Europe, home to many cutting-edge robotics projects, could fall behind the rest of the world if funding for such programs fails to keep pace over the next several years suggests Viviane Reding, an EU Commissioner of information society and media issues. She is asking both government bodies and private industry to act quickly in order to secure Europe’s place as a leader and pioneer of robotics research.
Oct 06 2005
London Aquarium to Debut Robotic Fish
The AFP reports today that the London Aquarium is set to unveil the first autonomous robotic fish. Developed at the University of Essex over a period of three years, the fish are designed to not only physically resemble their biological counterparts but also replicate their behavior and movement. While they were primarily created to drive the public’s interest in robotics, their creators envision several practical, real world tasks for them including undersea exploration and oil pipeline leak detection.
Oct 06 2005
Carnegie Mellon Secures Pole in Grand Challenge II
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka DARPA, announced the 23 finalists who have been chosen to compete in this year’s Grand Challenge, a race between autonomous robotic vehicles over a grueling course of up to 175 miles in the Mojave Desert. A red Hummer named H1ghlander developed by a team from Carnegie Mellon University has qualified for the pole position in this year’s race. It will be competing against vehicles of all shapes and sizes including a a Jeep Grand Cherokee, a Volkswagen Touareg, and a six-wheeled truck sponsored by other schools and private companies.
Oct 05 2005
iRobot Introduces Antisniper Robot
The Boston Globe is reporting today that iRobot Corp., maker of the popular Roomba vacuum-bot, has been working in conjunction with Boston University to develop a robot that can spot and point out enemy snipers on an active field of battle. The system, called REDOWL (Robot Enhanced Detection Outpost with Lasers), was put through it’s paces on Wednesday at an Army convention in Washington, DC. It was able to immediately target the source of simulated gunfire with it’s IR camera and laser rangefinder.
Oct 03 2005
Minature Self-Assembling Robots
LiveScience.com has published an article regarding the research work done by Joseph Jacobson of the Molecular Machines group at MIT in developing minature robots that mimic the way living cells replicate DNA.
In order for a cell to replicate it’s DNA, enzymes known as polymerases in the nucleus read the structure of the DNA and assemble nucleotides, the basic building block of DNA floating in the nucleoplasm, in the correct order to match the original. In addition to being self-assembling, many DNA polymerases are self-correcting: able to excise incorrect sequences of nucleotides and continue building the chain in the correct order.
Oct 02 2005
MIT Plans for a $100 Linux Laptop
Nicholoas Negroponte, chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, spoke recently at their annual Emerging Technologies Conference confirming that MIT is planning to provide low cost computers to underprivileged children in developing countries globally as well as to students here in the U.S. The One Laptop per Child nonprofit group is the offshoot of the Media Lab that will handle coordinating this ambitious plan. Five countries have already committed to participating including Brazil, China, Egypt, South Africa, and Thailand. Massachusetts is the first state to discuss using these machines in it’s public schools.
Sep 29 2005
Kurzweil: Singularity by 2045
Futurist Ray Kurzweil
CNET posted an interview with one of my favorite authors, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil to promote his new book “The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.” Kurzweil, whose previous books include “The Age of Intelligent Machines” and “The Age of Spiritual Machines,” predicts that we will reach the Singularity, a time when changes to ourselves and our environment due to advances in computing, AI, nanotechnology, and biology will exceed the ability for pre-Singularity humans to understand or even predict, by 2045. This belief is rooted in his now famous 2001 essay, The Law of Accelerating Returns, in which he generalizes Moore’s law to include technologies outside of the integrated circuits that Moore’s law covers.
Feb 16 2005
Neuroscientist to Become His Own Monkey
In an effort to explore the relationship between brain activity and consciousness, Stanford University nueroscientist Bill Newsome is currently seeking regulatory approval to implant an electrode into his own brain. Engadget has a summary of an interview MIT Technology Review did recently with Newsome in which he explains his obsession with determining how brain functions give rise to consciousness and why the limitations of studying animals have driven him to propose this extraordinary experiment.