food. The monkey's arms are restrained at its sides and as the monkey thinks about bringing the food to his mouth, electrodes in the monkey's brain intercept the neuronal firings that are taking place in the motor cortex, a region of the brain responsible for voluntary movement.

The brain activity is fed to a computer where an algorithm developed by the University of Pittsburgh interprets the neuronal messages and sends them to the robotic arm..."

Roboburgh Not Yet Reality for Western Pennsylvania

From TEQ Magazine online:

Pittsburgh Region's Robotics Industry Boasts Broad Mix of Companies and Research

"Since the Wall Street Journal article in 1999 calling Pittsburgh “Roboburgh” for its local concentration of talent in robotics, many have wondered whether this might become a reality someday.

Would the city, that had been known by the nicknames Iron City and the City of Champions, one day be commonly associated with those autonomous electromechanical beings first named “robots” in a 1921 science fiction play by Czech author Karel Capek called “R.U.R.” for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”?

The verdict is still not in, but great strides in the right direction have been made in recent years. In the process, RoboBurgh has morphed into a more elongated “RoboCorridor,” extending across southwestern Pennsylvania and into West Virginia."

Boilerplate, the Victorian Robot

From Patent Pending:

"For a great web site devoted to the earliest robot, be sure to see Anina Bennet's great site, which has the history of the Victorian age robot calledBoilerplate: History of a Victorian Era Robot...

' According to The Boilerplate Site, ...

'Boilerplate was a mechanical man developed by Professor Archibald Campion during the 1880s and unveiled at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

Built in a small Chicago laboratory, Boilerplate was originally designed as a prototype soldier for use in resolving the conflicts of nations. Although it was the only such prototype, Boilerplate was eventually able to exercise its proposed function by participating in several combat actions. ' More great information and pictures on the site!! Hey, isn't that a Selden auto? (see the post on this site, The First American Automobile.')"

Artificial Intelligence May Aid Space Missions

From space.com:

"NASA officials are reporting encouraging results from an experiment in which artificial intelligence software is being used to determine the root causes of simulated technical glitches aboard the agency’s Earth Observing-1 imaging satellite.

The software, called Livingstone, was developed by computer scientists at Ames Research Center in California. The Ames team named the software after the 19th Century explorer and doctor, David Livingstone. The version being tested on Earth Observing-1, or EO-1, is a more powerful version of the Livingstone software that was first tested successfully on NASA’s Deep Space 1 spacecraft in 1999.

Livingstone’s designers are convinced that artificial intelligence software will be the best way to prevent technical mishaps during future robotic or human missions into deep space."

ISA program to certify automation professionals

From ISA:

"ISA this week launches two new certification programs offering automation and control professionals credentials confirming their knowledge, competence, and potential in a particular field to current and future employers, coworkers, and others.

With predictions that both will have 'far-reaching effects in the field of automation and control,' the two programs will officially commence Thursday at ISA EXPO 2004, when ISA's Certified Automation Professional (CAP) and Certified Industrial Maintenance Mechanic (CIMM) examinations will be offered for the first time. ISA already offers its Certified Control Systems Technician (CCST) examination."

Got Robolawyer?

From Wired.com:

"I have a recurring nightmare. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shows up on my doorstep demanding my left kidney, claiming that I agreed to this in some 'clickwrap' contract. In my waking life, I am inundated with such agreements - privacy policies, downloading poliicies, security policies, software licensing agreements - all vying for my assent. As a lawyer, I write these contracts for clients, but I must confess that I never read them online. Who has the time?

Unfortunately, the law assumes we all do - and that by clicking, we are 'agreeing' to the unread privacy policy, to spyware being installed on our systems, or to pornographic pop-up ads. Almost every site has terms and conditions; as a result, regular Internet users are faced with dozens of such agreements a week. Some come in the form of the ubiquitous 'I Agree' button, others in the form of prose hidden at the bottom of the homepage under the moniker 'Legal.'

Increasingly, companies have been putting some pretty nasty things into their clickwrap agreements - such as that they can collect and sell your detailed personal information or install software that will capture your every keystroke. A few firms have you agree that, even if they violate their own promises to secure your information, you won't ever sue. This is not legal boilerplate, the kind that everybody assents to when renting a car or buying a ticket to a ball game. It affects the privacy, security, and operability of all the information you access online.

What is needed - desperately - is a law robot..."

Pittsburgh Robotics Foundry Awards Grants

From prnewswire press release:

"The Robotics Foundry, an independent, non-profit economic development organization, today announced that its National Center for Defense Robotics (NCDR) operation has awarded $800,000 to several regional companies and universities to execute six, defense-related,'agile robotics' technology development and transition projects. These projects...were competitively bid and are being funded from an appropriation directed to the NCDR in the FY03 national defense spending bill."

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