Robotic Perception, On Purpose

From Science Daily:

European researchers developed technology that enables a robot to combine data from both sound and vision to create combined, purposeful perception. In the process, they have taken the field to a new level.

Currently, computer vision is good at recognising objects in images and videos and has been successfully employed in several specialised industrial applications, such as quality control during microchip fabrication.

But robotic perception is much weaker in less defined situations, like understanding and responding to human behaviour and even conversations. Yet, it is precisely this sort of interaction which promises the most compelling applications for future humanoid technology, where people-like robots can act as guides, or mix with people, or use perception to infer appropriate actions.

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Look out! The robots are coming to take your job away

From Times Online:

For as long as anyone can remember, the Tokyo International Robot Exhibition has been a showcase for Japan at its wackiest: stern industrial machines lurked backstage as waltzing, noodle-making or ping-pong playing humanoids stole the limelight.

In recessionary 2009, however, with Japanese industry writhing in pain, the national robot obsession has turned deadly serious. For the first time, the show explains exactly how the machines are going to take over.

A new mood is in the air: the downturn, says a Tsukuba University engineer, has honed Japanese robotics research and forced it to be more practical. Companies and universities once given unlimited budgets to push the boundaries of robotics are being told to come up quickly with something usable and commercial.

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Medibots: The world's smallest surgeons - health - 20 November 2009 - New Scientist

Medibots: The world's smallest surgeons - health - 20 November 2009 - New Scientist

Robots At Work

An interesting piece from J. Storrs Hall on machine workers and the AI takeover...

"Right now we have a Moore’s Law for the robot’s brain but not for its body. In other words, we may enter a strange period where white-collar workers are replaced by beige boxes but blue-collar ones are still cheaper — for a little while — than a fully-capable humanoid robot body. (That will disappear soon enough after nanotech manufacturing takes hold, but at the moment, it looks like AI may be a decade earlier than real nanotech.)"

Picture: KUKA Roboter GmbH