Chicago Tribune | For some, robot dogs are nearly real thing

By Eric A. Taub

New York Times News Service

Published May 6, 2002

LOS ANGELES — Diane wasn’t well. Sadly, she was suffering from DHS. Her owner, Harry Brattin, placed a white muffler around her neck and separated her from the rest of his brood. She sat quietly on a metal desk in the meeting room while the others scampered around the floor playing.

[…]

So one day recently, as scores of elderly Russian immigrants sat among the trees in Plummer Park here, playing chess and chastising their Americanized grandchildren in their native tongue, Brattin and 14 other Aibo owners met in a community room in the park, primping and preening their robots, giving them commands in English and scolding them when they got into mischief.

[…]

Severity:

High (Remote code execution)

Systems Affected:

Systems with Flash Activex OCX Version 6, revision 23

(Possibly older versions)

This includes most installations of Windows.

Description:

All users of Internet Explorer are potentially affected because this is a Macromedia signed OCX. We advise them to upgrade their Flash version immediately to version 6, revision 29 (see the Vendor Status section below).

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

Guardian Unlimited Observer | Review | Carry on, Nurse Robot

Sunday April 21, 2002

The Observer

[…]

Humanoids, as they are also called, we learnt on Discovery: Robots are a new generation of robots which will, in time, be able to interpret our moods, recognise our tone and react accordingly, unlike the three-quarters of a million purely mechanical robots working in the car industry.

[…]

Technology News

The Race Towards Robotics

April 18, 2002 08:30 CDT

Domestic robots have long been in the making, but who will emerge as the Bill Gates of robotization? Evolution Robotics in California recently stepped forward. They plan to release an operating system late this year that will bring household robots one giant step closer to reality.

[…]

Robots Are Us: The Mystical Side of Science (and Fiction)

Jeremy Smith, AlterNet – April 12, 2002

[…]

Robots are no longer science fiction metaphors or wish-fulfillment fantasies. According to the United Nations’ World Robotics 2001 survey, there are at least 750,000 units in operation around the world building cars, vacuuming floors, and mowing lawns. These are automated laborsaving devices, more like washing machines than androids. Even the most entertaining and experimental robots today are little more than electrical marionettes — the most autonomous are more akin to insects than to mammals. But governments and corporations are spending billions of dollars each year researching ways to mimic human motion and the human mind with steel and silicon, and they’re getting results.

[…]

ZDNet |UK| – News – Story – Humanoid robot goes to work on Linux

16:08 Friday 22nd March 2002

Graeme Wearden

HRP-2P is significantly more agile than R2-D2, and its creator Kawada says it will be good for more than just entertainment – this robot is designed to do useful work.

[…]

Are robots key to Japan’s New Economy? – Tech News – CNET.com

By Reuters

April 2, 2002, 8:45 AM PT

By the end of the decade, the people who disarm bombs and search for survivors after a disaster may no longer need to put their lives on the line. A machine, possibly made in Japan, may be able to handle the dangerous stuff.

That is one goal of the Japanese government’s $37.7 million Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP), which aims to market within a few years robots that can operate power shovels, assist construction workers and care for the elderly.

[…]

Daily Yomiuri On-Line

We, robots

Tony Lee Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

[…]

For most people, this is the very stuff of science fiction, but for 26 robot companies and research centers strutting their stuff at Robodex 2002, robots are the new wave. Some hope to get in on the ground floor of young markets, or perhaps create new ones. Others are more idealistic, motivated by a vision of a future partnership between human and humanoid.

[…]

BBC – Science – Robot World – Gallery

Explore Robot World’s collection of images and video featuring some of the most amazing robots ever invented. See these intelligent automatons in action! Find out how they work and what they do from the inventors who designed them.

[…]

Robodex: Humanoid robots strut their stuff

Thursday 28 March 2002

Robodex 2002, the world’s only exhibition devoted to entertainment robots, begins today in Tokyo.

This year’s Robodex not only focuses on robots for entertainment, but robots that can co-exist and work in a human society. These include robots that educate kids, assist people who need medical support and can stand watch and guard the inside of a building at night.

[…]