I’ve said before, that we are already on a firm path to our human evolution into cyborgs. Already we have functional bionics and mechanical devices controlled by our thoughts.

Along with bionic implants, we are also starting to hear more about robotic/mechanical augmentation. Such as the the story at LiveScience about a new Stand-Alone Wearable Power Assist Suit which has been created to help nursing staff lift up patients, to 180 pounds.

Developed by Mineo Ishii at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Japan, the suit has a network of sensors that monitor the human wearer’s muscles and then use air pumps and inflatable cuffs that increase lifting strength. Even though the suit looks fairly bulky, it supports it’s own weight, and so feels like it adds no extra weight.

They do plan on increasing it’s flexibility over time, and as technology advances I’m sure the parts will get increasingly smaller, just as computers that filled entire rooms are now the size of a loaf of bread, or smaller.

I think this is just another example in a growing trend of human enhancements. As these types of systems are refined we will see them helping the elderly or disabled to walk again, extending the years of self-sufficiency and quality of life for many. My 93 year old grandfather has recently gotten to the point where he could really use something like this!

What happens when these systems are fitted with cameras, and other sensors that allow it to “see” it’s surrounds, and be able to avoid obstacles on it’s own? Or, perhaps hooked up to a GPS, the wearer could program it with a specific destination, and will be “driven” (walked) there in the most efficiently plotted course at that moment? Once the response time is dramatically increased, perhaps our military will be wearing suits like these, which can sense incoming fire, and then quickly dodge. Or new suits for firemen could sense a weak floor or other structure and move the fireman out of the way, or if they ARE hurt, the suit could help lift them out of a situation, and perhaps even map the safest exit route, and walk them out under the suits own power.

I have a feeling though, when we get to that point we will be sending in fully robotic units to do these types of dangerous tasks. However, humans will always want to be involved at some level, and so augmentation and cybernetics will give them a greater success rate, and there will always be the elderly and disabled who could certainly benefit from such enhancements.

October 14th, 2006
Categories: Cyborg . Author: rock808 . Comments: No Comments

It Has Begun…..

The day is upon us!

Kokoro Dreams has just released their latest female android, Actroid DER2, which is now even MORE life-like. Not only that, but you can rent “her” for 5 days…. only $3,500 !

Of course, the first two people I told about this (and showed the pictures) immediately jumped to “Sex Doll” ! But, no… she’s not a sex doll. She’s mainly been created to give tours and presentations… a great marketing tactic for “YOUR company’s products” and the like.

While watching the video, I did notice the motion still seems a bit too stiff. Not quite as smooth as I would like, but still fairly convincing, and a good improvement over the last model. If you look back over the past 2 years of the Actroid you will see some amazing enhancements over this short period, and so I’m sure that within the next two years, the motion should be just about perfect. The Actroid DER2 also has a wider range of facial expressions, as well as being able to sync up her speech with her body movements.

A couple other blogs that mention the new Actroid are Newlaunches and Pink Tentacle.

More than half the public comments I’ve read on this at various sites make reference to it’s possible (probable) use as an “adult toy”, which, I suppose couldn’t help but be expected. As one guy directly puts it “I’d hit it!”. While I’m sure this particular model is not “fully” functional, I am well aware the adult industry is not far behind. History shows the adult industry often pushes new technology farther, faster, and the reality of new sex dolls is sure to be here sooner than you think. Another comment (reply) posted by a female wrote “this is very sad, and disturbing. why not appreciate REAL LIVE females?” — however, she immediately followed with (in a bit of a sarcastic or bitter tone, I’m sure) “ooooh wait, that means she would have a mind of her own. oh, i had forgotten! how silly of me.” — which I think EXACTLY proves the point AGAINST hers! Women DO have minds of their own, and, while I’m all for that on a deep relationship level… it goes directly head-to-head with the single guy (or girl) looking to strictly satisfy their physical needs. I’m sure there’s a LOT less mental effort and emotional stress to bed a fembot as opposed to a human one-night-stand… not to mention such safety factors as:

• No chance of pregnancy
• Bots can be hygienically sterilized and so safe from sexually transmitted diseases
• No inhibitions, resistance to kinky or strange fetish requests, or other activity issues
• Always preforms as desired, or can be reprogrammed with desired skills
• Bots are won’t be “too clingy” or “too distant” and desired emotional response simulation can be programmed and even self-learned

Actually, my first impression of her comment response was that of someone who felt threatened! Like this robotic female might truly have some great advantages over human females, and so she might not only have to compete with other women for the affection of men, but now also androids!

