With Love, Robots.

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hardcore parkour robot style

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The Future of Autism is NAO

Experts at Vanderbuilt university have created a humanoid robot that will help enhance the basic social skills of children with Autism. The robot, NAO, uses sensors, cameras and computers to help children coordinate their attention with both people and objects. 

To help strengthen joint attention, a skill autistic children lack, NAO uses ARIA (Adaptive Robot-Meditated Intervention Architecture) to gesture and attract eye attention, creating focused eye contact. Much of NAO's success has also been attributed to its primary advantage over human therapists; a less intimidating experience with lower expectations and reduced anxiety. To further support patients, NAO gives encouragement, combining prompts and gestures to keep treatment fun and engaging.

With improved robot-human interaction, NAO will ride the robotics technological revolution of the 21st century, helping to educate children and those with mental disabilities, one artificial companion at a time.

Image Source: http://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2011/05/nao-humanoid-robot-is-going-to-open.html

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Say Hello to Maki

Introducing: Maki, the friendly humanoid robot designed for a desktop 3D printer.

Hello Robo introduced Maki on Kickstarter as part of their effort to offer an affordable, accessible approach to robotic development. With a 3D printer, a PC, an internet connect and off the shelf hobby electronics, anyone can build Maki. Though anyone can build one of these bots in the comfort of his or her own home, it is a far cry from a craft project. Designed with open source HRI (human interaction) software, Maki can interact with humans by moving its head, eyes and eyelids. If plugged into a PC, the bot can also track objects, recognize faces and provide additional intelligence. With easy to print designs, builders may also choose from a variety of colours, etc.

The only caveat with Hello Robo's affordable and accessible approach is that 3D printers are still pretty rare. Priced between $1500 - $2000, they aren't exactly a staple in the average household. For now, Hello Robo will only appeal to serious hobbyists and researchers who have access to the technology required to execute the build. Despite this, Hello Robo's efforts to disrupt the approach to personal robotics are more than admirable; they are the future. 

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Just as I'm about to start the book, I see this this. Pretty disappointed. 

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Laziness? There's a bot for that.

Last week I thinking (out of sheer laziness), how great it would be to have a robot that could clean my condo, fold my laundry, and complete all the general, tedious, around-the-house chores I loathe. Lucky for me, this year’s CES debuted some of the most useful and sophisticated household bots we've seen in years.

Touted as some of the “Best Robots of CES 2013”, iRobot’s new crop of devices will shine the surfaces of my home, from the floors to the toilets. As iRobot's website puts it, “Think of your most tedious housecleaning task. Now think about never having to do it again. Indoors and out, our robots are engineered for cleaning performance and convenience, bringing the latest robotic technology to real-world homes.” Sounds good, iRobot. I’ll take 2.

Evovacs’ Winbot was another winner in PC Pro’s books. Unlike your standard floor bot,  this bot will defy gravity with suction to give your windows a streak free shine.

With a plethora of new household bots, it looks like 2013 will be the year of the lazy folk. Perhaps we can even program Siri to direct our cleaning army?

Unrelated: The worst bot of CES 2013. mRobo has nothing on Shimi.

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Today the Atlantic published this awesome article.

"Watson couldn't distinguish between polite language and profanity -- which the Urban Dictionary is full of. Watson picked up some bad habits from reading Wikipedia as well. In tests it even used the word "bullshit" in an answer to a researcher's query."

Will we ever have the ability to make robots talk like us? Kurzweil's research determines that language is hierarchical, meaning machines will learn to adapt the ability to process information in related ways (like humans). It may take more than a few million Urban Dictionary entries to teach robots profanity and slang, but with a few years of human interaction, robots will learn our ways, and become more human by replicating our habits; the good and the bad.

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Inviting Shimi to my next dance party.

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Kurzweil says tomorrow’s ‘droids will quickly learn to love and flesh out positive feelings; but do we really need to populate the world with more robots to break our hearts? How exactly would you go about breaking up with a robot? I guess you could alter the programming, but the memories and heartache would remain, for humans, at least.

Hooman Samani, from the Social Robotics Lab at the National University of Singapore, spearheaded a project to recreate human to human connection between robots and humans. The result? Lovotics. Using an artificial Endocrine System complete with Oxytocin, Dopamine, Secrotonin and Endorphins, Samani’s (fuzzy, somewhat creepy) robots were granted with the ability to love and be loved. 

Despite thoughts of awkward robot couples, or creepy cuddle sessions, cross-functional robots like this one are becoming a reality, and yes, they will eventually solve all of our problems. If we are able to artificially recreate emotions with new intelligence, we could lessen our dependence on say, drugs. Say goodbye to your 2x a day prescription of tricyclic antidepressants. Medical and psychiatric communities will benefit from technology like Lovotics to solve age-old problems; because after all, isn’t that what technology is all about?

Somewhat unrelated: Looking for a new gang sign (thinking Vulcan salute) to rep the singularity.

Learn more about Samani’s research here.