GENERAL :: FR :: Transfert
La famille robot
par Sébastien Gesell
mis en ligne le 7 mai 2001

Tomy va lancer au Japon une nouvelle gamme de robots jouets, les Dinkies, véritable petite famille interactive.

La famille Dinkie de Tomy s´apprête à envahir le Japon. Les Dinkies sont des spationautes robots, chaque membre de la famille étant doté de quelques fonctions interactives. Ces petites créatures de 12 cm de haut sont équipées de minuscules écrans à cristaux liquides sur lesquels s´affichent diverses expressions et manifestations d´humeur. Bien entendu, ces robots communiquent entre eux (à l´instar des animaux Poochi et Miaou-Chi de Tiger Electronics) et grandiront ensemble en totale communion. Tomy a même prévu des animaux de compagnie pour cette gentille famille ! Les Dinkies seront disponibles au Japon dès le mois de juillet pour environ 200 francs pièce. Le début d´une nouvelle saga à succès ?

SONY :: AIBO :: Sony empowers Aibo pet robot to read e-mail

By Paul Kallender , EE Times

URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010507S0059

TOKYO — Acknowledging that its prodigal robot pet did little more than talk back and eat batteries every couple of hours, Sony Corp. on Monday (May 7) unveiled software that will enable its Aibo robots to read e-mail messages and Web pages.

The company’s Aibo Messenger applications software gives Sony’s two-year-old robot the ability to inform owners that e-mail has arrived, to read the contents of a message, and to convey text-based information such as news and weather from home pages, Sony said.

The software is delivered on a CD-ROM and is uploaded onto the PC of an Aibo owner. The software converts e-mail or Web files into sound files, which can be played through the robot’s audio speakers when activated by a key word spoken to the dog, a Sony spokeswoman said.

“Some people have commented that Aibo wasn’t very useful and asked why it didn’t do e-mail,” the spokeswoman said. “Now we’re sort of taking it another step; now it can do something.”

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GENERAL :: news.com.au – Display Story Page Cyborg couple

LONDON: Surgeons are preparing to create the first husband and wife cyborgs.

In science-fiction, a cyborg is a human being whose body has been “enhanced” by technical means.

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University, and his wife, Irena, will have 5cm silicon chips implanted in their arms just above the elbow.
The chips will be surgically connected to nerve fibres to see if the pair can communicate sensation and movement by thought alone.

GENERAL :: ZDnet :: Robots: Our helpers or replacements?
Robots: Our helpers or replacements?

Just one word: robots. That’s the next big boom being buzzed about by the world’s leading technology visionaries.

“In the last millennium, we came to rely on machines. In the new millennium, we will become our machines,” Rodney Brooks, director at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Fujitsu professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said at the Association of Computing and Machinery’s Beyond Cyberspace conference in San Jose last month.

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Scientists and engineers in laboratories across Europe, Japan and the US are building so-called “robo sapiens” that can navigate the corridors of today’s office buildings and perform the tasks of an office assistant.

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Throughout Japan, service robots are functioning as guards in warehouses, delivering trays of food in hospitals and carrying documents from one office to another. Honda Motor is investing heavily in practical humanoid robots that operate household switches, turn doorknobs and perform tasks at tables.

The Japan Robot Association estimates that by next year, some 11,000 service robots will be deployed, with 65 percent of them in hospitals and nursing homes. The association also projects that by 2005, health-care robots will be a US$250 million market, with a possibility of growing to a US$1 billion market by 2010.

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GENERAL :: TIME.com: TIME Magazine — How ‘Bout Them Bots?

How ‘Bout Them Bots?

BY ANITA HAMILTON

They’ve trolled antarctica for meteorites. they’ve scoured the Titanic for sunken treasure. They’ve built cars and computers and helped perform open-heart surgery. Now robots are homing in on the final frontier: your living room. Long the stuff of Star Wars fantasies and little-boy dreams, robots for real folks are here at last.