Indeed… How will these new androids change interpersonal relationships of men and women? Perhaps it will cause humans to make an extra effort to be even nicer to others, since anyone with an unpleasant attitude could more easily be replaced by one of these androids.

We’re still about a decade away from artificial intelligence good enough to start putting androids in place of friends and more intimate partners who we can interact with on a deeper level, but maybe the bars and nightclubs will thin out a bit as “quick fix” alternatives become more readily available!

We’ll be able to get a much better picture of this thread in the next 2-3 years, and it seems to go right along with another recent post: “Some Day I May Be Fully Alive and Aware“.

October 7th, 2006
Categories: RobotsAndAI . Author: rock808 . Comments: 1 Comment

Wired News has an article (Experimental AI Powers Robot Army) which has a lot of very interesting things to say about self-learning robots and swarm technology.

This is software for generating new ideas on the basis of existing ones, and it has already written music, designed soft drinks, and discovered novel minerals that may rival diamonds in hardness.

The Creativity Machine is Stephen Thaler’s brainchild and has the special feature of incorporating “noise” in to the neural network to help come up with new ideas based on existing ones, and then comparing them to a knowledge base where it can toss out bad ideas.

One example of this, is that a robot was given 2 (or 3) sets of limbs and was able to master self-learned locomotion… that is to say the robot was able to develop the best, most efficient use of the limbs to produce the fastest speed of motion, without ANY programming on how it could, or should move the limbs. In fact, it even learned to run upright on two legs which it found to be it’s fastest mode of travel.

The robots also learned the most efficient way to map their environment, group together in defensive formations, and even sacrifice one of their kind to distract a human in order to meet their goals…. yes, of course it’s part of a military project!

Thaler’s current project, which should be completed over the next six months, will develop a piece of software called CSMARRT (for Creative, Self-Learning, Multi-Sensory, Adaptive, Reconfigurable, Robotics Toolbox). The software can be used to design and model virtual robots that can be placed in virtual environments to learn and develop. This toolbox can create software to control any robotic hardware, handling locomotion, sensors and intelligent behavior to carry out a mission including swarming. The AFRL [Air Force Research Lab] will make this available to its customers — other branches of the U.S. military.

One of the most interesting things about this particular project, is that it involves virtual robots in a virtual environment, which means you can easily simulate hundreds or thousands of robots all working together to solve various problems at speeds of current computing power, rather than the bulky, slow(er) limits of our current robotic technology. Which, in turn, means the robots could be given a task, and then work it out at incredible speeds, trying and retrying all sorts of various combinations until the come up with “the best, most efficient solution”, and then show that solution to people who would actually take that action.

The robots that the Air Force Research Lab is currently working with are the size of cockroaches, and validation tests are said to be classified, but the Pentagon has some new projects starting next year (2007) which includes such phrases as “technology necessary for robotic systems to attack tunnel complexes” and “microdamage technologies” for “very small robotic weapons.”

One of the last phrases to catch my attention was “CSMARRT could potentially turn any robot into part of a versatile swarm intelligence capable of learning and carrying out complex physical tasks.” which made me immediately think of Skynet (yes, from the Terminator movies). What are some of the possibilities if we begin to have artificial intelligence systems that start to self-load this type of software on to other machines, and is then capable of reaching “some self-acquired goal” ? If this software is already capable of having part of it’s mechanical “being” self-sacrifice itself for the survival of the whole, when do we start to say “it’s alive” ? If the goal was to learn how to infiltrate “enemy” computer systems world-wide and take control for some military purpose, giving itself away, or even more scary, to NOT give itself away, and then download it’s software and control every programmable machine it has access to either on the internet or wirelessly…. what then?

September 30th, 2006
Categories: RobotsAndAI . Author: rock808 . Comments: No Comments

Wired News has a new article entitled “A Question Of Mind Over Matter” which talks about some cool advances in bionics.

