Here are some of the advances in robotics as they get further and further along the road to replacing humans in the work force . . . EDITOR
from PhysOrg
‘Hallucinating’ robots arrange objects for human use
June 18, 2012 By Bill Steele
Researchers in the Personal Robotics Lab of Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science, have already taught robots to identify common objects, pick them up and place them stably in appropriate locations. Now they’ve added the human element by teaching robots to “hallucinate” where and how humans might stand, sit or work in a room, and place objects in their usual relationship to those imaginary people.
Their work will be reported at the International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, June 21 in Quebec, and the International Conference of Machine Learning, June 29 in Edinburgh, Scotland. . . . Read complete Report
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Robots equipped with tactile sensor able to identify materials through touch
Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering published a study today in Frontiers in Neurorobotics showing that a specially designed robot can outperform humans in identifying a wide range of natural materials according to their textures, paving the way for advancements in prostheses, personal assistive robots and consumer product testing. . . . Read Complete Post
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And the biggest breakthrough of the times . . .
British researchers create robot that can learn simple words by conversing with humans
June 16, 2012 By Jon Bardin
The work, published this week in the journal PLoS One, offers insight into how babies transition from babbling to speaking their first words.
The three-foot-tall robot, named DeeChee, was built to produce any syllable in the English language. But it knew no words at the outset of the study, speaking only babble phrases like “een rain rain mahdl kross.”
During the experiment, a human volunteer attempted to teach the robot simple words for shapes and colors by using them repeatedly in regular speech. . . . Read Complete Report
from youtube
