24. Bionic Contacts - TIME's Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME

24. Bionic Contacts - TIME's Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME: "The University of Washington's Babak Parviz has created a prototype 'bionic' contact lens that creates a display over the wearer's visual field, so images, maps, data, etc., appear to float in midair. The lens works using tiny LEDs, which are powered by solar cells, and a radio-frequency receiver"

17. The Mobile, Dexterous, Social Robot - TIME's Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME

17. The Mobile, Dexterous, Social Robot - TIME's Best Inventions of 2008 - TIMENexi is the first of a new class of robot being developed at MIT's Media Lab and referred to as MDS, which stands for mobile, dexterous, social. Nexi can, or eventually will be able to, move around on wheels (hence mobile), and it can pick up objects (dexterous). But its most striking feature is its humanlike, albeit creepy, face, which can express a startling range of emotions (social).

14. The Bionic Hand - TIME's Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME

14. The Bionic Hand - TIME's Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME: "The world's first commercially available bionic hand took many hands many years to develop. Created by Touch Bionics, it's multi-articulating, meaning each finger has its own motor. Artificial hands are often hooklike, limited to simple open and close gestures, but the iLimb has more subtle capabilities, like a credit-card grip for grasping narrow objects. It also has a power hold for larger things like coffee mugs. Research on the device began in the United Kingdom's national health system back in the 1960s. Now hundreds of people around the world are using it. Next up for Touch Bionics? A prosthetic wrist unit, prosthetic fingers and a full bionic arm."

Turn on, jack in, zone out - the coming of the global computer hive-mind | Blog | Futurismic

Turn on, jack in, zone out - the coming of the global computer hive-mind | Blog | Futurismic: "Kevin Kelly admits he’s not the first person to postulate that “a superorganism is emerging from the cloak of wires, radio waves, and electronic nodes wrapping the surface of our planet.“ He also reckons that cloud computing is amplifying the effect:
The majority of the content of the web is created within this one virtual computer. Links are programmed, clicks are chosen, files are moved and code is installed from the dispersed, extended cloud created by consumers and enterprise - the tons of smart phones, Macbooks, Blackberries, and workstations we work in front of.
Nova Spivak agrees - which makes sense, as he’s trying to build Web3.0, a.k.a. the Semantic Web - but suggests that we’ll avoid a Terminator-esque ending because human consciousness may be the key to the whole thing:Kevin Kelly admits he’s not the first person to postulate that “a superorganism is emerging from the cloak of wires, radio waves, and electronic nodes wrapping the surface of our planet.“ He also reckons that cloud computing is amplifying the effect:
The majority of the content of the web is created within this one virtual computer. Links are programmed, clicks are chosen, files are moved and code is installed from the dispersed, extended cloud created by consumers and enterprise - the tons of smart phones, Macbooks, Blackberries, and workstations we work in front of.
Nova Spivak agrees - which makes sense, as he’s trying to build Web3.0, a.k.a. the Semantic Web - but suggests that we’ll avoid a Terminator-esque ending because human consciousness may be the key to the whole thing:"What all this means to me is that human beings may form an important and potentially irreplaceable part of the OM — the One Machine — the emerging global superorganism. In particular today the humans are still the most intelligent parts. But in the future when machine intelligence may exceed human intelligence a billionfold, humans may still be the only or at least most conscious parts of the system. Because of the uniquely human capacity for consciousness (actually, animals and insects are conscious too), I think we have an important role to play in the emerging superorganism. We are it’s awareness. We are who watches, feels, and knows what it is thinking and doing ultimately.

Maybe that sounds a little bit Mondo-2000 techno-hippie nineties-retro to you, hmmm? OMGZ maybe Spivak is a victim of terrible brain changes wrought by teh ev1lz of teh intarwubz!!!1 OH NOES:

Researchers have found that the brains of ‘digital natives’ are developing to deal more efficiently with searching and filtering large amounts of information, and making quick decisions. On the down side, that behaviour is changing the brain’s neural patterns impairing the social skills of heavy web users (what’s new?) and even triggering an increase in conditions like Attention Deficit Disorder.

