Robots up to no good on the moon. ::via JAXA::

It’s official -- robots will have a base of operations on the moon in which they will have the ability attack all of humankind.  Japan is planning on sending a robot to the moon in 2015 to do scientific research and video recording.  This seems innocent enough, but if everything goes according to plan that same robot will begin building a base on the moon for other robots by 2020.  Giving robots a quiet place to plan their domination of Earth away from the prying eyes of humans is a terrible idea, and here are some reasons why.  Some of them don’t even involve robots.  Thats how serious this could become.

1:  The first robot on the moon will be autonomous.

This is probably what the moon will look like a few years after the robots arrive.

According to Popular Science:

The robots will be controlled from Earth, but they’ll also be imbued with their own kind of machine intelligence, making decisions on their own and operating with a high degree of autonomy.

So while there is supposed to be some level of human control, who knows what those crafty robots will  be able to do while in an autonomous phase of the mission.  They human factor for a mission like this will more than likely be relegated to sending simple commands to the robot such as which direction to move or how to analyze a rock sample.  Ultimately more information will be needed on the amount of autonomy vs. human control the robot will have.  My Spidey-sense tingles when I think about an autonomous robot building a base for other robots.  The robot building this base will be far more advanced that current generation robots, so maybe it will be able to block human control and work completely on its own.  Then what do we do?  Send humans to make it stop?  Launch missiles at the moon?  These options would seem like an act of aggression to this newly “freed” robot, which leads me too…

2:  The robot will already have rockets with it.

Sure these rockets are meant to shoot sample back to Earth, but a robot with rockets is terrifying.

3:   Nuclear materials exist on the moon.

A normal day on the robot controlled moon.

Helium-3, a rare isotope, is believed to exist in relatively large quantities on the moon.  Helium-3 is only 0.0001% of all helium isotopes and only exists on Earth due to being the byproduct of tritium decay.  Helium-3 can be used in nuclear fusion, which is cleaner and more efficient than nuclear fission as used today.  The only problem is that truly efficient fusion via helium-3 could be decades away.  Here is a video explaining some more details of helium-3 fusion reactions and its availability on the moon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=94rEqHP9dOQ

A project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has had a working helium-3 reactor for years.  Using current technology the reaction is very inefficient for power generation, but could a robot use helium-3’s nuclear possibilities for the destruction of Earth when combined with the aforementioned missiles?  We may not know until it is too late, but the existence of helium-3 could cause other problems…

4:   Helium-3 on the moon will create tensions between powerful nations on Earth.

Could access to mining on the moon start a new world war?

Who exactly “owns” the moon?  Since going to the moon had been prohibitively expensive and technologically impairing for most nations until recently, the idea of ownership of the moon has never been a hot button issue.  Should the Japanese robots on the moon discover a way to mine helium-3 in a cost effective matter that will all change.  Besides power generation, helium-3 is used in cryogenics, oil discovery and nuclear weapon detection.  Worldwide supplies of helium-3 are dangerously low, and cost effective alternatives do not yet exist.  Other countries besides Japan are looking towards the moon for helium-3, including Russia, China and India.  The United States originally had plans to build a mining base on the moon, but all moon based missions were scraped.  However, with the many possibilities  for helium-3 the US is probably looking back at moon missions as well -- even if only to mine it.

Since most of the nations interested in mining the moon have plans to build bases on the moon between 2020-2030, how heated will competition for the moon’s resources become and will countries attempt to stake claims to portions of the moon?    There are two United Nations treaties, the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty, which are meant to keep countries from claiming ownership of the moon and to only use the moon for peaceful purposes.  The amount of money involved in setting up moon mining operations will be staggering, but the reward will be tremendous -- therefore following these treaties may not be seen as acting in a country’s best interests.  An article from the Fordham Internation Law Journal explores the possible legal options for helium-3 mining on the moon by the US.

5:  Forget countries, the robots want all that sweet helium-3.

Welcome to the Super-Robot Human Haters Club.

I cannot imagine autonomous robots caring much for meatbag treaties, so how would a colony full of human hating robots that are powered by fusion reactors react to some astronaut telling them to stop hogging all the resources?  I bet that astronaut will not be heading back to Earth, or at least not in one piece.  Add in the fact that robots are being developed specifically for mining the moon and robots will have little need for humans.

