This robot, named Motoman-SDA10, is a versatile humanoid industrial robot currently on display at the International Next-Generation Robot Fair. He’s intended to serve both at the factory or at a workplace alongside humans. It’s an industrial robot so I couldn’t find any indication of vision, hearing or other sensors to make it more aware of its environment, so we can expect it to work in safe distance from humans until one of us provides that Change He Needs.
It’s been a while since the last post and I’m afraid it’s going to be like that for some time, mainly due to business, school and of course our dreaded economic uncertainties. It’s rare that I simply sit down and post, I usually mull over things for a few days and read up on the subject. But between the upcoming US elections and Iceland’s economic canary-in-the-mine situation, there hasn’t been much left to fuel my writing. So for now we’ll have to settle for slim posts.
Now, the Wikitude AR Travel Guide, created by Mobilizy, is an augmented reality application for the G1/Google Android. Judging from the video demonstration, the graphical overlay is quite a few notches smoother than Enkin.
According to Mobilizy’s website Wikitude should already available—but I didn’t find it in the Android Market, and the few 3rd party reviewers I looked at didn’t showcase the AR function. Perhaps there are two versions? In any case, reality is inching closer to augmentation.
This fantastic robot is the third in a series of robots designed at Case Western Reserve University’s biorobotics lab. Make sure you have a look at their site which contains more information and pictures.
[Subscribers, visit the site if you can't see the video]
Some time ago I came across an article reporting on a new robotic arm that was so powerful it might have to be downgraded to serve as a “safe” prosthetic.
As prostheses become more affordable and powerful—how soon can we expect people that want to replace their biological arm with one that doesn’t tire, can lift twice as much and for twice as long?
Or, perhaps a more credible scenario; of those that get one out of need, how many will be content with human dexterity when super is an option?
I thought many of you might enjoy this little gem I came across while digesting my daily dose of science. It turns out that Dr. Manhattan of Watchmen seems to have a real life counterpart.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Watchmen is a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Gibbons. It’s the only graphic novel to receive sci-fi’s most prestigious award, Hugo Award, and the only graphic novel to make the NY Time’s 100 best English-language novels. Those of you who’ve read it, read on for the real life Dr. Manhattan. For those of you who haven’t read it fetch yourselves a copy, enjoy some great sci-fi, and then come back to this post. If you don’t the writing style of this entry won’t make sense to you.
If you’re a Firefox user and live on the web like I do, neck deep in trying out new features and beta services, then you should give Mozilla Lab’s Ubiquity a try. It’s an experimental plugin for FF that reminds me a lot of the desktop application Quicksilver.
By a key combination you bring up a command-line interface that let’s you write natural language instructions. For example, selecting text on page, bringing up the window and then typing “email this to xyz@something.com“. A similar example is translation; i.e. translate this to French. I’ve recently been migrating many of my desktop activities to web applications, including moving entirely from desktop email to Gmail, and a big plus for me is that Ubiquity works with Gmail right out of the box.
Here’s a recap of the initial features, as stated in the Ubiquity prototype announcement:
Ubiquity 0.1
Lets you map and insert maps anywhere; translate on-page; search amazon, google, wikipedia, yahoo, youtube, etc.; digg and twitter; lookup and insert yelp review; get the weather; syntax highlight any code you find; and a lot more. Ubiquity “command list” to see them all.
Find and install new commands to extend your browser’s vocabulary through a simple subscription mechanism
And then there’s the introductory video for your enjoyment.
Head over to the Ubiquity page and try it out for yourself. It’s a bit buggy (it’s a prototype, after all)—but it looks like it has great potential.
Sony’s planning on making a splash in the augmented reality world. At the Games Conference in Liepzig, Germany they showcased the EyePet, a game set to hit the stores in late 2009, which uses the PlayStation Eye camera to allow users to interact with a small monkey-like-thing onscreen (set to explode from cuteness). The system also enables you to draw items on real paper which then pop out of it and turn into 3D objects for the monkey to interact with. In the promotional video, embedded below, they show a sketch of a car turning into a 3D vehicle controllable with a PS joystick.
Robust artificial creativity systems are an important step towards the ultimate commodity: a mass-producable product that in turn produces solutions and ideas on demand. Think how this could add to our capacity for problem solving. The idea is as exciting as the challenges involved in realizing it. Many questions remain unanswered:
Not only do we lack understanding of our own creative mechanisms, but the basics of computer programs seem to oppose the idea of achieving unbound originality. Here’s a look at that important, fundamental problem when implementing creativity. In easy digest format, no less.
With the the oncoming flood of powerful devices such as the iPhone, it’s almost certain that we’re about to make the leap into an augmented reality. I’ve predicted we’ll have common-place AR apps in early 2009. My guess is that Google will introduce a Maps-based application; possibly one that displays landmark-labels.
Here’s a video giving us a taste of what’s possible—an iPhone app capable of displaying 10 frames per second in live-video realtime tracking. It was made using version 4.4 of the ARToolkit, created by ARToolworks.
[Subscribers—visit the post if you can't see the video]
Gizmodo mentions that this won’t be found in the Appstore anytime soon, and quotes the creators:
It’s running slowly, but once Apple releases a video [API for the iPhone] SDK, performance should get to 20-30 frames/second. We’ve all seen the awesome 3D games that can run on the iPhone, so fast AR applications will also be possible in the future, with all that multi-touch goodness thrown in as well.
I’m thinking there must be someone already brewing AR apps of some sort. Evernote is close, letting you take a picture of text (e.g. a poster or DVD cover, etc.) and making the text searchable. Location-based social applications are also on a roll, displaying people in your area and what they’re up to.
With the iPhone’s 3G version there’s nothing that stands in the way; there’s bandwidth, GPS location and then the phone’s accelerometer. These combined could be used to make a label-application like I mentioned above: The accelerometer could track which way you’re facing and when you turn, the GPS where you are and the 3G could provide a fast and live connection to something like Google’s maps.
I doubt AR is an area that Apple hasn’t considered conquering. Even though it currently seems they’d rather want to use the phone’s accelerometer to make lightsaber sounds.
We’ll now be able to maintain better visual and personalized presence around Think Artificial. After some CSS struggling due to discrepancies between Firefox and Safari page rendering, I’ve finished implementing Gravatars on the site! (I’m sorry IE6 users, I don’t have time to test and accommodate a broken browser — please get Firefox).
If your comment shows up with a gray person like the third comment above, it means you’ll have to get yourself a Gravatar. If you haven’t heard of Gravatars, or Globally Recognized Avatars, they’re a service that allows you to upload and associate an avatar with your e-mail address. Since they’re in use by many popular websites, it’ll spare you some time when commenting or creating accounts there—all you’ll have to do is enter your email address and they’ll pop up automatically (email encrypted via the MD5 algorithm). For the record, the people on the pic with me above are Gnorb and Esther — both of which run great blogs.
This robot, named Motoman-SDA10, is a versatile humanoid industrial robot currently on display at the International Next-Generation Robot Fair. He’s intended to serve both at the factory or at a workplace alongside humans. It’s an industrial robot so I couldn’t find any indication of vision, hearing or other sensors to make it more aware of its environment, so we can expect it to work in safe distance from humans until one of us provides that Change He Needs. 
I thought many of you might enjoy this little gem I came across while digesting my daily dose of science. It turns out that 
