Meet the robot who plays piano faster than any human - mind you, he does have 19 fingers

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Meet Teotronico. 
He's really good at playing the piano - but then he does have 19 fingers.

Robotic hand technology is evolving rapidly and Teotronico's extra digits enable him to play the piano faster than any human could.

He can also sing and accompany himself on the drum and judge how well his musical ability is going down with the punters.

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Play it again Sam: He may look like something out of a Tim Burton movie, but Teotronico is really good at playing piano

...Of course this could be down to him having 19 fingers, which inventor, Matteo Suzzi, left, says is the perfect number to cover any melody or song and play faster than a human

Teotronico is the only robot in the world able to do all those things at the same time.
Inventor Matteo Suzzi says the robot has 19 fingers because it is the perfect number to cover any melody or song. He also plays faster than any human.


The rhythmic bot can even distinguish between the speed of key change and play various notes together.

He also has video cameras installed in his eyes which allow him to 'see' and interact with those around him.

Matteo, from Imola, Italy said Teotronica cost over £3000 and took over four years to create.

The 34-year-old said: 'I've always had a passion for robots and robotics. I was really excited when I discovered you could create an independent robot that could play any
tune or composition.

'Having 19 fingers gives the robot a better execution speed, making him faster than a human.

'His left hand covers the lower notes, the right hand covers the melodic line and he has an extra finger on the left hand.

'He is a great pianist because he has almost double the number of fingers that a human has and he can provide greater pressure to the keys.

'He sings recorded files in his system and uses speech recognition and facial expressions to interact with his audience.

'He's performed at a number of private parties and is a hit with the guests. We're hoping he can revolutionise the music industry.'

Let me entertain you: Teotronica cost over £3,000 and took over four years to create

R2D2 Upgrades to HDMI and Xbox 360

By Erik Hyrkas
From http://walyou.com/

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Major League Mods has just unleashed every Star Wars geek’s wet dream, for lack of a better description.

A life-size model of R2D2 bears a striking resemblance to the projector/dvd-player/sound system made by Nikko, as seen here. The difference is that Major League Mods appears to have spliced the internals of an Xbox 360 of all things, with a similar product. That’s right; you can now play Star Wars Battlefront III with R2 projecting on your wall.

It’s hard to believe, but no 360 ports appear to have been sacrificed in this George Lucas/Microsoft-effigy. The HDMI and RCA ports are in back along with power input, two USBs up front with the power button, and, of course, R2’s glowing eye is right where is should be.

R2 also lights up, but does not appear to move on its own. We’re not exactly sure if it makes sounds, but the well-known high-pitched chirps are definitely evident in the video. Check it out yourself below.

While we cannot confirm or deny the validity of this Mod, the splash screen of Xbox 360’s menu does appear on the wall in this video, and the ports do appear to be that of the Xbox as well. If you’d like to learn more, we suggest you contact Mark Bongo, the owner of Major League Mods and custom-modification guru who brought this gamer droid to life. You can also check out his Free eBooks to learn how to do this mod yourself. May the force be with you.

In love with the little bleeping R2D2? Bleep your way to a R2D2 specs poster or a cool R2D2 steampunk project.

Japanese robot washes hair

From: http://www.smh.com.au/

Panasonic's hair-washing robot washes hair on a mannequin at a demonstration in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

It may look like a glorified salon chair, but a new Japanese hair-washing robot replicates the dexterous touch of a human hand to care for the locks of the elderly and the infirm.

Its creators at electronics firm Panasonic say the machine features the latest robotic technology and could help replace human care-givers in Japan's rapidly ageing nation without degrading the quality of the service.

"Using robotic hand technology and 24 robotic fingers, this robot can wash the hair or handicapped in the way human hands do in order to help them have better daily lives," said developer Tohru Nakamura.

The customer leans back in what looks like a regular salon chair, over a sink, and the machine - upgraded from a 16-fingered version - shampoos, massages the scalp and rinses in about three minutes. Conditioning and a blow-dry add another five minutes.

Nakamura said Japan's ageing society supports a healthy market in care-giving robot technologies.

"We will develop more care-giving technologies for the elderly or handicapped in Japan and will export those technologies to other ageing societies, such as South Korea and China, in the future," Nakamura said.

The hair-washing machine is not available to consumers at this point, and a price has yet to be set. Panasonic plans to start sales next year, targeting nursing homes and hospitals.

