Category: Artificial Intelligence

Re-evaluating My Goals

Like Goertzel, Kurzweil, and so many others, my dream has always been AGI and ASI. Waking up from an afternoon nap with my best friend, I realized all that I really want is to create an AI that is as smart, loyal, and friendly as my golden retriever.

NASA Launches Evolutionary Satellites

ST5 Micro-satellite

Just after six yesterday morning a Pegasus rocket launched from the belly of a Lockheed L-1011 jet flying 7 miles above the Earth carried a historic payload into space. On board the rocket were three ST5 micro-satellites destined to study the Earth’s magnetic fields from their extraterrestrial orbits. Built as part of NASA’s New Millennium …

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Evolution Robotics Partners with WowWee

In a press release put out this morning, California-based Evolution Robotics announced that they will be licensing their ViPR (Visual Pattern Recognition) and Northstar position tracking technologies for use in WowWee’s next generation of hi-tech consumer robots and entertainment products. WowWee, who manufactures the immensely popular Robosapien and Roboraptor robots, has recently been making a …

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Pirkus-R Fails to Impress

Pirkus-R at Robot-One

As I predicted last Friday, the coverage by Robots-Dreams.com of the Robo-One competition that took place in Tokyo over the weekend has been nothing short of outstanding. Lem dropped us a comment this morning to let us know that he actually got some face time (pun intended) with the Pirkus-R Type-01 robot, the Bluetooth humanoid …

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Pirkus-R Gets a Facial Recognition Upgrade

Pirkus-R Type-01 robot

PinkTentacle.com reports today that the Pirkus-R Type-01 robot has recently had its facial recognition software updated. The upgrade addresses limitations that had often hindered recognition attempts by earlier models, including variations in lighting and positioning of the target subjects. Now Pirkus-R can track the location and orientation of its target and move itself into position …

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NASA’s Evolutionary ST5 Antenna

ST5 Satellite Antenna

BoingBoing.com is reporting that NASA will make history next month when it launches three Space Technology (ST5) satellites into orbit on board a Pegasus XL rocket. It is not the launch itself that is noteworthy, but rather a relatively small, but very important component of the satellites: their antennas. Not much bigger than a quarter …

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The Trouble with the Turing Test

Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science, was a British mathematician, logician, and cryptographer. In 1950 he published a 28-page paper in the British quarterly Mind called “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” The paper is better known by most as “Can Machines Think?”, the title it was given when in 1956 it was republished in …

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Stanley’s Successor to Drive from SF to LA

Stanley the Stanford University Volkswagen

Fresh off their 1st place finish at Darpa’s Grand Challenge 2005 and not content to rest on their laurels, the robotics experts from Stanford University have announced their next goal is to develop an autonomous vehicle capable of driving from San Francisco City Hall to downtown Los Angeles, at highway speeds no less! Gizmodo.com has …

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Video of Ugobe’s Pleo at DEMO

Ugobe Pleo demo

A little over a week ago at the DEMO 2006 conference Ugobe announced their first designer life form, Pleo, a robot modeled after a one week old Camarasaurus. Pleo is the first offering from the new California-based robotics company co-founded by Furby designer Caleb Chung. In the weeks prior to the announcement, several tech blogs …

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Ugobe Announces Pleo, a Designer Life Form

Ugobe Pleo Dinosaur Robot

When Sony announced recently that they would be terminating their well-known robot dog Aibo, robot enthusiasts began looking desperately for another company and product to fill the void. Last week, Ugobe, the California-based robotics company co-founded by Furby designer Caleb Chung, caught the attention of many tech blogs, including Robot Gossip, who wondered if they …

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