So overall the possibilities for conflict over the moon, whether country vs country or man vs machine, seem to be very high.

6:   Other space robots have become smarter over time.

The other robots cheated off this guy in robo-school.

Opportunity, one of NASA’s Mars rovers, received a software upgrade in January that allowed it to make its own decision about whether to further analyze rocks in newly explored areas.  By this time the rover had been working for 7 years and the upgrade was seen as a way to make the rover’s research more efficient and scientifically useful.  Should the future robots on the moon be seen as needing an upgrade, it could make them more autonomous in way not imagined or wanted.  Surely the moon robots of the 2020’s and 2030’s will be far more advanced, and any upgrade pushing it farther out of human control could spell disaster.  A project looking like a great success could suddenly become a massive disaster.

7:  Since there is $$$ to be had, evil corporations will surely be involved.

No robotics other than Darth Vader, but you get the idea.

Think of some high profit industries a second: Energy, banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals, defense, tobacco, Wal-Mart.  Most of the highest profit companies are also the most vilified.  While some of the anger directed towards these companies could be due to jealousy, paranoia and more, many have contributed to their own negative reputations through spreading mistruths and outright lies about the true nature of their business.  Ecological disasters, world spanning economic crises, physically harmful side effects that were hidden, labor abuses and the overall lowering of worldwide living standards have become well known for companies in these areas.

Many of the most vilified sectors of business would inevitably become involved in moon exploration, robotics, and mining.  The energy sector would love to get its hands on helium-3, partly to produce power on the cheap for increased profits, but also to prohibit governments access to relatively cheap sources of energy that could usurp their core business.  The defense sector is currently building a vast array of robots for military and personal use, (your Roomba is made the same company that makes this).  The insurance sector would be drooling at the ability to insure a high risk mission to build a moon base for megabucks.  Hell, Wal-Mart would probably be the first retail store on the moon, even if it is just for robots.

8:  If robots on the moon are successful, it could push humans out of space exploration and science in general.

First the moon, then Earth!

Assuming that these robot endeavors to the moon are a great success, and somehow competing nations and corporations are able to retain peace while not starting a war with the robots in the process, what will that mean for humans in the space program or science in general?  The achievements of these robots could hasten the replacement of humans by robots in future science based projects and beyond.  While it could seem smart to substitute humans with robots in high risk experiments such as moon colonies, it could create a scientific atmosphere that is completely dependent on robotics.  Scientific accomplishments would be skewed towards robots, and robotics could overtake human sciences in the realm of funding and research.

The focus of reaching the moon in the 1960’s hastened advances in science and engineering for the betterment of humankind, but with robots doing all the research future advances could completely ignore humans and instead focus on robots.  While people on Earth would languish in mediocrity and a stagnant, slow research cycle, robotics would explode and advance very quickly at the expense of humanity.  This would inevitably lead to the rise of the machines and the human race becoming enslaved or killed off.

So will robots on the moon equal the end of humanity? Probably.

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It's on a t-shirt, so that means it's true - right?

Lets say you have a piece of really complicated but incredibly useful new technology,  like an ion engine for instance.  Once you realize the tremendous possibilities for your new tech, not even the sky is the limit.  During testing, you discover that your awesome ion engine happens to damage itself during use and will wear out after 3  years.  Now what do you do?  How can you take this exciting new technology and already make drastic improvements to it? Darwin has the answer.

The ion engine example is a real world scenario with an actual problem.  But what is an ion engine? New Scientist explains:

Electrostatic ion engines are becoming popular in space missions. Instead of relying on burning large amounts of heavy liquid propellant for thrust, they use solar power to ionise a small supply of xenon gas. A high voltage applied across a pair of gridded electrodes sends the positively charged ions rushing at high speed towards the negative electrode. Most ions pass through the grid, generating thrust.