Reuters

LEGO Robot Cuts Cake, Not You

By Darrick Mattsen
From: http://walyou.com/

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If you’ve ever wondered how LEGO bricks could help you serve baked goods, you can wonder no more.

We’ve already seen LEGO contraptions in action, plopping down pancakes in a controlled manner, but what about a LEGO device which can help you serve the food you bake on your own? Designers Bart and Stef decided to fill this technology gap by putting the LEGO Mindstorm NXT to work. The NXT Intelligent Brick is essentially a small, programmable computer which can take input and control motors, meaning that robotics geeks have had plenty of fun tinkering with this “toy” gadget.


The designers of this cake slicer first built some simple towers out of LEGO bricks, with the actual mechanism mounted on top much like a bridge. The NXT can be programmed to cut the number of slices you enter in, computing the angles necessary. The blade appears to be the lid from a can, spinning as it cuts through to the center of the cake, and then sliding back out slowly. Once the blade is clear, the platform upon which the cake rests then rotates the number of degrees necessary to ensure equal slices. The process repeats, and you can see in the video below that it ends up creating 9 perfect slices of cake (each, presumably, of a 40 degree angle). Now, this is an unfrosted cake, which is surely easier to cleanly cut through. It would be possible, if a bit difficult, to frost the cake after it’s been sliced, as the slices still haven’t been pulled away.



In order for this device to properly work on a frosted cake or something like a cheesecake, however, a small addition would have to be made. By just adding a towel or something similar to wipe the blade clean between slices, this could theoretically cut more complex cakes with the same ease as we see it handle this one. If they do decide to expand on this to make it able to handle more cakes or even other foods like pizza, it will be very interesting to see how it turns out. For more fantastic LEGO Mindstorm robots, check out the Rubik’s Cube Solving Robot and the LEGO Bluetooth Printer.

Watch This Robot Band Bust Out Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People"

From: http://geek-news.mtv.com/

We all joke that robots are going to take over the world and destroy humankind, but after watching this video I'm feeling a little more concerned about robots taking over the rock'n'roll scene. That's right, YouTuber db594 created a robot band named End of Life (EOL) and they sure can rock out.
The song they play in the video below is a cover of Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" and according to the video's description on YouTube that was a complete accident. Apparently db594 was trying to make EOL play a rendition of "Mad World" when his cello robot went on the fritz. The sounds it made reminded him of Manson's hit so much he decided to move forward.



The fact that he was able to pull this off is pretty damn impressive, but my favorite aspect of the band is probably the scanner. Yes, rather than getting another instrument involved db594 decided his flatbed scanner would do just fine as the band's frontman -- we couldn't agree more!

Wall-E meets his Canadian DJ maker, turns into a real robot toy (video)

By Joseph Volpe

From: http://www.engadget.com/

What do you get when you cross a dj with a "Canadian roboticist?" An almost true-to-fiction Wall-E, that's what. In this rendition of garbage-bot gone cute, amateur robotics enthusiast DJ Sures (yes, he makes music) hollowed out a U-Command Wall-E toy and fixed him up with some servo guts. The voice-activated, semi-autonomous modjob has a built-in eye camera that recognizes motion, colors and faces, coming the closest we've seen to replicating the CG-romantic. The whole AA-battery powered affair runs on the EZ-B Robot Controller software shown off by Sures in the video below. And unlike other past re-creations, this little guy knows how to get down without the need for sped up video tricks. Clearly, the Pixar-bred bot's become the unofficial icon of the homebrew robotics community, so where's his official counterpart? You listening Disney? Get cracking.

Hack a Day DJ Sures

Pancake-making robot is awesome, made out of LEGOs

By: Jennifer Bergen
From: http://www.geek.com/

Breakfast is a special meal for many of us. Sometimes we take the time to make a nice meal with eggs, bacon, French toast, or (and?) pancakes. But before we know it that Sunday morning meal is a lot of work. Problem solved! Inventor Miguel Valenzuela designed a robot that not only makes pancakes, but it makes them whatever shape you want.

As if the idea of a pancake-making robot wasn’t cool enough, the Pancake Bot (PB) is made of 99% LEGO and 1% ketchup bottle. Yes, the nerdiness factor just skyrocketed through the roof. Valenzuela goes into some pretty technical detail on his blog about how he made the robot. For example, he used a pneumatic pump and compressed air to dispense the batter. The manner in which the batter will be dispensed is pre-programmed with coordinates, so you can chose to make various shapes. The photo below shows some pretty good-looking Mickey Mouse flapjacks.



