Michael Nagle for The New York Times reports on artist Steve Powers’s simulated display of waterboarding:

“Some people look at Coney Island and see a paradise of carefree entertainment. Others see a cesspool of gritty squalor. Few are those who gaze upon its shrieking kids, grizzled wanderers and fast-talking flimflam artists and see an opportunity for engaged political discourse.

In Steve Powers’s ‘Waterboard Thrill Ride’ in Coney Island animatronic figures simulate an interrogation method used in Guantánamo; visitors view the scene through a barred window.”

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Controversial political artwork featuring robots? Mandated roadtrip.

I found this thing while searching for unnameable objects. My best guess is that it’s a napkin holder converted into a lamp converted into a robot lamp.

But it’s cute, yeah?

It won’t work for my purposes because it has a face and babies show a bias to look toward faces, but I didn’t want it to have been discovered in vein, so yes! Posting it now.

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Awesome.

Stuart O. Anderson and Shaun Slifer built a robot that keeps tumbleweed in motion for the Three Rivers Arts Fesitval Gallery in Pittsburgh. They call the project “Welcome Home, Pioneer”.

Why? Wrong question. Why not? They have a nice write up about the project, the robot, et more on the site, so I’ll let them answer that question more seriously. More info on the installation (robot + tumbleweed) here.

I love robotic installation art.

The robotic head of an android Philip K. Dick has gone missing.

Mr. Dick, the science fiction writer whose work was the basis of such Hollywood blockbusters as “Blade Runner” and “Minority Report,” has been dead since 1982. Last year an admiring doctoral student at the University of Texas at Dallas, David Hanson, 36, built a life-size robot-version of Mr. Dick.

The android was able to conduct basic conversations abour Mr. Dick’s work, keep eye contact and make several facial expressions. The robot made several public appearances last year, including at the Comic Con in San Diego, where it was on a panel for a coming movie based on a Dick Novel, “A Scanner Darkly.”

Mr. Dick’s android had several more public appearances scheduled—that is, until robot-creator Hanson left the robotic head on an America West flight from Dallas to Las Vegas in December en route to San Francisco.

Sucks!

Link (via NY Times)

I was going to make some punny jokes about this very emotional, life-size robotic panda (actually, it’s technically a robotic panda head on top of a guy in a panda suit), but Thomas Ricker over at Engadget made them all for me!

From Engadget:

“Ahh Giant Pandas… cute and cuddly until they rip out your jugular with a swipe from those massive thumbed paws. What better avatar to lull us into complacency while cleansing the fields of our human scourge? Ok, ok, only the head can actually be considered robotic with 14 servo motors used to create realistic panda expressions like confusion: ‘has anyone seen my bamboo?’ or anger: ‘I am not a teddy bear!’ The rest is just some guy in a fancy monkey suit drunk on Billy Beer. Now isn’t it about time we forget about all this endangered species crap since man clearly possesses the power to preserve these giant bears raccoons automatons forever in some kind of It’s a Small World freak show?”

Click the link for more fun photos.

Link (via Engadget)

European researchers are in the process of developing a new generation of robots that will be able to adapt their communication systems to their physical environments and communicate with one another without direct human intervention.

The project, dubbed ECAgents, is sponsored by the Future and Emerging Technologies program of the European Commission’s Community Research. It’s being conducted by researchers at the Intituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione in Rome.

The aim is ambitious: researcher say they seek to utilize existing technologies (like mobile phones, Wi-Fi devices, and existing robots) to eventually develop new technologies. Right now, they’re programming Sony AIBOs.

The project website mentions that their communication system is adaptive, meaning it adapts and changes in response to environmental input changes. The linked-to article from The Engineer Online also mentions that the “words” used by the AIBO dogs are built “from scratch.”

From The Enginner Online article:

“Whereas we humans use the word ‘ball’ to refer to a ball, the AIBO dogs start from scratch to develop common agreement on a word to use to refer the ball. They also develop the language structures to express, for instance, that the ball is rolling to the left. The researchers achieved this through instilling their robots with a sense of ‘curiosity.’

. . .

Also like children, the AIBOs initially started babbling aimlessly until two or more settled on a sound to describe an object or aspect of their environment, gradually building a lexicon and grammatical rules through which to communicate.”

I’d like to see more on these robots. I’m always skeptical about sensational stories like these—I’ve seen too many that originate with an overzealous publicist committing a factual faux pas when writing the press release on a technological breakthrough she didn’t research—but if the robots were actually creating a grammar, what a breakthrough that’d be!

Link

World-class robot athletes from around the globe will go to bed early tonight, because tomorrow they’ll compete in the RoboCup 2006 World Championships in Bremen, Germany!

The RoboCup 2006 World Championship matches are scheduled from tomorrow through next Tuesday, June 20, and as exciting as some of the competitors are, they won’t be the most interesting automated entities at this year’s festivities. This year, the commentators will be robotic!

Academic nerdy birds at Carnegie Mellon University have adapted two Sony Qrio robots to serve as play-by-play commentators for many of the scheduled RoboCup matches!

Prepping the two Qrio robots wasn’t easy, computer science professor Manuela Veloso of Carnegie Mellon told MSNBC. For example, when programmers attempted to have the robots emulate Telemundo commentator Andres Cantor’s signature call—“GOOOOOOOOOOAL!”—they found that the robots’ synthesized voices weren’t capable of sustaining a long “O” the way Cantor does. The compromised version instead repeats the synthesized “L,” so the call comes out ” Goal-oal-oal-oal-oal-oal-oal-oal!”

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Hammacher Schlemmer is now selling the Robonova-1 (listed as the Advanced Acrobatic Robot) for the slightly inflated price of $1200, as listed in their online catalog.

The programmable robot can walk, run, kick, stand on one leg, do cartwheels, dance, lie down, get up, flip, do your taxes . . . okay, it can’t do your taxes.

You can watch a video of it in action or buy one of your own.

*Sigh.* If only I had a robot friend.

Link

Japan will institute new safety guidelines for next-generation robots designed to provide nursing, security and cleaning services to humans.

The guidelines will require manufacturers to install sensors into new robots to minimize the risk of robots running into people and use only soft, lightweight materials so they will not cause harm if they do so.

The regulations also stipulate that manufacturers must install emergency shut-off buttons on all robots. (That’s in case good robots go bad, of course.)

Although safety guidelines already existed for factory production line robots, a different set of guidelines were needed for next-generation models, which are expected to become more prevalent in coming years.

Japan’s sharp population decline has created an increased need for next-generation robots to deal with the looming labor shortage. The new safety guidelines are a response to public concern that next-generation robots will be produced and distributed in mass quantities in the near future.

Pictured: A nursing robot, RI-MAN, equipped with pressure sensors lifts a human dummy during a demonstration.

Link (via Japan Times Online)

South Korean researchers have developed an android that can speak, blink, express emotion and understand a limited number of phrases and words.

The android, named EveR-1, is only the second developed in the world. Her name is a blend of “Eve” and “robot.” The first-ever android, ACTROID, was developed in Japan.

EveR-1 can understand 400 words and make eye contact. When she talks, her lips are synchronized with the words to create the illusion of authentic speech. She can move her head, arms and hands, but her bottom half is stationary.

Fifteen motors embedded into her silicon face enable her to make a total of four expressions: joy, anger, sorrow and happiness. So what’s the difference between joy and happiness? I’m really not sure. If anyone has a video of EveR-1 in action, send it on over!

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