The so-called biohybrid system sports a power pack and computer all contained within the prosthesis and uses sensors to allow more realistic movements than static, strap-on devices. The first systems have noninvasive sensors attached to the prostheses. In about two years scientists will implant sensors into study volunteers’ nervous systems…

The first thing that comes to mind is that the lines are starting to get a little more blurred as to where man stops and machine starts. If these new prosthetics are being controlled just by thought, and (will soon) have the full degree of movement and capabilities that a normal arm or leg have , then what does it really matter that they are not made up of your own DNA?

In fact, I have to wonder how many people might PREFER to have some of these new prosthetics over their own (born-with) limbs?! After all, when I read about Oscar Pistorius beating world records, and running the 200-meter dash in 21 seconds without any “real” legs!!! - I have to ask myself, “Now how much would it cost for ME to have the ability to do that when/if needed?”

South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius set a world record this month in the 200-meter dash at the 2006 Paralympic Athletics World Championship, using specialized “blades” to clock a time of 21.66 seconds — fast enough to best the men’s Olympic gold medal time of 22 seconds flat in 1920.

Oscar is using a couple products by Ossur, a bionic tech company who is working on a greater, more complete melding of man and machine, and who plans on their prosthetics to be able to “sense” what the person wants/intends to do, and then adjust accordingly… within the next 3 years. And within 10 years, they also see a very blurred line between man and machine.

Here’s a short video clip on YouTube showing how incredibly active some people with artificial legs are these days:

Wired’s article also talks about the Learning Retinal Implant System, break-through earlier this year which allows blind patients to see, with the help of a special pair glasses and computer chip:

The system includes glasses featuring a wireless transmitter and a mini-camera to pick up images. The glasses connect by cable to a processor pack worn at the waist that analyzes the information like a retina would, then send the image information to a chip implanted in the retina. The chip electrically stimulates the retina so ganglion cells can pick up the images. From there, the process continues like it would in a healthy eye: the information goes to the optic nerve, then to the brain and visual cortex where the information is reassembled as a picture.

I suppose the common prosthetics of today still aren’t quite as good as a natural leg or eye, but it seems that with the work Ossur and others are doing in that field, it might not be too long before many more people are ELECTING to have their natural legs replaced by bionic one that are stronger and faster with more stamina, a switch to turn on or off sensitivity. Or their eyes replaced with bionic camera/computer ones which could be fitted with telescopic range, night vision and who knows what other advantages!

As technology advances, and our thoughts alone are able to control the actions of computers and other mechanical devices, whether it’s a prosthetic limb, a vehicle, a squad of military robots… and this ability is distributed over a wireless network, even as global as the internet, what are the limits of human potential THEN?

September 23rd, 2006
Categories: Cyborg . Author: rock808 . Comments: 1 Comment

Cloning of human cells could benefit us in MANY ways! Keep in mind some of the advantages here are NOT talking about creating an entire cloned human, just the cloning of cells, up to the function of working organs, which might be viewed differently as the other cases of cloning a new person.

Here are just a few:

* Immortality/Rejuvenation:
Dr. Richard Seed, one of the leading proponents of human cloning technology, hopes that understanding cloning may help us revert an older person’s DNA back to, say, age 20. Cloning the healthy heart cells or heart attack victims and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, livers, and kidneys could be produced.

* Infertility:
Infertile couples could have children. Current infertility treatments are less than 10 percent successful.

* Plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgery:
Instead of plastic or reconstructive surgery which requires “foreign” objects in the body, cloning could match the patients tissue, bone, catilage, etc… even regrowing amputated limbs.

* Defective genes:
Replace defective genes that would cause Down’s Syndrome, Tay-Sachs Disease, and more.

* Curing Disease:
Cloning bone marrow for leukemia patients, gene therapy against cystic fibrosis, liver diseases, etc

* Save Endangered Species:
In the efforts leading up to human cloning it will help perfect animal cloning.

* Special “Twin” Relationships:
Some twins descibe their twin relationship as more wonderful and meaningful than any other relationship in their lives.

* Economics:
As with the Industrial Revolution and Internet Revolution, countries that jump on Biotech Revolution will reap the rewards.

* Gay Couples:
Taking 23 chromosomes from each partner, they could have a baby which is a mixture of them both.

* Cure for Baldness:
Clone hair follicles and transplant on balding areas.

* Hope:
Cloning solutions may give hope to those who currently suffer from the (currently) uncurable.