The PB is similar in some ways to the Solar Sinter, a 3D printer that we reported on earlier this month that creates objects out of sand. Both devices move smoothly on a track to produce a final product. In this particular case, the track leads a ketchup bottle full of batter down the length of the griddle, dispensing as it goes.

It’s slightly sluggish, so if you want to make some quick pancakes, you’re most likely better off just spooning the batter yourself. But a speedy breakfast is obviously not the point of the PB.

Valenzuela’s daughters Maia and Lily helped and are credited as “assistants” on the project. We’re not sure what part the young girls had in the making of the PB, but we have a feeling it may have something to do with the eating part. Judging by Valenzuela’s blog, being his kid seems pretty awesome. Not only does he create pancake-making LEGO machines, but he also builds awesome snow sculptures of Tauntauns, AT-ATs, and a humongous, awesome looking robot.

Make sure to check out how the Pancake Bot works, oggle over his awesome snow sculptures (scroll down), and watch the PB in action in the video below.


Via Waylou

Navy testing robot Jet Ski for harbor patrols

Called "Blackfish," the vehicle is designed to protect harbors from terrorists posing as recreational watercrafts or swimmers.

By Eric Niiler

From http://news.discovery.com/

• The 10-foot long remote-controlled jet ski cruises across the waves at 40 miles per hour.
• It will patrol ports where U.S. Navy ships are docked.

To build Blackfish, engineers sawed off the top half of an existing jet ski and added sensor packages for underwater sonar, surface radar and a video camera.

QinetiQ

Naval commanders have a new tool in protecting their ships against bad guys in the water: a 10-foot long remote-controlled jet ski that can see underwater and cruise across the waves at 40 miles per hour. The so-called “Blackfish” is undergoing testing by the Office of Naval Research after its recent development by the British defense contractor Qinetiq.

Developers of the Blackfish say its design to scare off swimming terrorists who may be lurking in ports where U.S. ships are docked. Such a suicide attack by Al-Qaeda operatives killed 17 sailors on the USS Cole back in 2000 when it was docked in the Yemeni port of Aden.

“In both domestic and foreign ports, there’s great concern about swimmers approaching the boats underwater,” said Mark Hewitt, senior vice president for maritime and transportation for Qinetiq North America. “The Navy has been working on the problem for some time.”

While the U.S. Navy boasts huge firepower, and the ability to launch a full-scale war from sea, its real vulnerability, experts say, is from small watercraft or swimmers who can slip through the cracks. That’s where something like the Blackfish comes into play.

Hewitt said engineers at the company “sawed the top half off” an existing jet ski and added sensor packages for underwater sonar, surface radar and a video camera. The craft operates within a one-kilometer range from its human driver, and can be programmed to run a route through the water based on GPS waypoints. There’s also the possibility of adding weaponry.

Hewitt said the toughest engineering challenge was making it go slow enough.

“It’s a jet ski, it goes fast,” he said. “Human swimmers only go two knots. We solved the problem by adding bow thrusters, so you can turn off the main propulsion and track at low speeds.”

Hewitt says any collision between Blackfish and a friendly surfer or swimmer probably won’t result in major injuries; it uses a hydro-jet instead of a propeller. Still unanswered is the question of who is at fault if someone were to get hit by a robo-ski, the human operator or the company who made the robot.

Port security has been a huge concern for the navy, as well as the commercial shipping industry. Just last month, experts from several branches of the U.S. military, the Department of Homeland Security, Coast Guard, local authorities put together a war game of sorts in San Francisco Bay to figure out how best to detect a threat from a boat.

The simulation is will continue for several months using Navy and civilian law enforcement, working with underwater vehicles, drone aircraft, linked computer networks and other kinds of advanced sensors to counter a nuclear radiological threat smuggled aboard a small craft, according to Alex Bordetsky, associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and director of the project, which is a collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

The idea of using unmanned vehicles like Blackfish to perform difficult, boring or dangerous tasks are gaining fans at the Pentagon, according to Sam LaGrone, U.S. maritime reporter for Jane’s Defence Weekly. In addition to a technological advantage, LaGrone says there’s a big financial one as well. Robot guards don’t need breaks, and they cost less to operate.