The problem is that some of the ions hit the grid and damage it.  Enter Cody Farnell, a Colorado State University space flight engineer.  He used genetic algorithm software that borrows ideas of genetic evolution to run simulations of an ion engine.  Random values were produced by the software based on the grid’s geometry and voltage.  These values are like the genes in a life form.  These “gene” values were then entered into a simulator to determine whether it was an improvement.  If the new value was indeed an improvement, then that value was randomly changed more, with each success building upon previous successes.  This act is repeated over and over until a best case scenario is reached – Farnell’s study took 100 improvements.

Each of the 100 random changes is like a mutation to a life form.  Each positive mutation made the engine perform better, much like positive mutations in a life form would allow it a higher chance of survival in its environment.  This study increased the lifespan on an ion engine from 3 to 5.1 years.

I have previously written about robotic software that used artificial DNA to run evolution scenarios on a software dog named Rity.  Even though the ion engine example has only been run on a simulator and has not yet been built to the evolved specifications, hypothetically is should be able to be built.  So that means there are now ways to artificial evolve both the software personalities of robots as well as their hardware.

This study basically means that humans will some day be able to fly farther into space with greater efficiency, with the only negative being the fact that robots will be able to completely evolve through many (hundreds, thousands?) of generations a day.  If you don’t have doomsday scenarios running rampant through your mind after realizing that robots can evolve every aspect of their being then you are probably a robot yourself, or maybe just a realist.  Either way, I’m terrified of the possible implications.

btw: you can buy the t-shirt of the picture at the beginning of the article here.

::from New Scientist via Popular Science::

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Coming soon into a body near you.

In a veritable 1-2 punch of freaky new robots, the journal Nature has recently published two new studies detailing how researchers have created nanorobot spiders made of DNA that also walk on DNA.  Before I get into how mind boggling terrifying this sounds, read on for some specifics.

If spiders give you the chills, imagine nano sized autonomous spiderbots crawling all over your DNA.

DNA robots are not robots in the classical sense – there are no metal parts or computer chips.  Instead they made of a specifically designed set of DNA strands that are made to receive particular  signals and act on them.  While standard robots have hardware and software that interpret a simple command into a complex action, DNA robots have far less storage capacity (if any) and need all the information stored in the surrounding environment.

The first of the two studies deals with the movement of the nanobots on strands of DNA.    Arizona State University scientists were able to use “DNA origami” to create any pattern or shape using a combination of a long DNA strand along with different shaped strands of synthetic DNA .  In order to tell the nanobot where to move on the DNA strand the scientists added oligonucleotides.  Once the nanobot reaches an oligonucleotide it binds to it, then cuts it.  Eventually it will reach an oligonucleotide it cannot cut, which tells the nanobot that it has reached its destination.  This system has a built in safeguard keeping the nanobot from getting lost.  According to Discover:

When the spider steps, it leaves a trail of cut, unattractive DNA behind it, with paths of fresh, enticing strands ahead of it. Its legs could land anywhere but they stay for longer on a piece of track that hasn’t already been stepped on. Even if it steps randomly, it should eventually move to new terrain and by making the track narrow enough so that it can only go in one direction, [ASU's Kyle] Lund could steer its steps. It’s a fiendishly clever system – the walking spider shapes its environment in a way that controls its own behaviour.

The second study, from New York University, doesn’t have the same semi-autonomous movement capabilities but makes up for it by allow their nanobots to carry particles along its path.  The same kind of DNA origami is used, but instead of using moving and slicing a path this nanobot needs to have anchor and fuel strands added to it.  While on its path it will encounter other nanobots that are used to bring particles, in this case gold, to the main nanobot so it can move them to a specific location.

As with most nanotechnology, these nanobot spiders are being developed in the name of medical science.  The possibilities to having microscopic nanobots for use in hospitals could lead to a new medical revolution, with nanobots being able to deliver treatment and drugs in new ways.  They could be used to combat spreading cancer cells or to deliver medication straight to the source.  The possibilities are nearly limitless for how nanotechnology could improve the living standards for everyone one on Earth.

The possibilities are also nearly endless for potential disasters.  If a nanobot spider is able to navigate a strand of DNA to destroy cancer cells, what if it misinterprets a cell and start destroying non-cancerous cells?  Another concern with the ASU study is what happens to the extra, cutup DNA left behind as the nanobot moves.  Even if it is meant to be harmless and inactive, I would not want one of those spiders leaving a trail of it’s DNA and oligonucleotides all over my DNA.