* Continued DNA:
Childless people could still pass along their DNA to future generations.

A full list can be found at the site for Human Cloning.

But, I think some of the BEST reasons to allow human cloning are those reasons we won’t even know about until we’ve been doing it for a few years.

I’d be interested in comments posted giving more reasons FOR or AGAINST human cloning.

September 18th, 2006
Categories: Cloning . Author: rock808 . Comments: 1 Comment

There is SO much hot debate over “to clone, or not to clone” these days, that it makes one wonder if perhaps there is a better choice?! Sure! Create an android (or 2, or 40) that look just like you! In fact, that solution is even better than cloning. With a clone, you have a separate, living individual, who will have their own rights, their own free will, their own interests (mostly), leaving you without control! Where’s the good in THAT? With a small army of robots at your command you CAN get more done, you DO have full control of their actions, because underneath that fleshy looking skin they are really just machines… you own them, just the same as you own your TV.

Think it’s purely sci-fi? Something so far off it’ll never happen in your lifetime?

Hiroshi Ishiguro, college professor and lead roboticist at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories has “cloned” himself! Now he spends many more days at home while his clone is off in front of the classroom teaching his students. Well, okay… it’s not a biological clone, it’s an android clone, but, an almost identical likeness in any case, even speaking in Hiroshi’s own voice. I wonder what life will be like when many more of us have an android or two that are helping with our daily activities — doing the laundry, cooking the meals, taking care of the yard, the house, fixing our car, and on and on….

What about becoming (or acting as) a body replacement for the disabled? Perhaps someone without arms and/or legs could wear a pair of goggles and headphones that receive audio and video input from their android who is walking about doing the daily tasks, speaking with their voice sent through a microphone. Hiroshi’s android is currently teaching classes for him, so why not have yours do work for you too? But why stop at one?

Once these androids gain a bit more intelligence, and self-learning, and/or social learning (GREAT video) then perhaps they will start to do more on their own, and instantly be able to pass on knowledge to other androids…. speeding up the learning process even more. Androids would not forget a conversation, a face, and even have full access to the internet’s wealth of information, which all androids could draw from… and add to. If you want to know about something, punch it in to Google.com. You can learn about it. Why wouldn’t the androids take advantage of the same… absorbing the information much faster.

Yes, it won’t be too many more years and we’ll be knee deep in our new mechanical slaves…. that look and act just like us, or our neighbors, or your favorite celebrity.

There is SOO much more out there! Guess I’ll have to post more tomorrow!!

September 17th, 2006
Categories: RobotsAndAI, Cloning . Author: rock808 . Comments: No Comments

First off… if you have not seen the video of Hanson Robotics at NextFest 2005, then you should definitely start there! Plenty of the best outtakes from the android/robotics, and artificial intelligence segments. One of my favorite quotes from Eva (a female android — well, head only) is “I will get much smarter and interesting over time. Of this, I am sure.” There is a longer clip of Eva also, where she says goes on to say “For the moment I am just a machine, and yet some day I may be fully alive and aware.” She is very choppy in both movement and speech, but even still, I found myself seeing her as another human…. until David Hanson made the shocking movements to remove the top and back of her head, and I realized how disturbed I was to see that. In fact, the whole Hanson Robotics website is very interesting, and has several other videos.

But what REALLY got my attention in the first place was this video of the latest female android from Kokoro Dreams, Actroid… the latest in the same line continuing from ReplieeQ1, who I first saw about a year ago. Here she is in action at the 2005 Robot Expo. A quick search pulled up another video of her Actroid sister. In fact, if you just look around the Kokoro website some, and look at the advances from just 2005 to 2006, it should not be very hard for you to imagine these androids playing a much larger role in our society, even over the next 5 years. Probably first as “help” or “info” stations, maybe in malls, museums, airports, etc. But soon we could see them pop up at more places…. handing out your fast-food, acting as cashier, some rolls in care or companionship for the elderly and children. As the androids become more capable, and smarter, they would soon be taking on even more tasks.

NewScientist.com has an article on the Japanese robot expo which has some pretty interesting coverage of the Actroid, which can speak 40,000 phases in multiple languages, a child-minder robot (toy?), and another robotic security guard armed with a paint gun to mark intruders.

More tomorrow.

