Entries tagged with robotics

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distributed...flight?

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/08/why-no-i-am-not-one.html

I'm not entirely clear on how the 'distributed' element comes into play so far as flight is concerned, but the concept is pretty cool.

Current Mood: impressed

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robotics

insert usual quote about our robot overlords

but that is some fast robot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk

Seriously, this is the sort of thing I imagined robots being able to do when I first encountered them in science fiction, so it's nice that we're finally seeing this.

Yes, I realize that getting them to display intelligence is still hard. This is still pretty cool, though.

Current Mood: impressed

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robot drummer that follows the beat

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/03/musical.robot/index.html

http://www.gatech.edu/innovations/roboticpercussionist/

Haven't seen the videos yet. Nice idea, though.

Current Mood: evasive
Current Music: Gabriel, Peter - Us - Love To Be Loved

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robots as adversaries

From that marvel of science journalism, New Scientist, we present How To Escape a Humanoid Robot.

(To be fair, they basically took the article wholesale from a recently-released book.)

Personally, I think that if it gets to the point where robots should be considered to be adversaries, most of the strategies noted here will be no longer operative. But it's an amusing take on some current limitations of robotics, if you want to look at it that way.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason - A New Machine - Part 1

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short films by Neill Blomkamp

courtesy of Boing Boing:

Alive in Joburg (Google Video)

A short film depicting a grittily realistic documentary set in a fictional world with extraterrestrial refugees in South Africa.

Showreel (Quicktime)

A series of short clips which apparently act as a sort of portfolio. (It starts out with a dancing car video which you may have seen; I think I linked to it a while back.) The progression of themes is very interesting.

TempBot

A short film that's a sort of slice-of-existence of a robot employed as a temporary clerical worker. Very odd, not least because no one seems to think it odd that TempBot never says anything.