Robots – Page 37 – Impact Lab

Watch this humanoid robot install drywall

October 12, 2018

The HRP-5P is a humanoid robot from Japan’s Advanced Industrial Science and Technology institute that can perform common construction tasks including — as we see above — install drywall.

HRP-5P — maybe we can call it Herb? — uses environmental measurement, object detection and motion planning to perform various tasks. In this video we see it use small hooks to grab the wallboard and slide it off onto the floor. Then, with a bit of maneuvering, it’s able to place the board against the joists and drill them in place.

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Engineering, Inventions, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

This “Robotic Skin” can turn pretty much anything into a robot

October 6, 2018

Inanimate objects coming to life — the stuff of nightmares? Not so when you can control the objects thanks to “robotic skin.” Then it’s just really, really cool.

You don’t have to take our word for it, either. Yale researchers have actually created this robotic skin, and they posted a video of it in action on Wednesday— the same day they published their research on the tech in the journal Science Robotics.

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Culture, Healthcare, Home Technology, Robots

Culturally sensitive robots are here to care for the elderly

October 2, 2018

Humans are living longer, healthier lives. That’s great, but there’s a downside — the growing elderly population requires an entire industry of (expensive) caregivers, and we’ll likely need even more of them in the future.

Care robots might be able to do some of that work. Researchers suspect robots could help elderly people with everything from staying active to remembering their medications. Now researchers in Europe and Japan are working to make sure those robots don’t offend the people they’re supposed to take care of — they’re making what they say are the world’s first robots with a sense of cultural norms.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Future, Robots

When will we have Artificial Intelligence as smart as a human? Here’s what experts think

September 30, 2018

Robots in the movies can think creatively, continue learning over time, and maybe even pass for conscious. Why don’t we have that yet?

“Star Wars,” “Her,” and “iRobot.” What do all these movies have in common? The artificial intelligence (AI) depicted in there is crazy-sophisticated. These robots can think creatively, continue learning over time, and maybe even pass for conscious.

Real-life artificial intelligence experts have a name for AI that can do this — it’s Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). For decades, scientists have tried all sorts of approaches to create AGI, using techniques such as reinforcement learning and machine learning. No approach has proven to be much better than any other, at least not yet.

Indeed, there’s a catch here: despite all the excitement, we have no idea how to build AGI.

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AI, Analysis, Business, Robots

How AI is reshaping marketing

September 12, 2018

Machine learning software and artificial intelligence have come a long way since their inception – and is only continuing to intensify. Taking over many industries, AI is swiftly changing the way professionals go about their business. So, what does this mean for marketing?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way since its inception. The rise in AI-powered marketing is taking the load off many marketers, and delegating to machines, allowing marketers to refocus their efforts onto marketing that matters and giving marketers more time to address any challenges that come their way.

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Award Winner, New Inventions, Robots

Award-winning robot travels through water pipes to detect leaks

September 8, 2018

It sounds unbelievable, but each day around 20 percent of clean water produced in the world is lost as the result of leaky pipes. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, this amounts to an estimated 6 billion gallons of clean water per day in the U.S. alone. The problem is exacerbated by current detection technology, which means that most of the leaks are either not found or discovered too late, after they’ve already caused sinkholes and burst pipes.

A new soft robot may be able to help, however — and it’s just netted the 2018 James Dyson Award, a design competition to celebrate up-and-coming inventors. The award-winning creation is the work of recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral graduate You Wu. Called Lighthouse, the low-cost bot is designed to travel through water pipes on the hunt for leaks before they turn into major problems.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Children, Futurist, Robots, Science & Technology News

Kids will build ’emotional bonds’ with robots and ignore their parents, futurologist predicts

September 3, 2018

Children will soon have their own ‘cute’ artificial intelligence-equipped robot toys and will pay more attention to the machines’ advice than guidance issued by their parents.

That’s the warning from futurologist Ian Pearson, who was speaking at an event by the tech firm Beko held at the IFA 2018 conference in Berlin. He said robots would be commonplace in our homes within the next 15 years. But parents will be concerned to hear that he believes they will have a greater influence on ‘educating and training’ children than their own parents.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cutting edge, Entertainment, Robots

Filmmaker Tony Kaye casts robot as lead actor in next feature

August 29, 2018

EXCLUSIVE: As the advancement of technology continues to replace the need for human labor, American History X director Tony Kaye is undertaking a new — and maybe controversial — step in filmmaking by employing an Artificial Intelligent (A.I.) actor as the lead in his next film, 2nd Born.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Robots, Science & Technology News

Can emotional AI make Anki’s new robot into a lovable companion?

August 12, 2018

Known for its hyperactive toys, the company spent years developing technologies to tackle its greatest challenge yet–subtlety.

If there’s a robot uprising anytime soon, it seems unlikely to start in our living rooms. Robotic vacuums like Roomba sell well because they are so handy. But other types of home robots–pets and companions from Sony’s Aibo robo-pooch to the recently shuttered Kuri (backed by Bosch)–have flopped due to both prices and expectations that have been set unreasonably high.

If any company can eventually bring us a domestic robot like Rosie from The Jetsons, Anki is a good bet. Started by three Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute graduates in 2010, the company has racked up over $200 million in venture funding. More important, it’s attracted customers. Anki has already sold 1.5 million robots by taking what it sees as the easiest route into the home: toys. The star is a manic little bulldozer-looking bot called Cozmo that drives around a tabletop and plays simple games with light-up cubes it carries about. Cozmo was the best-selling toy (by revenue) on Amazon in the U.S., U.K., and France in 2017, according to one analysis.

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Artificial Intelligence, Elon Musk, Robotics, Robots

OpenAI creates Dactyl robot hand with “unprecedented” dexterity

August 9, 2018

Open AI — a non-profit started by Elon Musk — has found a way to programme a robot hand so that it can nimbly manipulate an object using human-like movements it has taught itself.

“We’ve trained a human-like robot hand to manipulate physical objects with unprecedented dexterity,” said OpenAI of its Dactyl system, which is shown in a video twisting a block into 50 different requested orientations.

Dactyl works by training the robot hand in a simulation and then transferring the knowledge gained there to the real world.

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Employment, Entertainment, Robots

Disney invented a robotic stuntman that could put humans out of a job

August 7, 2018

This dexterous robot could put stunt doubles out of a job. Disney’s Imagineering Research and Development lab built a robotic stuntman that can perform daring flips 60 feet in the air. The robot uses a combination of lasers, accelerometers and gyroscopes to track and adjust its position in midair to mimic the actions of a real stuntman. Disney calls the technology “Stuntronics.”

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DARPA, Engineering, new technology, Robots

DARPA’s insect-sized SHRIMP robots could aid disaster relief

July 22, 2018

Meet the tiny, versatile robots built to navigate high-risk environments.

DARPA’s efforts to propel military technology forward often manifest in a diverse fashion, spanning everything from drone submarine development to a biostasis program that aims to buy more time to rescue soldiers on the battlefield. The SHRIMP program, short for SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms, is another potentially life-saving initiative that is being designed to navigate through hazardous natural disaster zones.

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