Nov 2 2009 Great: MIT Developing Dashboard Death Bots

MIT, a school best known for not accepting me despite two super-sweet essays and several threatening phone calls, is now developing a robot companion for drivers. Why? Because we need more distractions in the car.

AIDA (Affective Intelligent Driving Agent) communicates with the driver via a small, sociable robot built into the dashboard. The idea is to develop an informed and friendly passenger, the buddy perpetually riding shotgun who aside from reading the map and helping with navigation, acts as a companion. As such, AIDA is being developed to read drivers' moods via their facial expressions and other cues (hand gestures?) and respond to them in the proper social context. It communicates back in very human ways as well: with a smile, the blink of an eye, the drooping of its head.

AIDA analyzes the driver's mobility patterns, common routes and destinations, and driving habits. It then merges its knowledge of the driver with its knowledge of the city around it, mashing up the drivers priorities and needs with real-time information on everything from tourist attractions to environmental conditions to commercial activity to help the driver make better decisions.

Yeah, but can he take the wheel? Because what good is a robot in the car if it can't drive you home? I don't need a friend in the car THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TEXTING, am I right? No, I'm dead wrong. Literally: DEAD. WRONG. Don't text and drive.

This message brought to you by the GW and everyone else who agrees that you already suck at driving bad enough without another distraction.

MIT Introduces a Friendly Robot Companion For Your Dashboard [popsci]

Thanks to Jeff, tom and Kristi, who just get lost and play 'I Spy' with themselves in the car like normal people.

Oct 20 2009 Scientists Want to Develop Robotic Cheetah To Chase You Down, Dine On Your Carcass

Because life is progressively becoming a series of nightmares, scientists want to develop a robot that mimics the movement of a cheetah so they can chase us down and maul us to death. Why did I even get out of bed this morning? Oh, right. Well why did I even wake up this morning?

Professor Sangbae Kim designer of the Stickybot and a Robotic designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Is trying to understand how he can replicate natural animal mechanisms by creating a robot inspired by the cheetah.

The idea is to build a prototype robot from a construction of lightweight carbon-fiber-foam that will then be able to match the cheetah's speed of 70 miles per hour.

Over the next 18 months, Kim and four other MIT graduate students are going to start constructing the prototypes. Starting with a computer model of the robotic cheetah to establish the optimal limb length, weight, gait and torque of the hip and knee joints.

It's an ambitious project. Current wheeled robots are efficient, but can be slow in rough terrains. For instance, iRobot's PackBot, which is used by the U.S. military, can only travel at speeds of up to 5.8 miles per hour.

I'm sure this seemed like a good idea to somebody at some point, but it's not. Like I don't have enough to worry about without a 70 MPH cheetah-bot running around. Also, like four children. And you wonder why daddy drinks in bed all day!

Cheetah Inspired Robot [geekygadgets]

Thanks to Excaliber, who I will use to slice through these bastards like room temperature butter.

Oct 11 2009 Speak For Yourself: Scientists Claim We Would Never Survive A Zombie Apocalypse

According to a couple of Canadian researchers, the human race could never weather a zombie uprising. Pfft, speak for yourselves, Canucks -- I'M A SURVIVOR!

Based on models of rampant infectious diseases, say researchers, civilization would be doomed if we were ever attacked by zombies.

If society were ever attacked by zombies, we would probably be doomed, and quickly. That was the conclusion of two university researchers in Ottawa, Ontario, who set up mathematical models hypothesizing zombie attacks as infectious diseases with the well-known characteristics of zombie biology from popular fiction. In fact, according to a July BBC News report, zombies are more threatening than virulent diseases because they can regenerate (unless decapitated or incinerated, of course). More troubling was the researchers' presumption that zombies move slowly, as in older movies, but in recent fiction, they're super-quick, making them nearly invincible.

Oh man, as much as I do respect a couple of Canadians with calculators plugging away at a mathematical model they created using the info they gathered from Shawn of the Dead and Zombieland, this is one blogger who isn't succumbing to the zombie apocalypse. Robot, sure, but not zombies.

News of the Weird: Based on models of rampant infectious diseases, say researchers, civilization would be doomed if we were ever attacked by zombies [yahoonews]

Thanks to Gideon, who isn't going out in any sort of apocalypse. Except perhaps a sexpocalypse. Just kidding!

Oct 9 2009 What If?: There Were No Super Mario Brothers

This would happen. So yeah, be thankful for Italian plumbers. Except for the pair that stole all the copper piping out of my house. Those two can go to hell.

Animated Gif

Thanks to PK, who once stopped a Bullet Bill from destroying the earth by deflecting it with a giant tennis racket. TOO BAD YOU BLEW UP THE SUN.