“If you have an unmanned system that can persistently hang out and cover more ground than a person with eyeballs and a rifle, it’s something to consider,” LaGrone said. “That’s probably why they are pursuing this. The name of the game is saving money.”

Hand-hacking lets you pluck strings like a musical pro

From: http://www.newscientist.com/

Video: Hand-hacking helps budding musicians

WANT to learn a musical instrument, but can't find the time to practise? A device now under development can take control of your hand and teach you how to play a tune. No spirits of dead musicians are involved.

PossessedHand, being developed jointly by the University of Tokyo, Japan, and Sony Computer Science Laboratories, also in Tokyo, electrically stimulates the muscles in the forearm that move your fingers. A belt worn around that part of the subject's arm contains 28 electrode pads, which flex the joints between the three bones of each finger and the two bones of the thumb, and provide two wrist movements. Users were able to sense the movement of their hands that this produced, even with their eyes closed. "The user's fingers are controlled without the user's mind," explains Emi Tamaki of the University of Tokyo, who led the research.

Devices that stimulate people's fingers have been made before, but they used electrodes embedded in the skin, which are invasive, or glove-like devices that make it hard to manipulate an object. Tamaki claims that her device is far more comfortable. "The electric stimulations are similar to low-frequency massage stimulations that are commonly used," she says.

Having successfully hijacked a hand, the researchers tried to teach it how to play the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument. Koto players wear different picks on three fingers, but pluck the strings with all five fingertips, so each finger produces a distinctive sound. A koto score tells players which fingers should be moved and when, and from this Tamaki and her team were able to generate instructions telling their device how and when to stimulate the wearer's muscles.

PossessedHand does not generate enough force to pluck the koto strings, but it could help novice players by teaching them the correct finger movements. Tamaki and her team found that two beginner players made a total of four timing errors when using PossessedHand, compared with 13 when playing unassisted. After prompting from the device, the players also made one less mistake about which finger to use.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the players found it unsettling to have the device move their hand by itself. "I felt like my body was hacked," said one. Tamaki is confident that people will get used to the idea once they see how useful it can be: "We believe convenient technology will overcome a feeling of fear."

As well as helping would-be musicians, PossessedHand could be used to rehabilitate people who have suffered a stroke or other injury that impairs muscle control. Therapists already use electrical muscle stimulation to help these people, but existing non-invasive devices can only achieve crude movements such as contracting the entire arm.

Henrik Gollee, who researches rehabilitation devices at the University of Glasgow, UK, says PossessedHand could help patients train a wider range of movements. "I was surprised by the level of fine movement they can actually achieve," he says.

Simon Holland, director of the Music Computing Lab at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, points out that there is a big difference between learning to play one song and being a competent musician. "You might learn a fingering and be able to reproduce that performance, without necessarily being able to perform simple variants," he says.

R2D2 Swimsuits: The MOAR Bikinis Edition

From: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/

When one of our Facebook page commenters told us he wanted “LESS BIKINIS, MOAR SCIENCE”, I was about to stop posting pictures of female cosplayer altogether, but fortunately for me (and probably for a lot of you too), a horde of loyal fans came to the rescue telling me that they wanted more of both. So to satisfy everyone’s appetite, we’ll start things off with a post compiling some of the best pictures of ladies wearling Black Milk Clothing‘s awesome R2D2 swimsuit, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be on sale anymore. Oh, and for all you science fans, don’t worry, Adrienne has already started working on a series of “MOAR science”-themed posts, a little like Jimmy’s old “Science is Sexy” series, which you should all go check out if you already didn’t.

Edit: The word “bikini” in this post is used as a metaphor. Thank you! ;)

Amputee Patrick demonstrates his new bionic hand

Last year, Patrick, a 24-year-old Austrian, decided to have his dysfunctional hand amputated and replaced with a bionic hand. He lost the use of his left hand after being electrocuted at work.

Here he demonstrates the extra movement his new bionic hand has given him, opening a bottle and tying his shoelaces, and tests a prototype hand which will give him additional wrist movement.

NASA's humanoid robot unveiled on space station

From: http://news.yahoo.com/

AP – In this March 15, 2011 photo provided by NASA, astronaut Scott Kelly, Expedition 26 commander, right, …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The first humanoid robot ever launched into space is finally free.