Well, it looks like the internet must have eroded the fundamentals of cause and effect, too… who knew? I guess there’s no point in delaying the inevitable, so I’m off to get my cerebral jack fitted so I can transcend the limitations of this stupid meat prison. The future is within our grasp, brothers and sisters! [image by Katiya Rhode]

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Expectation of Machine Intelligence Could Change Social Behavior, Says Economist | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Expectation of Machine Intelligence Could Change Social Behavior, Says Economist | Gadget Lab from Wired.com: "As computers get smarter machines could become more intelligent than humans within a few decades, leading to an event dubbed the Singularity.
Technologists are still debating the possibility but what if just enough people believed it is likely?
Whether the singularity occurs or not, just the expectation of it could significantly change human behavior, says James Miller, associate professor of economics at Smith College.
“Long before there is a singularity, people will come to expect it,” Smith told attendees at the Singularity Summit in San Jose. “And it is very likely that could happen within 20 years.”
The belief that a vastly different future is near could change how people make choices in life, education, investment and retirement, says Miller. “People will become very fearful of death, save less and invest differently,” he says.
Most significant among their choices would be the emphasis on extending life, says Smith. “If you think there will be a machine-driven future then your top priority is to survive long enough to make it to the singularity,” he says.
That means people force Governments to increase its defense spending in a bid to ensure the greatest chance of survival.

“Believers will also want to spend more money to increase their chances of making it to the singularity with things such as safer cars and machines that make jobs such as construction safer,” he says"

Technorati Profile

The Rise of the Machines

But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. ... Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

Brace yourself. It comes from the Unabomber’s manifesto.

Yes, Theodore Kaczinski was a homicidal psychopath and a paranoid kook, but he was also a bloodhound when it came to scenting all of the horrors technology

Theo Jansen Builds Eerie Lego Spider - Gizmo Watch

Theo Jansen Builds Eerie Lego Spider - Gizmo Watch

new online service aims to bring customized manufacturing to the masses by allowing consumers to submit digital designs of products that are then printed, using 3-D printers, and shipped back.

Currently, such 3-D printers--in which successive layers of different polymers are sprayed gradually, building up a 3-D object--are very expensive, says Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways, a spinout from Philips Research, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

But the new service, launched last week, makes this technology accessible to anyone: budding artists, architects, product designers, and general hobbyists. A small design company might want to make samples to show a client, or an artist might want to make copies of the same sculpture created digitally, for example.

"From a technology viewpoint, Shapeways is not that new," says Weijmarshausen. "Rapid prototyping has been used by the aircraft and automotive industries for years, but now we're making it accessible to consumers."

Users submit their design in digital form, after which Shapeways's software checks it over to ensure that it can be made. Shapeways then passes the design to its production line of polymer printers, delivering the tangible object within 10 days of ordering, with prices typically between $50 and $150.

SEGA Moves into Artificial Girlfriend Production - News

SEGA Moves into Artificial Girlfriend Production - NewsSEGA Toys. Presenting... the robot girlfriend!

We're not even kidding. The little lady you see to the right is a 38cm tall robot girlfriend set to go on sale in September in Japan. Using infra red sensors, EMA (yes, of course she has a name!) will kiss nearby people (we don't know if she has a sexual preference), switching into what its makers call 'love mode'.

If you were to take a stab at the target market for this dinky little damsel, you'd no doubt go for 'lonely men'. You'd be right (the marketing materials carry no message regarding 'lonely lesbians' though).

"Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that's sweet and interactive", said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for SEGA Toys. "She's very lovable and though she's not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend." \ advertisement /


/ advertisement \

So you know, EMA stands for Eternal Maiden Actualization. Sexy, eh? She can also hand out business cards and sing and dance. Just like a real girlfriend!

SEGA hopes to sell 10,000 of them in the first year, at around £90 a pop.