Admittedly I do not have even a small understanding of the mind boggling science behind DNA research, but still,  nanobots are friggin terrifying.  They are kind of like being scared of the dark – the worst part is you cannot see them or what they are doing.  All you can see are the consequences of their actions, whether good or bad, all while hoping for the best.  I personally do not want to hope for the best with any kinds robots, because eventually it will become the worst.

[note: I took way to long to write this up, and since I started the post this discovery has been trumped by Artificial DNA.  This new discovery does not necessarily have a lot to do with robotics, but there could be some interesting symbiosis between DNA nanobots and artificial DNA.  Spooky stuff.]

::from Discover Magazine & KurzweilAI::

::images via flickr & Paul Michelotti::

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Hopefully someone as awesome as Iron Man will be fighting on our side when the robots attack.

::via tony stark = new chuck norris::

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw0KbLlJYfU

There was also a truly terrifying portion of the competition called Mech Warfare.  A small scale model city is set up and robot operators attempt to guide their creations through the streets to victory over other robots.  The people controlling the robots are only allowed to see what their robot sees as they try to shoot pellets at other robots.  This video is much scarier than the first one, since it is easy to imagine those robots wreaking havoc in your hometown.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6murW889XA

Study these videos to try to learn how robots fight and what their weaknesses might be.  This information could be invaluable.

And for some more information on what the RoboGames are all about, visit their website or watch the video after the break.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8HrM7kleQI

::from Make and BotJunkie::

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This is the worst case scenario.

In early April a large solar storm partially knocked out a communications satellite, Intelsat’s Galaxy 15, disabling its ability to communicate with Earth.  Solar storms often completely disable satellites, creating so called “zombiesats”, but in this case everything was intact except the ability to receive commands.  As the partially functional satellite drifts through its current orbit, a possibility exists where the zombified satellite will steal the signal of nearby satellites since it is not receiving a standard control signal from Earth.  This makes the Galaxy 15 even more like a zombie than the normally disabled zombiesats since it wants to eat other satellite’s brains (signals).  While this whole situation is relatively benign- unless you control communications satellites that could have their brains eaten- the situation could be a precursor to events on Earth as more and more robots make their way into everyday life and solar storms intensify.

There have been two documented cases of solar storms so powerful that electronics on Earth could be effected.  They occurred in 1859 and 1921, well before electricity had permeated into everyday life.  Based on the information from those storms along with new scientific knowledge of solar storms, the city of Boulder, Colorado ran a simulated event involving space weather specialists and FEMA.  The purpose of the exercise was to prepare these experts to help the population at large should a massive solar storm- known as a coronal mass ejection or CME- ever occur. Unfortunately a CME (or multiple CMEs) will almost certainly happen, probably starting in 2012.

The results of the simulation was catastrophic.  From Popular Science:

In the simulation, the solar storm first disabled most commercial satellites that transmit everything from phone conversations to TV, not to mention credit card transactions at the gas station pump. The next day, the storm created electric currents in power lines that destroyed most transformers around the world, and cut out electricity for much of the northern latitudes.

Uh oh.  So no power and no communications with anyone or anything outside hearing range.  There is still a possibility that some electronics would not be completely disabled, just like the Galaxy 15.  With the seemingly unbridled proliferation of robots, the amount of robots in two years will be significantly higher than current numbers.  There will be a chance that some robots would simply lose their ability to be controlled by humans and be set “free”.  Should those robots behave like the Galaxy 15, they could eat the brains (signals) of other surviving robots and electronics, greatly compounding the problems that people in the affected area would already have.

Zombies are scary.  Robots are scary.  The idea of zombie robots is doubly terrifying.  Although they probably would not want to eat human brains, a band of signal stealing/altering robots with no human control would cause more panic than either zombies or robots could cause on their own.  Hopefully this scenario never plays out and the robots are disabled in the event of a massive solar storm.  Should some robots become zombies,  I suggest trying to hide until their batteries run out.

::via Discovery News & PopSci::

::image via flickr::

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Hopefully my Stockholm Syndrome goes away...