Astronauts at the International Space Station unpacked Robonaut on Tuesday, 2 1/2 weeks after its arrival via shuttle Discovery. NASA broadcast the humorous unveiling ceremony Wednesday.

American Catherine Coleman and Italian Paolo Nespoli pried off the lid of the robot's packing box, as though they were opening a coffin. TV cameras showed lots of foam inside, but no robot.

"It's like unearthing a mummy," radioed a payload controller at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"Well, at least the mummy would be here," Coleman replied. "We just have an empty box where Robonaut is supposed to be."

Robonaut — also known as R2 — was spotted a minute later in front of a work station.

"I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our crew," Coleman said. "We're going to see what Robonaut can do."

The payload controller asked if R2 was related to HAL, the sinister computer with artificial intelligence from the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey."

"Since we found him already controlling the space station, we're sure that he is related to HAL. But we'll see," Coleman said.

In a Twitter update, R2 announced: "Check me out. I'm in space!" A NASA employee on the ground posted the tweet.

Nespoli attached NASA's waist-high R2 to a fixed pedestal, where it will remain with its fists clenched and its arms folded against its chest until testing begins in May. The robotic team at Johnson Space Center in Houston wants to see how R2 performs in weightlessness. The robot is intended as an astronaut helper, inside the space station, in the decade ahead.

Legs should arrive next year.

R2's earthbound twin spent Wednesday at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, performing demonstrations for children.

___

Online:

NASA: http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/default.asp

Japan Earthquake: Robots Help Search For Survivors

POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo

FROM: http://spectrum.ieee.org/

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Editor's Note: This is part of our ongoing news coverage of Japan's earthquake and nuclear emergency.

Japan's earthquake will be a major test for search-and-rescue robots like Quince, developed by Chiba Institute of Technology roboticists, shown here during a demonstration.

Japan's leading experts in rescue robotics are deploying wheeled and snake-like robots to assist emergency responders in the search for survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the country last Friday.

Details are still scarce, but I've gotten word that at least two teams plan to use their search and rescue robots, one team in Tokyo and another in or around Sendai, the city that suffered the most damage in the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami. I'm waiting confirmation about a third team, also in Tokyo. (There is no information about the presence of robots at Japan's troubled Fukushima nuclear power plants, though that would be an ideal application for teleoperated repair and inspection robots.)

Dr. Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) at Texas A&M University, in College Station, and one of the world's top experts in rescue robotics, confirms that a team led by Satoshi Tadokoro of Tohoku University, in Sendai, and a team led by Eiji Koyanagi from Chiba Institute of Technology's Future Robotics Technology Center, have deployed, or are about to deploy, their robots.

She reports that Dr. Tadokoro is "en route" to Sendai, where he lives, with the Active Scope Camera, a remote operated 8-meter-long snake-like robot that carries a scope camera and can slither through small spaces. According to Dr. Murphy, it's "possibly the most capable robot for tight spaces." At the same time, Dr. Koyanagi will use an agile robot called Quince, which has tank-like tracks and is capable of driving over rubble and climbing stairs, around his home area in Tokyo.

Here's a video of the Active Scope Camera:


Here's a video of Quince:


Dr. Murphy, an IEEE Fellow whose team has taken robots to disaster sites like the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks and New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, tells me that robots have been used in at least one previous earthquake, the 2010 Haiti disaster. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she says, used a SeaBotix underwater remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, to investigate bridge and seawall damage as part of the U.S. assistance to the Haitian government.

For a disaster like the Japan quake, she says several types of robots could prove useful, including:
• small unmanned aerial vehicles like robotic helicopters and quadrotors for inspection of upper levels of buildings and lower altitude checks
• snake robots capable of entering collapsed buildings and slithering through rubble
• small underwater ROVs for bridge inspection and underwater recovery
• tether-based unmanned ground vehicles like sensor-packed wheeled robots that operators can drive remotely to search for survivors

As it happened, Japan's leading rescue robotics experts, a cadre led by Dr. Tadokoro, who heads the International Rescue Systems Institute, were actually in the United States when the earthquake hit! The 21 faculty and students and their rescue robots were in Texas participating in an exercise and workshop that CRASAR organized. The group headed back to Japan on Friday as soon as they heard the news.