SPOnG, for one, has many questions that have been raised by this development. If we had a real female companion and got an EMA, would it count as cheating? Is 'she' technically female, given that she presumably has no genitalia? Will we feel jealous of the 9,999 other men who will (hypothetically!) have robot girlfriends just like ours? When do we get the hard light holographic technology that will give us game girlfriends?

Whatever the answers may be to those questions, Inflatable Pam is looking a bit worried over in the corner...

RI-MAN's page

RI-MAN's page: "The bio-mimetic control research center of RIKEN is promoting basic research on the flexible and dynamic motor functions of biological systems.
The goal is to create advanced engineering systems such as a soft human interactive robot.
The robot developed here is named RI-MAN. RI-MAN exhibits the skill and ability to realize human care and welfare tasks. RI-MAN will become an invaluable partner robot. The bio-mimetic control research center of RIKEN is promoting basic research on the flexible and dynamic motor functions of biological systems.
The goal is to create advanced engineering systems such as a soft human interactive robot.
The robot developed here is named RI-MAN. RI-MAN exhibits the skill and ability to realize human care and welfare tasks. RI-MAN will become an invaluable partner robot."

IEEE Spectrum: Economics Of The Singularity

IEEE Spectrum: Economics Of The Singularity: "Machine intelligence on a human level, if not higher, would do nicely. Its arrival could produce a singularity—an overwhelming departure from prior trends, with uneven and dizzyingly rapid change thereafter. A future shock to end future shocks"

IEEE Spectrum: Economics Of The Singularity

IEEE Spectrum: Economics Of The Singularity

TierneyLab - Science - New York Times Blog

TierneyLab - Science - New York Times Blog: "Is it evidence that life and technology evolve at a predictable pace – faster and faster?"

RepRap, that can replicate its own body (rightIt has been called the invention that will bring down global capitalism, start a second industrial revolution and save the environment - and it might just put Santa out of a job too.

The "self-replicating rapid prototyper", or RepRap for short, is a machine that literally prints 3D objects from a digital design. Its creators hope that in the future it will be a must-have mod con for every home. Instead of queueing for this year's equivalent of Buzz Lightyear, Robosapiens or TMX Elmo, parents will simply download the sought-after design off the internet and print it out.

"If people can make anything for themselves what's the point in going to the shops?" said Adrian Bowyer at Bath University who started the project.

The Santa machine works like a printer, except that rather than shooting ink out of a moving nozzle it squirts molten plastic in layers. These build up to make 3D shapes. To date the machine has made a belt buckle, a scale architectural model and even one of its own components. Dr Bowyer said that soon it would be able to make items using other materials. "In principle it could make almost any item that people want," he said.

So-called rapid prototyping machines that manufacture objects from digital designs have been around since the 1980s, although they still cost upwards of £20,000 and mostly have specialised industrial applications.

The difference with RepRap, which is the size of a fridge, is that the ideas behind it are not owned by anyone. Dr Bowyer's vision is a machine that can be made, adapted and improved by its users. "I did not want an individual, company or country to make money from this," he said.

If Dr Bowyer's vision is realised there could be profound implications for the global economy. Instead of large companies manufacturing large numbers of consumer goods and distributing them to shops, consumers would buy or share designs on the internet, manufacturing items on their own replication machines.

"At this time of year, toy companies lose thousands by not being able to get toys to the market or having toys they can't sell... This way the product would always be available and you would be able to reuse materials afterwards perhaps in another product," said Professor David Wimpenny of De Montfort University, Leicester. "It would revolutionise Christmas."

Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, an online repository of more than 100,000 e-books, predicts that if RepRap takes off, vested interests in industry will fight the technology tooth and nail.

"In 30 years replicators are going to be able to make things out of all sorts of stuff," he said. "Somewhere along this line the intellectual property people are going to come in and say 'No we

CHICAGO — The surgeon working inside J.C. Bizzle's chest perched at an egg-shaped console a few yards from the operating table. Without laying hands on his patient, he bypassed two clogged arteries supplying Bizzle's heart.
The University of Chicago's Sudhir Srivastava performed the surgery without a big incision, without splitting Bizzle's breastbone and without stopping his heart. The spider-like arms of a robot did most of the work.

