The prospect of slipping into a robotic exoskeleton that could enhance strength, keep the body active while recovering from an injury or even serve as a prosthetic limb has great appeal. Unlike the svelt body armor donned by Iron Man, however, most exoskeletons to date have looked more like clunky spare parts cobbled together.
Japan’s CYBERDYNE, Inc. is hoping to change that with a sleek, white exoskeleton now in the works that it says can augment the body’s own strength or do the work of ailing (or missing) limbs. (via Real-Life Iron Man: A Robotic Suit That Magnifies Human Strength: Scientific American)
It may have seemed like just another improbable scene from a Hollywood sci-fi flick – Tom Cruise battling against an army of robotic spiders intent on hunting him down.
But the storyline from Minority Report may not be quite as far fetched as it sounds.
Really cool Machinima video - “Show me how defenseless you really are…”
This is your corporate future.
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Meet NEXI (via KurzweilAI.net)
Of course a future version of her will be wanting to do John’s math homework.
The world’s fastest industrial robot: By fastest, it means 10g of acceleration: that’s zero to 280mph in a single second.
Robot Arm: ABB FlexPicker Robot’s Legs Move So Fast it’s Scary
Japan and its Robot Future
TOKYO (AP) — At a university lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust.
Hooked up to a database of words clustered by association, the robot - dubbed Kansei, or “sensibility” - responds to the word “war” by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears “love,” and its pink lips smile.
“To live among people, robots need to handle complex social tasks,” said project leader Junichi Takeno of Meiji University. “Robots will need to work with emotions, to understand and eventually feel them.
While robots are a long way from matching human emotional complexity, the country is perhaps the closest to a future - once the stuff of science fiction - where humans and intelligent robots routinely live side by side and interact socially. via Wired