Dr. Murphy, who leads the volunteer search-and-rescue robotics group Roboticists Without Borders, part of CRASAR, says the Japanese welcomed her group's assistance; she's now on standby awaiting a formal request. CRASAR's robotic arsenal includes the AirRobot and iSensys helicopters, a VideoRay ROV for underwater inspection, a AEOS water vehicle with a sonar suited for bridge inspection, and several ground robots like the Inuktun VGTV, a tracked vehicle that can change its shape.
Like most search and rescue robots, the systems the Japanese are deploying are designed to go where humans can't easily reach. According to a 2007 paper, the Active Scope Camera is a snake-type of robot whose body is covered by "cilia," small filaments that vibrate, allowing the robot to crawl at a speed of 4.7 centimeters per second, climb over obstacles, follow walls, and make turns in tight spaces.

Quince is a mobile robot equipped with four sets of tracked wheels, some of which can move up and down to allow the robot to negotiate obstacles. It carries cameras as well as infrared and carbon-dioxide sensors for detecting the presence of survivors trapped under rubble.

Our thoughts go to the Japanese people affected by this tragedy. We hope emergency personnel can locate all survivors as fast as possible -- and if robots can help, great.

Image: Chiba Institute of Technology; videos: DigInfo and Chiba Institute of Technology

Robo-Rainbow

From: http://www.good.is/

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

Take a look at Adam Nilsson's "Robo-Rainbow," a fantastic short video depicting a "complicated technical solution to aide in simple acts of vandalism." It should appeal to fans of robotics, street art, and/or rainbows.

Man and machine tied in 'Jeopardy' game-show match

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

$1.5 million at stake as computer takes on two human champs on TV

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Seth Wenig  /  AP

 

"Jeopardy" champions Ken Jennings, left, and Brad Rutter, right, look on as an IBM computer called "Watson" beats them to the buzzer to answer a question during a practice round of the "Jeopardy!" quiz show in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. in January. The real competition is being aired this week on the syndicated TV program.

NEW YORK — In the "Jeopardy" battle of man vs. machine, man and machine were neck-and-neck on Monday. 

Human player Brad Rutter and the supercomputer named Watson ended an initial round tied at $5,000. The other challenger, human Ken Jennings, was in third with $2,000.

Rutter (the show's all-time money-winner with $3.25 million) and Jennings (who has the longest winning streak at 74 games) are the most successful players in "Jeopardy" history. Watson, named for IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, is powered by 10 racks of computer servers running the Linux operating system.
"You are about to witness what may prove to be an historic competition," host Alex Trebek told viewers at the top of the show.

No question, Watson proved to be an amazing competitor — maybe even a little creepy in the speed and accuracy he displayed.

With categories including Beatles People, Olympic Oddities and Name the Decade, the round got started with Rutter choosing the first question, Alternate Meanings for $200: "4-letter word for a vantage point or a belief."

"What is a view?" was Rutter's correct response.

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But Watson took charge with his answer to Alternate Meanings for $400: "4-letter word for the iron fitting on the hoof of a horse or a card-dealing box in a casino."

"What is a shoe?" said Watson in his resonant electronic voice.

His next selection was the game board's Daily Double, and, after wagering $1,000, he correctly named the literary character being sought: "Who is Hyde?"

At one point Watson was dominating to the tune of $4,000, against $200 each for Jennings and Rutter. Then Rutter, giving hope to worried human viewers, began his rally.

Along the way, Watson made a few embarrassing stumbles.

After Jennings incorrectly said the 1920s was the decade in which Oreo cookies were introduced, Watson jumped in with his answer: "What is 1920s?"

"No," Trebek told him. "Ken said that.
"
Rutter got it right when he responded, "What are the 1910s?"

Later, Watson slipped up on the question: "Stylish elegance, or students who all graduated in the same year."
"What is chic?" ventured Watson.

"What is class?" Rutter correctly answered.

The exhibition matches will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday on the popular trivia TV game show. Two complete games will be aired. The contestant with the highest cumulative score collects $1 million. The runner-up receives $300,000, and the third-place contestant gets $200,000.

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IBM has said all of Watson's winnings will be given to charity. Jennings and Rutter plan to donate half of their winnings to the charities of their choice.

The bouts were taped at the IBM research center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., last month. Both men and Watson have managed to keep the final outcome under wraps.