Bizzle, 79, a retired crane operator, was discharged April 5, just three days after a double bypass that typically would land a patient in the hospital for a week or more. "I had very little pain," Bizzle says. "Before summer's end, I'm expecting to be out playing golf."

A new prosthetic hand is being tested at the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg / Grip function almost like a natural hand

It can hold a credit card, use a keyboard with the index finger, and lift a bag weighing up to 20 kg - the world's first commercially available pros-thetic hand that can move each finger separately and has an astounding range of grip configurations. For the first time worldwide a patient at the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg has tested both the "i-LIMB" hand in comparison with another innovative prosthesis, the so called "Flu-idhand". Eighteen-year-old Sören Wolf, who was born with only one hand, is enthusiastic about its capabilities.

The new prosthetic hand developed and distributed by the Scottish com-pany "Touch Bionics" certainly has advantages over previous models. For example, a comparable standard product from another manufacturer al-lows only a pinch grip using thumb, index, and middle finger, and not a grip using all five fingers. This does not allow a full-wrap grip of an object.

Myoelectric signals from the stump of the arm control the prosthesis

Prototype of the 'Fluidhand' of the Research Center in Karlsruhe. - Source: Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg
Complex electronics and five motors contained in the fingers enable every digit of the i-LIMB to be powered individually. A passive positioning of the thumb enables various grip configurations to be activated. The myoelectric signals from the stump control the prosthetic hand; muscle signals are picked up by electrodes on the skin and transferred to the control electron-ics in the prosthetic hand. Batteries provide the necessary power.

The "Fluidhand" from Karlsruhe, thus far developed only as a prototype that is also being tested in the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidel-berg, is based on a somewhat different principle. Unlike its predecessors, the new hand can close around objects, even those with irregular surfaces. A large contact surface and soft, passive form elements greatly reduce the gripping power required to hold onto such an object. The hand also feels softer, more elastic, and more natural than conventional hard prosthetic devices.

"Fluidhand" prosthetic device offers better finishing and better grip function

The flexible drives are located directly in the movable finger joints and operate on the biological principle of the spider leg - to flex the joints, elastic chambers are pumped up by miniature hydraulics. In this way, in-dex finger, middle finger and thumb can be moved independently. The prosthetic hand gives the stump feedback, enabling the amputee to sense the strength of the grip.

Thus far, Sören has been the only patient in Heidelberg who has tested both models. "This experience is very important for us," says Simon Steffen, Director of the Department of Upper Extremities at the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg. The two new models were the best of those tested, with a slight advantage for Fluidhand because of its better finishing, the programmed grip configurations, power feedback, and the more easily adjustable controls. However, this prosthetic device is not in serial production. "First the developers have to find a company to produce it," says Alfons Fuchs, Director of Orthopedics Engineering at the Orthope-dic University Hospital in Heidelberg, as the costs of manufacturing it are comparatively high. However it is possible to produce an individual model. Thus far, only one patient in the world has received a Fluidhand for every-day use. A second patient will soon be fitted with this innovative prosthe-sis in Heidelberg.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the Universitäts

Computerworld > Open source 3D printer copies itself

Computerworld > Open source 3D printer copies itself: "Based in the Waitakeres, in West Auckland, software developer and artist Vik Olliver is part of a team developing an open-source, self-copying 3D printer. The RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) printer can replicate and update itself. It can print its own parts, including updates, says Olliver, who is one of the core members of the RepRap team.
The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can’t copy themselves, and they can’t be manipulated by users, says Olliver.

RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody — including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver.

Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public Licence)."

Entertainment and Technology updates » Robots to Guard Israeli Border Kill Zone

Entertainment and Technology updates » Robots to Guard Israeli Border Kill ZoneIsraeli Defense Forces IDF are deploying automated weapon robots along the border of the Gaza Strip to create a buffer kill zone to prevent unauthorized infiltrations.

The system, called the “SeIsraeli Defense Forces (IDF) are deploying automated weapon robots along the border of the Gaza Strip to create a buffer kill zone to prevent unauthorized infiltrations.

