BW Online | March 19, 2001 | Robots Robots
They’re beginning to walk, talk, and, yes, think like people. Is the age of the robo sapien just around the corner?

It’s 1996. Japan’s economy is lurching toward recession. Instead of investing in a new generation of expensive industrial robots, Japan is shipping more production offshore to Southeast Asia and other cheap-labor locales. It’s a tough time for Tatsuzo Ishida, Sony Corp.’s (SNE ) ace robotics engineer. He has spent the past 15 years developing steel-collar workers to assemble millions of Walkmen, handycams, and game consoles in Sony’s Japanese factories. With Sony joining the exodus, the future of factory robots looks dim.

Being a robot maniac, Ishida refuses to throw in the towel. Instead, he hatches an outrageous plan. Together with comrade-in-arms Yoshihiro Kuroki, he proposes that Sony engineer a whole new species of humanoid entertainment bots, along the lines of C-3PO, the golden chatterbox in Star Wars. The technical challenges are tremendous. Nobody has yet built a biped that can stroll blithely through a house, maneuvering around furniture and dodging people–unaided by a human controller. And if the robotmeisters actually achieve their goal, Sony could face major liability risks. How long before one of the creatures trips and topples onto a toddler, or wanders into the path of a car on its way to the supermarket?
[…]

SONY :: AIBO :: On Magazine.com — Reviews : Look Out for the Trojan Dog
Retooled version of the famous metallic mutt is sturdier, cheaper and packed with more features than its predecessor. Future add-ons will make it more than a toy.
By Chris Taylor
[…] the Sony strategy of convergence: seed the device using its attractiveness as a plaything, then build on its central place in home life. Sound familiar? “It’s like PlayStation 2 with four legs and a voice,” says Takeshi Yazawa, vice president of Sony’s Entertainment Robots division. “This is very much the beginning of robots in the home. The hardware is there; future applications are to come.”
In other words, make way for the Trojan dog. Remove AIBO’s limbs and head (and starting later this year, you will indeed be able to customize them — wheels for legs, a head with a better camera) and what you’re effectively left with is a computer. His torso already has a powerful CPU and a slot for memory sticks. What’s mostly needed for the all-singing, all-dancing future of AIBO to kick in is more storage. Right now, for instance, he would only have enough memory to store seven digital photos. But anyone who has ever bought a PC knows how fast that changes. Think Moore’s Law. […]

MIT :: Technology Review – Magazine – TR10: Robot Design
Robot Design
By David Talbot
Jorden Pollack
Robot builders make a convincing case that in 2001, robots are where personal computers were in 1980—poised to break into the marketplace as common corporate tools and ubiquitous consumer products performing life’s tedious chores. One big obstacle remains: It is expensive to design and make robots smart enough to adapt readily to different tasks and physical environments, the way human beings do.
That’s the reason why robotics have, so far, found a commercial niche only in simple and highly repetitive jobs, such as working on an automotive assembly line, or mass-producing identical items, such as toys. The challenge for builders of robots is to build more complexity into them without the huge investment of custom-tailoring each robot for a different task.[…]

01net. – Le MIT révèle son top 10 des technologies d’avenir
Technology Review, le magazine du célèbre Massachusetts Institute of Technology, vient de publier ce qu’il considère comme les dix technologies d’avenir.
[…]
Les robots
Technology Review estime que les robots n’en seraient qu’à leurs premiers pas. En effet, ils sont pour le moment cantonnés dans une niche commercialele à cause de leur prix très élevé. Cependant, cela pourrait changer rapidement, puisque les travaux en cours devraient permettre de créer des ordinateurs capables de concevoir à la chaîne des robots complexes.
[…]

NEW :: PEKEE, Toute la robotique ludique ::
Vous avez toujours rêvé de comprendre comment ça marche un robot et même un jour d’en construire un pour chez vous.
Et bien vous êtes bien tombé. Le site Pekee met à votre disposition toute une série d’informations, de liens et d’articles sur la robotique et plus particulièrement sur la robotique ludique. On est gentil, on a trié les informations et à chaque fois dit ce que nous en pensions vraiment.
Bien sûr, vous n’êtes pas obligés de le partager (encore heureux !) et vous pouvez réagir et laisser vos impressions pour en faire profiter tout le monde. Si vous vous sentez l’âme d’un reporter vos articles seront les bienvenus.[…]

::: WANY ROBOTICS – La robotique pour tous ::: L’électronique de Pekee™

Intégrant les dernières technologies, Pekee™ est une plate-forme robotique complète et autonome dotée en standard de nombreux capteurs d’environnement. Pekee™ a pour vocation d’évoluer au fur et à mesure des besoins. Le bus OPP breveté lui permet de recevoir des cartes filles additionnelles. Chaque carte est un véritable ordinateur à part entière, autonome électriquement. La carte mère gère la communication entre les cartes filles, les modules électroniques et les capteurs. Pekee™ dispose d’un bus périphérique I2C, et accepte de facto vos équipements et réalisations dotés de ce standard. Les robots Pekee™ peuvent également communiquer entre eux par IR, et il est possible de les doter de cartes de visions stéréoscopiques. Vous pouvez augmenter la puissance de calcul en lui rajoutant des cartes à base de STPC, qui vous permettront d’y exécuter de puissants logiciels. D’autre part, vous pourrez rajouter à la liste des accessoires de Pekee, qui grandit chaque jour, les périphériques informatiques à la norme USB.

SONY :: AIBO :: BBC News | SCI/TECH | Robot pets get domesticated
This month Sony is planning to release software that lets owners generate their own programs for the Aibo.
Owners will be able to work out sequences of movements for their Aibo or change how it reacts to being stroked, talked to or when it experiences emotion. “The Aibo has got the head room for growth,” said Mr Twyman.
The software will run on a desktop PC and finished programs can be put on a memory stick for slotting into the robot dog or directly into the machine.

Trade Show :: Turkey :: Metu Robot Society METU Robot Society is the 1st and the Pioneering Robot Society in Turkey. We design and produce robots and robotic systems. Join us to learn more about robots, to design and manufacture intelligent robot machines within your area of interest, and make fun of it.

Trade Show :: US :: Acroname 2001 Robotics Expo EXPO 2001 is coming!
Acroname Inc. is pleased to announce our 2001 Robotics Expo to take place on March 3 in Boulder, Colorado. The Robotics Expo is free and open to the public. This year’s guests include NASA, the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, the Colorado School of Mines Engineering Department, the University of Colorado, Trinity College, LEGO, and many more. If you haven’t signed up already we encourage you to do so as soon as possible.

Nanodot | by MarkGubrud (gubrud@squid.umd.edu) on Wednesday November 29
Biped robots from Sony, Honda at Robodex 2000 Honda has demonstrated a humanoid robot. It’s shaped roughly like a human; it walks, a bit limberly, balancing nicely on its feet. It raises its hands and turns its head. In one video, it even turns a wrench. In another, it shakes hands with a girl in a skirt. I wonder what it felt like, what she was thinking, when she shook hands with the robot.
Compared with average humans, Honda’s robot is heavy, slow, and weak. It houses no breakthrough in artificial intelligence, and is controlled through a wireless ethernet link. It is a tour de force, a world-class marionette.
The P2 model runs for 15 minutes before its battery needs recharging. The new P3 runs for 25. No specification is given for the cost.