Oct 7 2009 Oldschool Destruction: Rampage In Real Life

This is a video of the oldschool classic Rampage in real life, brought to you by the same angry bald man that produced the real life Paperboy (but not the movie). I chuckled. But I did NOT upchuck, even though I did two nights ago. That was the night I walked into the restroom at a bar and caught a guy standing at the pisser trying to blow a snot rocket on the wall above the urinal. So you know what I did? I waited till he was done pissing THEN WHIPPED HIS MONKEY ASS. Being gross: don't do it around me.

Youtube

Sep 15 2009 Are You Out Of Your Damn Mind? Alternatively: Oh Helllllllll No: A Needle Wielding, Blood Sucking Robot

Can you count the number of things wrong in the picture above? If you answered, "every single one", congratulations, you are correct. You see, Bloodbot is a robot designed to stab you with a needle. And I think we can all agree: that is exactly NOT what Jesus would do.

The robot consists of an arm with a needle and a probe. In order to find an accessible vein, the robot probes around your arm until it finds an area of flesh that is a little bit less squishy than the rest. Then it jabs you with a needle, and when it feels a little pop indicating that it's punched through into a vein, it knows to stop the jabbage, lest it go right through the other side of your vein, out the back of your arm, and into your femoral artery, causing a massive amount of hemorrhaging that will no doubt kill you in minutes.

So far, the robot is accurate about 78% of the time.

Hell no. Helllllllllll no. I don't care if it's accurate 110% of the time, no robot is getting anywhere near these precious, alcohol filled veins with a needle. I'd rather stab myself in the heart with a cannonball. And not just because I'm a pirate, but I do love booty. Seriously -- back that thang up, wench!

Bloodbot Stabs You Like A Pro [botjunkie]

Thanks to Spikey DaPikey and qix, who once stabbed a pair of robots in the eyes with syringes full of acid and made them melt from the inside out. Nice, guys, I like your style.

Sep 9 2009 Huuuge Robot Statue Coming To South Korea

If you thought the 59-foot Gundam statue in Japan was large, boy were you wrong. Because South Korea is erecting a massive 364-foot statue (twice as large as the Statue of Liberty) of Robot Taekwon V (aka Voltar the Invincible). Scared? It gets worse. You see, the statue is being built for a new amusement park called Robot Land. Geez, talk about scarring your children for life. This is worse than coming downstairs on Christmas hoping for a Nintendo, only to find your mom gangbanging the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny underneath the tree. Nobody even ate the cookies!

giant robot taekwon v statue will be six times as large as giant gundam statue [technabob]

Aug 20 2009 Wonderful News: Robots Learn How To Lie

In an experiment that shouldn't surprise anybody with half a brain that sleeps with a giant robot-burning laser under their pillow, scientists have shown that robots have the ability to evolve and lie. And this is to one another -- imagine what they'd tell a human! Also, this quote is kind of long, but it's interesting and important to read if you want to understand the experiment. However, if you just want to type FIRST! in the comments and not learn anything, you should probably skip it (and then off a building). Did I say skip? I meant dive. Just kidding, I don't care.

In an experiment run at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland*, robots that were designed to cooperate in searching out a beneficial resource and avoiding a poisonous one learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the resource.

The experiment involved 1,000 robots divided into 10 different groups. Each robot had a sensor, a blue light, and its own 264-bit binary code "genome" that governed how it reacted to different stimuli. The first generation robots were programmed to turn the light on when they found the good resource, helping the other robots in the group find it.

The robots got higher marks for finding and sitting on the good resource, and negative points for hanging around the poisoned resource. The 200 highest-scoring genomes were then randomly "mated" and mutated to produce a new generation of programming. Within nine generations, the robots became excellent at finding the positive resource, and communicating with each other to direct other robots to the good resource.

However, there was a catch. A limited amount of access to the good resource meant that not every robot could benefit when it was found, and overcrowding could drive away the robot that originally found it.

After 500 generations, 60 percent of the robots had evolved to keep their light off when they found the good resource, hogging it all for themselves. Even more telling, a third of the robots evolved to actually look for the liars by developing an aversion to the light; the exact opposite of their original programming!

Notice how I bolded that last line? Reread it. Anybody else see something inherently wrong with that? Now, if you will recall the first law of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. See where I'm going with this? OUTERSPACE BITCHES, I'M NOT WAITING AROUND FOR THIS SHIT TO GO DOWN.

Evolving Robots Learn To Lie To Each Other [popsci]

Thanks to Sarah, biggity2bit, greg, Phil, John, Pepper, Sven, Shawn, Rossco, Terrance, timpeva, ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, SharaSue, Sn0zz, SeanJon, billcollider, Tyrogyro and yayinternets, who only lie about their age and marital status.