The system, called the “See-Shoot” system, is currently being installed and will be fully operational by the end of 2007. It consists of automated weapons stations connected through a command center to visual, ground andairborne sensors.

The system is the culmination of years of development by defense contractors Rafael, Elbit Systems and IMI.

The system is part of an IDF strategy of low-signature/no-signature warfare. The no-signature doctrine strives to keep soldiers out of harms way as much as possible.

However, “no-signature” warfare does not mean ‘no responsibility’ yet.
Eventually the See-Shoot system will be able to operate as a completely autonomous closed-loop system. But for now, the sensor data will be monitored by soldiers and a commanding officer will approve activation of the automated kill function.

The system is designed to enforce a 1500 meter(almost 1 mile) wide area along the border. Future plans include adding anti-tank missiles to extend the width of the no-mans land to several kilometers.

I wonder if they made plans for removing the dead bodies from the kill zone. Will they have to disable the whole system or do they have a robot that can drive through the zone and clean up? Maybe they will just leave the dead bodies laying around to mark the boundary of the buffer zone.

Similar automated systems are under development for the border in Korea.

DefenseNews.com - Israel Wants Robotic

YouTube - Self-Replicating Repairing Robots (http://www.forofriki.com)

YouTube - Self-Replicating Repairing Robots (http://www.forofriki.com)

PC World - Robots Need a Sensitive Touch

PC World - Robots Need a Sensitive Touch: "That will be the tipping point. Once robots can manipulate things in our environment in a safe way, they can do virtually anything a human can possibly do physically"

Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog: "The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system. The political system is simple, it operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives. Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system. When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences."

Force Control

Until now, robots used for this task have been position controlled, moving according to defined positions and speeds. But if the robot is struggling to trace a programmed path, the robot’s servo will increase power until maximum torque, resulting in a collision with the excess material along the way.

As a result, the robot stops, the tool breaks or the workpiece is damaged. To limit such damage, shops often run conventional castcleaning robots at slower speeds, but doing that reduces productivity.

This conventional approach also requires complex and time-consuming programming as the robot path needs to be as exact as possible. The expectation is that the grinding or polishing will deliver consistent results. In reality, the cast products are all individual with different tolerances, and this generates inconsistent process results.

A new dedicated robotbased system, called Force Control Machining from ABB Automation Technologies AB, eliminates these challenges and the bottlenecks associated with traditional finishing processes.

The system is designed to improve part quality, reduce programming time, speed part deburring cycle times and increase tool life. It provides force control for machining applications in which a robot needs to be sensitive to process forces. At the heart of ABB’s system are two advanced software features – FC Pressure and FC SpeedChange.

FC Pressure is aimed at processes that demand highquality surface finishes. It allows a robot to effectively “feel” its surroundings and follow the casting surface, changing its position to apply a constant pressure on the surface, even if the exact position of the surface is unknown. This consistent contact removes debris, such as burrs, at the same depth, and such force control accuracy delivers good surface finishes, even where a 5 Newton force difference can hugely impact final quality.

This feature adjusts the robot’s path to maintain a consistent pressure. It is especially well-suited for polishing, grinding and cleaning surfaces that need to be even and smooth such as with water taps, turbines/ propeller blades, electronic parts and automotive components.

For processes in which path accuracy is important and finished

Paleo-Future: Our Dread of Robots (1932)

Paleo-Future: Our Dread of Robots (1932): "The September 27, 1932 Ruston Daily Leader (Ruston, Louisiana) ran a cautionary editorial about an inventor who was supposedly shot by his own robot. From the late 1920s until the late 1930s you can find countless news articles of the wondrous feats robots were supposed to have performed.

The uneasy feelings we had about automation and mechanization are articulated quite well by the editorial. The end of the piece is accurate in stating, 'Machinery has created a revolution in our life. The wage-earner, the farmer, the soldier, the merchant, the politician, the schoolmaster, the printer - all of us, in every moment of our lives, live differently than our ancestors lived because of the constant increase in the mechanization of society"