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Items tagged with robotics
Boston Dynamics earlier this month referred to one of its creations as a "nightmare-inducing" robot. The company was talking about a wheeled robot named Handle, and what makes it the thing of nightmares is its level of dexterity. Standing upright on two wheels, it is able to zoom forward and backward at a pretty good clip—up to 9 miles per hour. That's fast enough to give chase, if it ever had the inclination, but we did we mention it can jump, too? The ability to leap into the air and over objects (or on top of them) is what gives this robot a new level of Skynet hysteria. Don't get us wrong,...
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The world is a rapidly changing place and that will always be the case. Unfortunately for our friends in the U.K. who might be working in a public sector job, change could precede unemployment. That's because there is a push to replace nearly 250,000 public sector workers in the U.K. with robots over the next 15 years, according to a new report by Reform, a thinktank focused on improving public performance within affordable budgets. While the concept of robotic workers and automated services is not new, Reform is pretty harsh on the downsides of human workers. It points out that "public services...
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It does not matter what your political affiliation is, if any, we should all be able to agree that more can be done to take care of our military veterans. That is why DARPA (Defense Advanced Researched Projects Agency) deserves major kudos this holiday season. DARPA has developed a sophisticated bionic arm and is offering these upper-limb prostheses to amputees who are U.S. war veterans. The prosthetic system is cleverly named LUKE, which stands for Life Under Kinetic Evolution, but is also an intentional reference to the limb Luke Skywalker wielded in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back....
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Nobody should feign surprise that robots are taking over. A new report by market research firm Forrrester predicts that robots will terminate 6 percent of jobs in the United States by 2021, jobs that were previously held by flesh and blood workers. To expect anything less would be naive, as collectively we're the fools who put this all in motion. Think about it. We used our highly evolved brains (comparatively speaking) to create these awesome and complex machines, then we gave them artificial intelligence. We even glorified their capabilities in Hollywood films, a practice that dates back to when...
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Human hands have built a great many things, including robots and machines that replace human hands. In celebration of this transition from flesh and blood to metal and lubricant, Amazon's annual Picking Challenge tasks those in the field of robotics to compete in a competition to build automated systems that can simplify the task of picking items from shelves. This year it was won by Team Delft, a collaboration between TU Delft Robotics Institute located in the Netherlands and Delft Robotics. The challenge is separated into two finals, one for stowing and one for picking. For the stow task, robots...
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Science and technology are getting closer and closer to deftly melding man with machine. Cyberdyne, Inc., a Japanese company that focus on robotics, alongside with Intel have released the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL), the first cyborg-type robot that can improve, support, and enhance a person’s bodily functions. HAL is intended to be used in the welfare field, as assistance for heavy work in factories, and as assistance for rescue activities on disaster sites. How do these limbs work? First, the brain thinks something along the lines of “I want to walk”. The brain transmits the necessary signals...
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Forget about diamond rings, flowers, and bowling balls. While you're at it, disregard any notions of buying another tie or tie rack, or whatever else you had in mind for your significant other. If you really want to show that you're committed to your relationship, then check out FoldiMate, which is the next best thing to having a maid fold your laundry. Not many people like to fold clothes. It's tedious and if you have kids, good luck trying to stay ahead of the game. That's where FoldiMate comes in. FoldiMate is a startup from California that built a robot that can de-wrinkle and fold your shirts,...
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Hyundai Motor Group isn't just working on fancy new cars these days, it's also dabbling in robotics. It may have a bright future in the field, too—the automaker posted a handful of photos showing off a wearable robot suit that's not totally unlike the one Tony Stark built in Iron Man (minus the electromagnetic chest piece and ability to fly). The exoskeleton was a joint effort between Hyundai Motor Group, Hyundai Rotem Co., and Kia Motors. It's not clear exactly where the technology will end up, though Hyundai says its robot suits can be used in a wide variety of fields, including (but not limited...
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Just last month, Boston Dynamics posted a video demonstrating the capabilities of its latest robot called Atlas. The robot's human-like movements are nothing short of impressive, though we can't help but wonder if the threat of an uprising by these repressed machines is the reason why parent company Alphabet Inc. is now looking to sell Boston Dynamics. We're kidding, of course, at least about the fear of a Skynet scenario playing out in the near future. Alphabet has no worry of these machines rebelling against the tests that its humans creators put them through, such as trying to maintain balance...
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Google-owned Boston Dynamics as released new footage of its latest robot called Atlas, and it's both marvelous and frightening at the same time. It's marvelous because we see just how advanced the company's bipedal robot is at this point, with movements that eerily mimic that of a human, and frightening because they're incredibly difficult to topple—let's hope they never turn on us. "A new version of Atlas, designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings. It is specialized for mobile manipulation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It uses sensors in its body and legs to balance...
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We all fear the day when humans end up under the mechanical thumbs of our eventual robot overlords, but for now, it's us who still reign over them. Such is also the result of a joint effort involving the Volvo Group and several partners to develop a robot that picks up trash under the supervision of a garbage truck driver. The project is called ROAR (Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling) and it's being developed by the Volvo Group, Chalmers University of Technology and Mälardalen University in Sweden, Penn State University in the United States, the waste recycling company Renova. What Volvo is...
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Sexual fembots don't exist outside of Hollywood movies, but just in case they ever become a reality, robot ethicists (yes, there's such a thing) are already campaigning against having sex with robots. Those who support the "Campaign Against Sex Robots" feel that shagging with a scrap of parts resembling a person is unethical and "will contribute to gender inequalities in society." The campaign was borne out of a research paper by Kathleen Richardson, a senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University in Leicester, England. In it she points out that there are several initiatives...
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Foxconn is one of the biggest manufacturers of Apple's iPhone handsets, along with electronic gadgets and gizmos from various other well known companies, and for now, all those devices still require a human element. However, that might not always be the case as Foxconn dives deeper in robotics. What you may not realize is that Foxconn has been developing robotics technology for over a decade. The company's efforts have mostly flown under the radar, though it gained attention when its Japanese partner SoftBank trotted out a humanoid service robot called Pepper. That was in 2014. Foxconn's...
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A group of French and American scientists publishing in the science journal Nature are reporting success in their attempt to develop software that allows damaged robots to quickly overcome many sustained injuries and continue with their tasks. A major problem in robotics has long been the inability of the machines to deal with unexpected circumstances, and in the case of damage suffered in the performing of their duties, they will usually just ignore the problem and thus make the it all the worse. Now, though, with inspiration drawn from nature itself, the scientists...
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