Author Archives: Ogen

Mobile Robots Start Rolling In 2001!

Peterborough, NH – ActivMedia Research LLC www.ActivMediaResearch.com –

Today Mobile Robotics are where personal computers were in the early 1980s, poised for proliferation, with more than 3,500% projected growth in units and nearly 2,500% projected growth in dollars over the next five years. Mobile robot sales are expected to soar from $665 million in the year 2000 to more than $17 billion by 2005 according to a recent study by ActivMedia Research, LLC. Unlike their fixed-in-place industrial forebears, mobile `bots are free-ranging devices capable of an increasing range of tasks.

  • Technologies Coming of Age: Recent accomplishments allow robotics to blossom from programmed arms to intelligent autonomous mobile platforms. Near-term technical opportunities that will increase the rate of adoption include further evolution and cost-reduction in remote sensing, inspection and manipulation.
  • Enabling Technologies And Hurdles Today: Technical limitations that impede robotic progress include battery weight-to-capacity ratios, improved sensing accuracy-weight-cost ratios, wireless bandwidth limitations and better software / AI developments to support improved guidance and safety systems.
  • Cost-Benefit Ratio Improving: The Robotics Industry Association reports that in the past decade the price of an average industrial robot dropped to one-fifth of the 1990 cost of an equivalent robot, bringing industrial robotics ROI down to about one to two years.

    […]

    • Robots march forward – both on screen and off

    June 24, 2001

    By Jim Krane, Associated Press technology writer

    NEW YORK – In the new science fiction movie “A.I.,” humans build robots in their own image, using them for companionship, sex and as surrogate children.

    Disturbingly, the robots begin to express human emotions, to love, to dream.

    Outrageously far fetched? Maybe not.

    Some prominent real-world researchers who work in the field believe the film’s robots – played by human actors with special-effects help – are a reasonable approximation of where robotics is headed.

    But it’s anybody’s guess when robots might encompass human intelligence.

    Currently, scientists working on humanoid robots – that is, robots designed in the form of a human – are focused on building machines that can understand and obey voice commands, not issue them.

    “If the movie showed the level we’re working on today, it wouldn’t be a good movie,” said Maja Mataric, a robotics researcher at the University of Southern California.

    […]

    Japanese firms Honda and Sony have already built humanoids that can walk, wave and make some rudimentary dance steps. Within a decade, the robots ought to begin handling their design purpose: caring for Japan’s burgeoning elderly population.

    When Honda unveiled its P-3 humanoid, a plastic-sheathed robot that looks like a slimmed-down Michelin Man, U.S. government agencies began funding humanoid robot researchers like Mataric, whose robot Adonis is learning to dance the Macarena.

    […]

    The real-life future for A.I. robots

    By Jim Krane

    ASSOCIATED PRESS

    NEW YORK, June 21 — In Steven Spielberg’s new science fiction movie “A.I.,” humans build robots in their own image, using them for companionship, sex and as surrogate children. Disturbingly, the robots begin to express human emotions, to love, to dream. Outrageously far fetched? Maybe not.

    […]

    Android World

    By Ian Stokell, Newsbytes

    SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.,

    13 Jun 2001, 10:48 AM CST

    There’s something strangely fascinating about Android World! An android is a robot that looks like a human being, and there’s plenty of interesting pictures on this site, along with lots of information about androids and projects trying to make one-time science-fiction fodder. According to the site there are 31 major android projects around the world – 17 in Japan, five in the U.S., three in Germany, one in the U.K., two in Korea, one in Sweden, one in China and one in Thailand – and there are photos and links to them here.

    World Wide Web: http://www.androidworld.com/.

    Reported by y Newsbytes.com

    Aibo présente la météo

    par Sébastien Gesell

    mis en ligne le 11 juin 2001

    Pour son deuxième anniversaire, le chien Aibo vient de se voir offrir un portail web-TV.

    © sony / Transfert

    Né le 11 mai 1999, le chien robot Aibo a fêté son deuxième anniversaire. Une occasion marquée par la commercialisation d´une série limitée par Sony, qui vient de lui offrir une nouvelle fonction communicante (e-mail), mais l´habille aussi une nouvelle robe. Et ce n´est pas tout : cette star de la robotique commence à prendre pied sur le Web. Sony vient en effet d´ouvrir un site web-TV dont le héros n´est autre que l´Aibo. Aibo TV offre encore peu de contenu, le site étant toujours en phase de développement. On pourra toutefois y admirer quelques courtes séquences vidéo où le chien se prend pour un astrologue… D´autres émissions seraient à l´étude. Comme une rubrique météo qui sera mise à jour quotidiennement, et dont le présentateur star sera bien entendu notre cabot préféré. Les spectateurs auront aussi la possibilité d´envoyer des films “maisons” où seront mis en vedette leurs animaux électroniques favoris.

    […]

    Memoni robot : ICON : News

    Please don’t cry lady, you’ll destroy my CPU.

    Saturday, March 17, 2001

    Japan’s toy giant Tomy has paid an employee to pretend she’s talking to their new communication robot Memoni, and she (the employee, not the robot) isn’t happy about it.

    The robot is equipped with a 32-bit processor in its CPU, and has an LCD display that shows over 300 patterns of expression.

    Memoni’s artificial intelligence enables it to recognize over 20,000 words in a conversational context and to respond with 2 billion sentence patterns.

    Tomy will put Memoni on the Japanese market for 18,000 yen ($US150).

    Icon Online only wonders why you’d have children at all when you can have Memoni?

    Alexa Moses and agencies.