Watson is the result of years of development by IBM researchers. Like human contestants, it has no recourse to the Internet during play. Rather, it draws upon a huge database of information in its 15-trillion-byte memory, and sifts through potential answers with 2,880 processor cores.

The computer can identify the right answer with lightning speed — but it can also misfire badly, as occasionally seen on Monday. The reason is that Watson doesn't always catch the context for "Jeopardy" clues, which often play upon puns or clever word associations with the category titles. Watson's developers say the capacity to learn through real-world experience is something that may be built into future generations of question-answering computers.

Outside observers have estimated the cost of Watson's development in the range of tens of millions of dollars, or even hundreds of millions. Although Watson was optimized for playing "Jeopardy," IBM and its academic partners say Watson's progeny could help answer questions in a wide spectrum of specialized, data-heavy fields, including medicine and engineering.

This report includes information from The Associated Press' Frazier Moore and msnbc.com.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Restaurant With Robot Waiters Opens In China!

By Edwin Goei,

From: http://blogs.ocweekly.com/stickaforkinit/2010/12/restaurant_with_robot_waiters.php

At Dalu Robot Restaurant, a hot pot joint in China, you'll never have to tip the server or worry that he sneezed into your soup. The new eatery, which is coincidentally owned by a man who also heads up a robotics firm, is using C3PO-like bicycling robots to serve its customers. A few others look like R2D2, running along tracks.

But if you're expecting 4-star restaurant treatment, these aren't the droids you're looking for. They don't serve you so much as just stop long enough so that you can pluck off what you ordered from a tray.



Another video after the jump!


The restaurant also has creepy-looking humanoid robots that are made to dance and entertain. Since these haven't yet traipsed pass the "uncanny valley", they aren't exactly as charming as Summer Glau.
Still, the whole thing sounds a lot more sanitary than these monkey waiters (see below).

gg

Robot to explore mysterious tunnels in Great Pyramid

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/

For 4,500 years, no one has known what lies beyond two stone doors deep inside the monument

By Andrew Johnson

For 4,500 years, the Great Pyramid at Giza has enthralled, fascinated and ultimately frustrated everyone who has attempted to penetrate its secrets.

Now a robotics team from Leeds University, working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is preparing a machine which they hope will solve one of its enduring mysteries.

The pyramid, known as the Pyramid of Khufu after the king who built it around 2,560BC, is the only wonder of the ancient world still standing. At its heart are two rooms known as the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King's Chamber at 45-degree angles and lead to the exterior of the monument. They are believed to be a passageway designed to fire the king's spirit into the firmament so that he can take his place among the stars.

In the Queen's Chamber, there are two further shafts, discovered in 1872. Unlike those in the King's Chamber, these do not lead to the outer face of the pyramid

No one knows what the shafts are for. In 1992, a camera sent up the shaft leading from the south wall of the Queen's Chamber discovered it was blocked after 60 metres by a limestone door with two copper handles. In 2002, a further expedition drilled through this door and revealed, 20 centimetres behind it, a second door.

"The second door is unlike the first. It looks as if it is screening or covering something," said Dr Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council who is in charge of the expedition. The north shaft bends by 45 degrees after 18 metres but, after 60 metres, is also blocked by a limestone door.

Now technicians at Leeds University are putting the finishing touches to a robot which, they hope, will follow the shaft to its end. Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom Khufu consulted when planning the pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through the second set of doors to see what lies beyond.

afp/getty images

The Pyramid of Khufu is the only wonder of the ancient world still standing

The latest version of the LittleDog Robot

sschaal1 — March 24, 2010 — This is the more advanced version of this robot, created by the University of Southern California. The robot is completely autonomous and trained by machine learning algorithms. The video is real-time, i.e., not sped up.

ISS to get 'Man Cave' Complete with Robot Butler

Written by Nancy Atkinson

From http://www.universetoday.com/

Cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko floats inside Leonardo during its first flight to the ISS. Leonardo will become a permanant module later in 2010. Credit: NASA

There might be a new favorite hang-out for astronauts aboard the International Space Station later this year. The Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) known as Leonardo – which will be going to the ISS on the upcoming STS-131 mission carrying cargo and supplies — will be transformed after the mission into a Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), and brought up to stay on the station on STS-133 as a storeroom for supplies. But it might also become a haven to get away from it all.