A gang of robots kidnapped me and held me captive.  They would not release me until my school semester was over.  Apparently they had my future in mind and didn’t want me to fail.  I am free now, and posting shall resume.

I’m going to be trying a new design, so over the next few days everything is likely to look quite jumbled.

::image via flickr::

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This robot could be a killer

On January 25, 1979 Robert Williams, a Ford Motors employee, was killed by an industrial robot in the first documented case of a robot killing a human.  A robot built to gather supplies from a storage room slammed its arm into Williams, killing him instantly.  Although the situation seems nefarious, the unfortunate death of Mr. Williams was not caused by the robot suddenly turning Skynet on but rather due to a lack of safeguards in the storage facility.

By the way, you can buy your own industrial robots from an old Chrysler factory in Delaware if you feel like risking your life or if you want to create a makeshift thrill ride of death (below).

You can try this at home! (Please don't)

::from Wired via Botjunkie::

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Do you trust this robot?

Hollywood has a long and sordid reputation of promoting amoral values and twisted worldviews, but perhaps the worst propaganda introduced from the land of cinema is the pernicious lie of the robot as harmless, loving companion.   Although Hollywood occasionally puts up the false front that robots are evil (‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’, the ‘Terminator’ films, etc) robots are, for the most part, depicted in movies and television as loyal, faithful, trustworthy companions (and even in regards to films such as the Terminator, Hollywood presents a warped depiction that killer robots that can be conveniently reprogrammed to be loyal friends that wear leather jokes and make amusing quips when they cause destruction.)

But of all of the pro-robot propaganda to come out of Hollywood, one of the most disturbing trends (for this writer in particularly) is the nefarious inclusion of large, loveable bubble-headed robots and presenting these mechanical deviations as “companion and friend” to the character of the TV show or movie.

The Sico II is one such model of deceptively adorable robotics (as an aside, let us debate the potentialpronunciation of this robot.  Is that pronounced “Sicko”, as in, a demented, perverted individual, or instead pronounced “psycho”, as in Anthony Perkens killing people?).

Per TVArces, the Sico II model robot has made a number of appearances in films and television, including but not limited to:

• NBC’s “Days of Our Lives”
• NBC’s “BENSON” series
• Dick Clark’s “Inside America”
• MTV’s Punk’d MTV with Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank

Most pernicious to this writer, and perhaps the most scarring personally, was the appearance of the Sico II in the motion picture ‘Rocky IV’, where the Sico II was introduced as Uncle Pauly’s robot “companion”.  While so many watching the film were caught up in the boxing struggle of an Italian-American vs. a steroid-addled Soviet muscleman and the fragile balance of democracy in the nuclear cold war Reagan era, I was instead disturbed by the creepy robotic companion that Rocky had purchased for his friend Pauly, with eerie large glowing eyes, like a freakish metallic insect.  While Rocky was off training in the Soviet mountains with Pauly, he had actually left the Sico II at home with his unprotected family!  What if the Sico II went berserk and started on a human-killing rampage?  Had Rocky been home, I’m pretty sure he’d be fast enough and strong enough to destroy the Sico II, but he wasn’t there, leaving his family vulnerable to the potential malfunction and destructive rampage of Pauly’s robot “friend”.

Rocky IV left me troubled and disturbed.  Yes, Rocky had single-handedly defeated the soviet menace and ended his 12-rounds of massive head injuries with an articulate and well-formulated message of global unity and friendship, but back in America, at the Rocky mansion, a super-intelligent robotic entity was calculating and scheming its next course of action…

And seriously, how could a doughy, mostly-inert guy like Pauly hope to stand a chance against a Sico II killing machine if and when it’s circuitry went haywire and instead of bringing beer to Pauly, it instead decided to bring him death?

For more information about the Sico II and the potential world domination by these malicious machines, check out the International Robotic’s site devoted to these innocent-looking machines.  While they might seem harmless and peaceful now, don’t be surprised if one day the world has been taken over by armies of Sico II’s!

And if you MUST train for a boxing match in the mountainous countryside of the Soviet Union, by all means, do NOT leave your robot servant unattended at home with your wife and children!