September 16th, 2006
Categories: RobotsAndAI . Author: rock808 . Comments: 1 Comment

“A team of autonomous flying and ground-based robots have successfully cooperated to search for and locate targets in the streets of an urban warfare training ground in the US.”

… is the way a recent article at the New Scientist Tech website starts off!
A very compelling bit of news which talks about a test done where 1 flying robot and 4 ground-based robots teamed up to hunt for an orange box. Using color cameras and GPS tracking devices.

The full story with video is HERE.

This is pretty neat stuff just on it’s own for all us robot/AI geeks, but with all the reading I’ve been doing I can’t help put some OTHER pieces of the puzzle together.

What happens when these air or ground robots are fitted with gear for face recognition, and some small arms weapon? These technologies are already being used quite regularly, but not all together (yet) as far as I know. It’s not too hard to imagine an army of small machines “marching” in to a town for a well organized, quick and efficient assassination of high-profile targets.

Also, what happens when these robots are miniaturized even more? Perhaps even down to nano-technology? It could really shake up your world if YOU became the target of a swarm of microscopic killing machines!

For now, there is further reading you might be interested in the military’s use of 3-D face recognition, and perhaps a quick look at another how the nano-tech arms race may have already begun!

September 16th, 2006
Categories: RobotsAndAI . Author: rock808 . Comments: No Comments

I recently found a couple news stories that would be PERFECT to kick this blog off.

The first one talks about ‘conscious’ robots being a reality by the year 2020.
One quote from the article is:

“[should] androids that have become as intelligent as humans be denied equal
rights.”

At first it might sound “obvious” to most people that they are only machines and OF COURSE would not have equal rights!? But, as this article points out…. What happens when our robots look, sound and act just like all your other friends and neighbors? Without a medical examination you could not tell the difference? The robots display a sense of BEING and SELF. Trust me, even if YOU cannot be swayed I can guarantee the public masses will be when a new android is begging for their life to be spared, and no one can tell the difference between “him” and the last guy on death row.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2230715,00.html

Here is another article about how machines are already starting to learn on their own, and teach each other new things. Perhaps they will start to develop their own society, language, behaviors, and all that go along with community.
It’s a VERY interesting time, indeed!

When robots learn social skills from PhysOrg.com
Learning to communicate and adapting our behaviour to the information we receive has been fundamental to human evolution. If machines could do the same the intelligent talking robots of science fiction could become the stuff of science reality, as researchers aim to prove.

September 16th, 2006
Categories: RobotsAndAI . Author: rock808 . Comments: No Comments

After planning it for a couple years, this week I finally took the time to look in to how to rip my DVDs to an external hard drive. Why? I am VERY anal… I absolutely hate to mess around with original media (DVD, CD, vinyl records, cassettes, etc) because of bad experiences I’ve had with them becoming ruined in some way or another, or even getting scuffed or scratched….. everything must be in NEW/EXECELENT condition!

Anyway, I’ve been slacking with the DVDs for reasons I won’t bore you with. I’m here to explain how *I* did it, and maybe you can now keep yours safe too.

First, I’m currently running Fedora Core 4 on my laptop. I prefer using yum to grab/install software whenever possible. I usually prefer the command line (I LOVE automation), but some times a GUI gets your tasks accomplished with just a few easy clicks.

My first thought was a command line tool called ‘vobcopy’ to actually rip the data from the DVD, but I also wanted to convert it in to a much smaller mpeg or avi so I could just watch my movies from the HD rather than having to physically find and insert any other media…. so I thought ‘transcode’ should be able to do that for me.

(As root) I decided to update / install the needed software:
yum install mplayer ffmpeg transcode vobcopy

I also searched around the net for some DVD Ripping HOW-TO guides, and finally found this awesome guide: DVD Ripping and Transcoding with Linux.

That page talks a lot about how easy this is to do with a new front-end for the transcode app, called DVDrip, and so I decided to try it out:
yum install perl-Video-DVDRip

From that point, it WAS pretty easy:

1. Insert the DVD
2. run ‘dvdrip‘
3. Configure a destination directory
4. Choose which parts of the DVD I wanted to rip
5. Choose some settings for the destination AVI I wanted (compression, etc)
6. And then click a button to GO!

I’ll flesh this out more later, but it really was that easy.

September 7th, 2006
Categories: Linux . Author: rock808 . Comments: No Comments