At the annual Toy Fair in New York City last week, the bots were everywhere. Foot-long bug bots crept across exhibit floors. Two-legged baby bots took their first toddler steps. A testy and surprisingly lifelike dinobot snapped its mechanical jaws.

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KAIST :: AMI :: Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea
KAIST Develops Humanoid Robot

As a new generation of robots is being born for use at home and office, Korea is banking on the robot revolution and in its latest attempt to make a name for itself in the fast-growing market a local research team has succeeded in developing a robot that can think. The humanoid robot, AMI short for Artificial-Intelligence Multimedia Innovation can sweep the floor, pick up a ball and perform simple tasks. It is the first locally-developed interactive robot that can think, move and respond to orders.

The two-year old brainchild of a research team led by Professor Yang Hyun-Seung of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology is designed for household use. The robot is capable of moving through furnished rooms, tackling the stairs and avoiding obstacles using its sensor system. AMI also has a voice recognition feature and is able to talk and respond to human voices.

A liquid crystal display screen embedded on its chest displays internal operation levels and can even project facial expressions to show human emotions. AMI’s makers say consumers won’t see the robot out on the market anytime soon as the KAIST team will continue working to upgrade AMI’s functions.

GENERAL :: Wired :: Robot Sites a Web of Deception
By Robin Clewley
2:00 a.m. May. 1, 2001 PDT
Since its earliest days the Web has been a feeding ground for the bizarre and the fetishistic — with communities devoted to extraterrestrials, Charles Manson and bestiality. Seasoned Web surfers aren’t surprised by much they encounter.

But stumbling upon a series of recent websites devoted to robotic emancipation can make anyone do a double take. And to make it even more out there, these websites record events that take place in the year 2142.

Nearly 40 websites are devoted to a robotic revolution or the related murder of a man named Evan Chan. But the sites aren’t linked to a cult or militia group.

They’re part of one of the most complex viral movie marketing campaigns ever created.

“If you read all the Web pages (more than 700 so far), it’s so much more intelligent, in terms of written style, and the research is far more intensive, than anything I’ve ever seen,” said Harry Knowles, head of Ain’t it Cool News, the movie-insider website. “Everything has been calculated so well to throw people like me off.”
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NEC :: Papero :: Personal Robot PaPeRo, Movies and Images

Want to see what the PaPeRo looks like? Find what you’re looking for in the selection of a movie and images listed here.

SEGA :: Sega unveils humanoid robots
Sega unveils humanoid robots
Poo-chi finds a family

Sega Corp promotion girls Sanae Hagiwara (L) and Misaki Sato show off walking, talking, and emotionally charged humanoid robots at an unveiling in Tokyo Feb. 28, 2001. The C-BOT series of robots are equipped with emotion circuits, and are capable of expressing joy, love, sadness, anger, and fun.
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U.S. News: The promises and perils of humanlike machines (4/23/01) The Age of Robots

We’re close to making humanlike machines. It’s time to reckon with the promises and perils

By Thomas Hayden

The millennium was still a half century off in the future when Isaac Asimov penned his sci-fi classic, I, Robot. So it must have seemed plausible to imagine a world populated by big, strong, intelligent humanoid robots. The mechanical replicas he conjured may have had shiny metal bodies and glowing red eyes, but they otherwise resembled people, thought like people, and–most important of all–devoted themselves to taking care of the human race.

Contrary to Asimov’s genre-defining tale, humankind is still operating pretty much on its own. Indeed, of all the great science-fiction predictions to go bust at the end of the millennium–no time machines, no intergalactic space travel–surely the most galling is the absence of a single decent robotic maid. Or butler, take your pick. Oh sure, the new Robomower will trim your lawn while you recline in the hammock, and the Dyson DC06 robotic vacuum cleaner will soon be available to suck the lint from your carpets. But if you want something from the fridge, you’re still going to have to fetch it yourself.

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