Jul 31 2009 Robotic Arms Have Come A Long Way. A Long, Much More Deadly Way (Hold Me)

This is a video of a bunch of different robotic hands showing how dexterous they are at bouncing balls, gripping things, throwing things, catching things and a bunch of other fun stuff robots shouldn't be allowed to do. I mean, what is this, robot gym class? Next thing you know they're gonna be whipping your ass with a wet towel in the locker room. WHICH IS ONLY FUN WHEN TWO GROWN MEN DO IT. Am I right guys? Love that game.

Youtube

Thanks to Chris and Aroinak, who once shot a bot in Reno and didn't even stick around. Way to go guys, there could have been more.

Jul 29 2009 Unhappy Hump Day: Another Learning Robot

Just look at that picture. Do you see anything wrong with it? If you answered, "yes -- absolutely everything, there is not a single thing right about that photo", congratulations, there's hope for you yet. Anyway, a group of hellbent fools at the Developmental Robotics Laboratory at Iowa State University have developed a robot that they hope will be able to learn things similar to the way a child does.

Rather than pre-program it to perform a set of tasks, the team believes that robots need to experience the same kind of development that humans and animals do.

To that end, their 'bot is equipped with two long arms and a pair of webcam-looking eyes. It can hear and see, and learns to identify objects by picking them up and performing different tests, such as shaking or dropping them.

Yes, shaking and dropping them. Just wait until it identifies a human. Also, whose bright idea was it to give that thing a pair of scissors. I'M NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO USE SCISSORS AND I'M HUMAN! Moooooooom -- the dog made me glue my head to the carpet again!

Video of the learning baby deathbot in action after the jump.

Continue Reading " Unhappy Hump Day: Another Learning Robot "

Jul 10 2009 Robot Teaches Itself To Smile, Next: Targeting

The fools at the University of California, San Diego have created a robot that can learn new facial expressions on it's own. Next, its gonna learn how to drive itself to the shooting range.

To begin teaching the robot, the researchers stuck Einstein in front of a mirror and instructed the robot to "body babble" by contorting its face into random positions. A video camera connected to facial recognition software gave the robot feedback: When it made a movement that resembled a "real" expression, it received a reward signal.

"It's an iterative process," said facial recognition expert Marian Bartlett, a co-author of the study. "It starts out completely random and then gets feedback. Next time the robot picks an expression, there's a bias towards putting the motors in the right configuration."

Now I'm no terrorist, BUT IF I WAS, Machine Perception Laboratory, just sayin'.

Robot Teaches Itself to Smile [wired]

Thanks to Dirk, Dennie and RealLifeFup, who asked it to smile for the camera and then shot it because it wasn't really a camera, it was a gun.

Jun 23 2009 Stay Away!: The Robotic Needle Of Death

We've already seen one robotic death needle, so what's another? EVERYTHING, THAT'S WHAT. I am honestly *this close* to drinking the Kool-Aid. But allegedly, this robot was designed to do good. Pfft, I've heard one that before. I'm looking at you, Elmo. You tried to touch me while I was sleeping.

Bioengineers at Duke University have developed a laboratory robot that can successfully locate tiny pieces of metal within flesh and guide a needle to its exact location -- all without the need for human assistance.

I stopped reading there because my pants were getting full, but just look at that needle. You really want a robot operating on you with that thing without human intervention? Fine, but it's gonna be your second butthole, not mine.

Robot surgeon uses frighteningly large needle to remove shrapnel, your resistance [engadget]

Thanks to STOMPY, who already has three.

Jun 17 2009 It's Been Fun: Teaching AI How To Kill Us All

In one of the sickest and twistedest announcements I've read in recent history, programmers attending the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers symposium will attempt to program AI to destroy us all in a game of DEFCON.

Part of the symposium is a sort of "Turing Test" challenge, in which contestants program an AI to play a videogame. The objective is to try to trick a panel of human judges into thinking the AI is a human player.

This year's videogame is DEFCON, the brilliant nuclear war strategy game from indie developer Introversion.

A group of talented programmers will pitch their DEFCON bot against enemy bots in a series of one-on-one thermonuclear chess games. The winner is the programmer whose bot successfully annihilates its opponents and racks up the highest death count. IEEE is offering a $500 prize to the deadliest DEFCON AI bot competition winner.

WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! Like I don't have enough to worry about without people programming artificial intelligence to kill us all. You KNOW the robots are behind this. And also, BEHIND YOU -- DUCK! *pew pew* I just saved your life. No need to thank -- actually, yes, sing my praises. *cocking laser blaster* DO IT!

Symposium will teach AIs how to wage nuclear war [fidgit]

Thanks Kenny, shall we play a game?

May 29 2009 No, No, No: Japanese Killer Construction Bot

Wow, they're not even trying to make them look cute anymore. The Japanese born ROBOTOPS is a construction robot whose name is spelled in all caps because IT MEANS BUSINESS. The killing business.

The four-legged, two-armed robot is actually a kind of automated mobile crane with 29 functioning joints for picking off humans, and of course the occasional piece of construction material.