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Honda's Asimo will be shown following 'Living With Robots' at Sundance

As a part of their “The Power of Dreams – Dream the Impossible” series of short films, Honda will be showing the newest contribution to the documentary series entitled “Living With Robots”.  The film will introduce (or enforce) the idea of robots as a part of every day life.  It will raise questions such as how someone respond to a new robot worker at a store they frequent or how easily robots will be able to integrate into a household.  The film will include interviews from a variety of robot authors, scientists, enthusiasts, academics and more .  A live demonstration of Honda’s Asimo humanoid robot will follow the film.

While I commend Honda for making documentaries that are forward thinking and encourage critical thinking towards technology, my idea of a future with robots is probably much more oppressive then the film will convey.  A robot may fetch your coffee at Starbucks one day, but the next day it could be smashing you over the head with an espresso machine.  I’m sure the Asimo demonstration will be awe inspiring as well, but I prefer not be to face to face with something that will eventually be hunting me down.  At the very least, “Living With Robots” will raise awareness about the current state of robotics and allow those in attendance to know the face of the enemy.

You can view the other short films Honda has produced here.

::from Plastic Pals via Botropolis::

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An Intel robot that can plug itself into a wall socket.

Robotics news site Hizook has an article showcasing robots that are able to find wall sockets and plug themselves in to recharge.  This has been an overlooked part of autonomous robotics, but it is a very important concept.  As robots are continuously being built with more autonomy and less human control, the need to recharge internal batteries on the fly becomes more and more important.  Depending on a person to charge a robot is a tether to true autonomous robotics, but projects at Intel Research Labs and Willow Garage are looking to cut that tether and give robots freedom.  I personally think it is a terrible idea -- but more on that later.

The robots from both companies are able to effectively find an outlet and plug itself in.  The Intel Labs robot includes a scanner that searches for electric fields that surround an active power outlet.  It closely scans the area around the outlet to determine the exact location of the plug.  The Willow Garage robot looked for visual clues on the plug itself, such as a certain plug color or pattern.  Videos of both robots are below:

Intel Labs Marvin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLnD22MyiIw

Willow Garage PR2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S2dc_B-6Kg

Although the process of finding an outlet is currently on the slow side, these projects could become very important to autonomous and mobile robotics used in healthcare, in-home care, customer service and more.  Many projects developing the next generation of robots could benefit greatly from a self-charging robot.  Along with artificial intelligence and mobility systems, the ability to recharge itself is what a robot needs to become truly autonomous and self sufficient.

It is also a terrifying concept -- when the Robot Armageddon begins, should we make sure their is no power to make sure the attacking robots will eventually run out of juice?  Doing so would make life remarkably more difficult for any human survivors, but it could be the only option.  Unless robots start using nuclear power or put every human into the Matrix, this technology and the ability to produce electricity could become very important.

Anyway, the article at Hizook is far more scientific and much less paranoid.  There are more pictures and videos too, so check it out for yourself.

::from Hizook::

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The main idea that many of the demonstrations showed was just how far robotics has come and how fast it is moving.   In the past, updates on the  Honda ASIMO or Sony AIBO would occasionally surface but were few and far between.  CES 2010 had a plethora of new and updated robotics demos, so check them out after the break.

So far the most successful home robot has been the Roomba.  The robotic vacuum has been a hit, and has spawned off other robotic cleaners for pools, gutter and floor washing.  Two new competitors in automatic vacuuming were shown at CES 2010 -- the Evolution Robotics Mint and the Neato Robotics XV-11.

Evolution Robotics Mint

Popular Mechanics gave this robotic vacuum a CES 2010 Editor’s Choice Award for two new innovations and improvements over the Roomba.  It uses Swiffer wet and dry pads, which makes the Mint quieter, better at cleaning the corners of a room and up to 5 times faster.  It also add ceiling scanning infrared system called NorthStar to help it map a room more accurately.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CICu4qRmkRY

::from Popular Mechanincs::

Neato Robotics XV-11

The other entrant looking to take the Roomba’s crown is the XV-11.  This robotic vacuum aims to improve on the Roomba by using a system of lasers to map a room and navigate.  The main advantage to using lasers is that they allow the vacuum to adapt its path should someone walk into a room or place an object on the floor.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud7M_nolf4U

::from IEEE Spectrum::

Robot vacuums don’t seem to be much of a threat to humanity -- unless their infrared and laser mapping/guidance systems make it into attack bots.  The rest of the robots at CES 2010 show advancements in humanoid robots and robots designed to interact with people.  These could be slightly more troubling.