"The thought is, the PMM might become sort of a 'man cave'," said Mike Kinslow, the Boeing payload manager out at Kennedy Space Center. "It won't have all the background noise of fans, computers and other equipment running like in the laboratories, so it will be a quieter atmosphere that might appeal to the astronauts during their off-duty hours."

No plans for a big screen TV Kinslow said, but there will be ports for computers, and since internet is now available on the ISS, Leonardo could be the location of choice to compose emails to loved ones back home, or do a little Twittering.

Another interesting piece of hardware scheduled to fly on the PMM is the Robonaut 2, NASA's second generation of dexterous robots with a human-like torso that can work with tools and one day are envisioned to be able to do EVA work outside the ISS. But for now, R2 will be tested inside the station in zero-g. "It will be used on orbit for routine maintenance indoors only." said Kinslow, "This is not an external unit."

It has a "head" with a vision system, with hands that can do work, controlled by virtual-reality-like operation. Any chance R2 could be programmed to serve drinks or bring food into the man cave?

See our article on how General Motors is going to use R2 for manufacturing cars.

Turning Leonardo into a permanent module will take some work, said NASA Payload Manager Joe Delai. "Once it returns from this flight we will beef up the external shield and change things internally to become a permanent module. It will be about a four month process to get it ready."

Leonard being attached to the ISS on a previous mission. Credit: NASA TV

The MPLMs were built in Italy, but are owned by the U.S. and provided in exchange for Italian access to U.S. research time on the Station. Four modules were built; three flew to the ISS. STS-131 will be Leonardo's seventh trip to space.

Kinslow said shields for an MPLM are lighter weight because they are only meant to be on orbit for 2 weeks at a time. "Leonardo will be plated with a multilevel Kevlar blanket, the same type of exterior shielding other modules have, which is similar to armor plating, to protect against meteorite or debris impact. Internally, not a lot of changes will be made," he said. "It already has a ventilation system like a normal module, but will need a computer system and a few other additions."

Leonardo won't be outfitted with a sleep station or crew quarters because it might be in a more vulnerable position for radiation or debris hits. "They don't really want crew to get in and sleep because of the shielding," Kinslow said. "It will be a storage module, and we're discussing putting exercise equipment in there."

The PMM will be berthed on the Node 1 nadir, or Earth-facing port. Leonardo measures about 6.5 meters (21 feet) long and 4.5 meters (15 feet) in diameter.

STS-131 is currently scheduled for an April 5 launch, and STS-133 is shooting for a September 2010 launch.

Just a note on the ISS internet: T.J. Creamer, who is on board the station now told Universe Today that they aren't able to have streaming video or download large files. "In terms of download speeds – you know, back in the old days, it kind of compares to 9.6 and the 14.4 kilobyte modems, so it's not really fast enough to do large file exchange or videos, but it certainly lets us to do browsing and the fun reading we want to do, or get caught up on current events on that day. It's a nice outreach for us, and of course you've heard about the Twittering which is a nice feature that we can partake in also."

Robotic Surrogate Takes Your Place at Work

By Clay Dillow
From: http://www.popsci.com/

Anybots "QA" at Work Anybots

Having one of those days where even a hearty bowl of Fruit Loops and Jack Daniels can't get you out of bed? A telepresence robot can come into the office for you, elevating telecommuting to a decidedly new level. The somewhat humanoid 'bots, produced by Mountain View, California-based Anybots, are controlled via video-game-like controls from your laptop, allowing you to be "present" without actually being in the office.

The robots are equipped with a screen displaying your smiling mug to your co-workers, as well as a camera that beams a feed straight to your computer screen. They're also mobile, so you can still drop by co-workers' offices unannounced, presumably to let them know that a robot will be filling in for you today. There are a few variations that Anybots is toying with, including one with long arms and hands, and another with a laser pointer that, while useful for pointing things out in a physical environment, will prove slightly less cool than Johnny 5's shoulder-mounted laser cannon.

In all seriousness, Anybots plans to have a telepresence robot to market in the second half of next year. While it may seem to be little more than an expensive videoconferencing link (the product is expected to retail between $10,000 and $15,000), it could be a valuable tool in workplace environments where a more physical presence is handy, such as for U.S. businesses trying to keep an eye on manufacturing floors overseas. After all, you never know when a surrogate might come in handy.

All right, all right. See QA operating from both sides of the link in the (real) videos below.

[Anybots via Technology Review]