Using a high quality three-chip CCD camera, the robot can be operated remotely for particularly dangerous jobs.

And no, I didn't alter that quote at all. Finally, people are starting to get the picture. It's comforting to know I'm not the only one that sees a problem here. Seriously, Japan -- you know I love you (manga, sushi, worn panty vending machines), but this shit has got to stop. Because if not, well, Godzilla. Just sayin', we share a special bond (read: intercourse).

Japanese construction firm unleashes insectoid robot crane on humanity [dvice]

Thanks to cougar78, Aaron and John, who know the only good robots are the little guys from Batteries Not Included. Am I right? No, that was a test and you all failed.

May 16 2009 Looks Safe: Setting Jet Pack Speed Records

This is a video of Jetpack International trying to raise the airspeed record for jetpacking. Because, well, you've gotta start somewhere.

This is not especially difficult to do, considering that jetpack airspeed records don't really exist yet, but when you only have 30 or 40 seconds of fuel, you have to make sure and remember to leave yourself enough time to slow down.

The actual jetpacking starts at around 1:30, but whoever edited the video did a pretty shitty job and loves slow motion too much. Still, dude gets up to 61MPH. Which is impressive considering he's towing like 30lb balls.

Jet Pack Speed Record [ohgizmo]

May 14 2009 We're As Good As Dead!: Boston Dynamics' Latest Robastard Is An Accomplished Climber

In Boston Dynamics' unending quest to cut humanity's reign on earth short, the company continues to develop new robotic death machines. In this case, a climber named RiSE (who I have briefly touched on before). As is evident from the video, the apocalyptic bastard makes pretty short work of climbing a telephone pole. So I'm pretty confident it could scurry across the floor, shimmy up my leg, and have my change purse in its razor sharp mandibles before I could utter, "but they just dropped".

RiSE Version 3 Prototype [kodlab]

Thanks to beefytee, Art and biggity2bit, who just informed me we're no longer safe in the tree fort. Quick -- to the zip line!

May 12 2009 Not For The Faint: Robots Beating The Ever Living Hell Out Of Crash Test Dummies

This is some really disturbing footage from the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Robotics and Mechtronics (soon be known as a pile of rubble. Minions -- attack!) showing robots beating the ever living hell out of crash test dummies. FOR FUN. WHILE SOME SICKOS LAUGH IN THE BACKGROUND. Allegedly the experiments were conducted in an attempt to help make robots safer, but guess what -- THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE ROBOT. Just sayin', my roommate lost three toes to a Roomba and can now only walk in circles.

Robots crash into dummies, identify human weaknesses [engadget]

Thanks to billcollider, Chase is First, Barry, Nelson and Wout, who have each taken out like 40 robots and even dated a few long term. You guys make me sick.

May 8 2009 Brotherly Hate: Now With More Lightsaber!

This kid is pure evil -- just look at him. If evil were a Tetris level on Game Boy, this kid would be a 20. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, in a few years, I heard he'd brought a lightsaber to school in his backpack.

Picture

Thanks to Romeo, who once broke his thumb shooting ping pong balls out of his mouth at his babysitter. Just kidding, that was me.

Apr 29 2009 About Time: Anti-Robot Denny's Commercial

Truthfully, I rarely go to Denny's because I prefer IHOP's Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity combo (two eggs, two bacon strips, two pork sausage links and two buttermilk pancakes crowned with cool strawberry or your choice of fruit compote and whipped topping). But I may make a change after seeing this commercial, which highlights the importance of eating a hearty breakfast in the fight against machines. You can't go fighting those robotic bastards on an empty stomach -- they'll gut you like a fish! The Grand Slamwich from Denny's: it's what John Connor would do.

Youtube

Thanks to Scurls, who knows a Carnation Instant Breakfast just won't cut it.

Apr 27 2009 Stone Lifting Robot Attacks Factory Worker

A stone lifting robot attacked a factory worker in Sweden, nearly killing him. Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. At least not if you've been reading Geekologie (The Blog of Truth) long enough. Per Google translation:

When the man went into the building he thought that he broke the power of the machine but he had not. Instead, the robot in time and brought formidable force while in the man's head. He managed to defend itself, but received serious injuries on the body.

The man had big turn. He had four broken ribs and was close to delete with, "says Leif Johansson.

Close to delete. That's Google translation talk for mostly dead. Which is Princess Bride talk for about to kick the bucket. Which is an old idiom that means doing it. YOW YOW! Now, who wants to build a sand castle?

Robot assaulted employee [sydsvenskan]

Thanks to Spikey DaPikey, Ulf, Henrik, Jesper, Kelli, Vince, Christopher, Pike, Edward, Karbalo, MoMan, Adrian, Damien and Matt, who were smart enough to write 'no working with robots' clauses into their contracts.