I-FAIRY

The I-FAIRY is a humanoid robot that is able to use preprogrammed voices and gestures to became a robot presenter.  A person records a voice clip of what they want the robot to say, or types a message to be spoken.   Gestures are able to be programmed alongside the voice recording, allowing the I-FAIRY to become a presenter, museum guide, receptionist and more.  It relies entirely on preprogrammed actions and cannot adapt, therefore should not be a threat to a group of tourists in a museum.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaHnAU4uPHk

Also, check out the website of the company behind I-FAIRY -- Kokoro -- if you like robots and dinosaurs.

::from dvice and Plastic Pals::

Parrot AR Drone

The AR Drone is a quadricopter -- a helicopter with four rotors -- that is remote controlled by an iPhone or iPod Touch.  It has two cameras onboard, one pointing to the ground to verify flying height, speed and to allow for stationary hovering.  The other camera is facing forwards and streams video to the iPhone or iPod Touch.  The AR in Parrot AR Drone name stands for augmented reality and opens up a whole new remote controlled vehicle experience.  Items can be tagged with bar codes, which the drone will recognize as a variety of objects such as enemies or obstacles.  A picture can then be superimposed over the video, showing the bar coded object as that enemy or obstacle.

There are 2 videos below -- a demo from CES 2010 and a promotional video from Parrot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5tvX61X2A4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3KrFV0-WFw

Does this mean that eventually we will all have our own predator drones that use cell phones as remote controls?

::from Popular Science::

Paro

The Paro is seal looking robot that is meant to be a companion for the elderly, disabled or dementia patients.  Paro has sensors for touch, temperature, sound and more that allow it to interact with a user in a therapeutic way.  A Paro can also replace a pet, if the owner is not able to care for a normal pet.  Hopefully it won’t be trying to smother anyone in their sleep anytime soon.

Don't let cuteness fool you, it is a robot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDn5H8wCYkw

There is also a good video from the Guardian.  The first half is about the Paro and is more in depth than the video above.

::from Gizmag and EDA Geek::

BeatBots Keepon

The BeatBots are not brand new, but were shown at CES 2010 to demonstrate how they can work in the medical field as tools for measuring social development and autism therapy.  Much like the Paro, the Keepon is meant to be a therapeutic robot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RNGY6tkJ54

::from EDA Geek::

TalkingRobo

The TalkingRobo is a language learning tool, where the robot teaches the user a language in its natural form in an easy to learn way.  TalkingRobo has voice and face recognition that allows it to distinguish a user and load a specific learning plan.  A user can also hold up a picture and the TalkingRobo will identify it, allowing a user to learn the specific words they want.  It also has a creepy looking face on the display that is meant to be the teacher.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q83_yAIFHlA

::from Botropolis::

TrueCompanion Roxxxy Sex Robot

Roxxxy wasn’t shown at CES 2010, but rather at the Adult Entertainment Expo that was happening in Las Vegas at the same time.  Roxxxy is the worlds first sexbot, and is able to hold a conversation as well as have different personalities such as shy, wild and dominatrix.  A user can upload different traits and personalities into the robot  allowing for a different, uh, experience every time.  Sex with robots is not a good idea.

The video may be NSFW.  There is no nudity, but there is a lingerie clad, anatomically correct robot in it.  Be warned.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4-rwk44qGI

::from Nar Williams::

Finally, there is a video from Gamma Two Robotics.  They brought a unit that is meant to act like a servant robot -- it is able to move items for someone or help the elderly and disabled.  Unfortunately for the presenters, nothing went as planned.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_ZuTKP77o

Although the robot on stage didn’t short circuit and start attacking the presenters, it is a good demonstration on how tricky it can be to make robots do what you want.  Instead of awkward excuses from a man on stage, it could have ended with a murderous rampage of cold steel and circuitry.

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