USB connected interactive plant (via AkihabaraNews & Keio University)

If the Japanese have not already created enough unusual devices, they have one more invention to add to their list. Researchers from Keio University have created plants that interact with their surroundings. The plants are programmed to show different emotions through their movements by using data collected from sensors. The movements that match with specific emotions were chosen by having many people show how they think a happy plant or an angry plant would move.

The plant sits in a square pot that would look like any other Japanese plant holder on the outside, but on the inside is where the plants mechanics and electronics lie. The plant moves by two stepper motors connected to its leaves and twigs by very thin cords. Additionally, it monitors its surroundings using a microphone and motion sensors. According to the input from the sensors the plant will move based on the movements it picks up and the tones it hears.

The Japanese were hoping to make plants seem more alive and have a greater presence in areas. They have conducted their research for almost a year now and have not had any plants die or wilt, although some research states otherwise. In the future, they look to bring bigger plants to life and possibly trees, they would like environments people travel through to be fully interactive. Technology may soon creep into every aspect of our surrounding world. (The world would hate us)

Video Via AkihabaraNews & partner Diginfo.tv

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Wilfried Stoll and an engineering team from Festo in Germany have designed a robot that can compose and perform its own music after ‘listening’ to a melody. The robotic system, called Sound Machines 2.0, simulates two violins, a cello, a double bass and a viola with each using only one string. The string is loosened to change notes by an electric DGE drive unit that runs parallel to the string with a pneumatic cylinder that moves a wooden hammer which strikes the string to play the note.

To make music the robots first listens to a musician playing a melody over a MIDI capable synthesizer or xylophone that’s connected to a computer where modular synthesizer software processes the signal and sends it to the robots in real-time. The computer actually composes the music in its interpretation with the help of open-sourced software that’s programmed with special algorithms that are derived from John Conway’s Game of Life cellular automaton. Once the computer writes the music it is then pieced out to the robots accordingly. The music is heard through the robots own amplifiers and 40 watt speakers which makes the music sound more spatial with a better sense of depth, as opposed to using one speaker for all 5 robots. While the robots don’t exactly play like the string section of the New York Philharmonic, they do play pretty well even if it sounds like the music from TV show Buck Rogers.

The band (via Festo)

Cabe

http://twitter.com/Cabe_e14

Robots have been designed to do just about everything from serving food to bomb defusing, but they don’t typically have the free-range movement that humans do when it comes to navigating uneven terrain. Take climbing a mountainside, wide degrees of motion and agility allow humans (and animals) the ability to handle and obstacle. Bots can only watch.

However, robotics engineers from the University of Texas and Meka Robotics (located in San Francisco) are looking to overcome this obstacle with the introduction of the Hume bi-pedal robot. The team, headed by Louis Sentis from the Human Centered Robotics Lab at UT, has designed the Hume robot to incorporate a HCHA (Human-Centered Hyper Agility) range of movement. To do this, the team used a series of elastic actuators (6 DOF SEA total)for each joint which provides the robot with 6 degrees of spatial movement (including lateral).These powerful modular actuators give the robot its strength,  speed, and a certain degree of agility. The Hume design is still in its infancy stage, as there is no internal power source and has yet to acquire feet, but it looks to be a step in the right direction for all-terrain bi-pedal robots. On the other hand, I don’t think robots will replace humans in the sport of Parkour anytime soon.

Also see PetMan from Boston Dynamics. (Hume designers should take note.)

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The Takashimiya department store in Japan decided a great promotion would be a lifelike female android mannequin seducing potential shoppers in their store window. Since its introduction, the bot has done nothing but startle customers and inspire robotics designers.

The creator of this mannequin is Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is well known for inventing the Geminoid-F Robot. The Geminoid is a bot designed to look as real as possible. If realistic is the goal, it will cost them $110,000 USD (10 million Yen) to wheel in the bot. The more recent Geminoid-DK takes realism to a completely new level. The DK was made to look exactly like its owner, Aalborg University Professor Henrik Scharfe. Hop over to the DK's website for more.

Lifelike Geminoid DK in this image. Hard to tell it is fake. (via Geminoid DK)

The idea of the mannequin is to draw in more shoppers by intriguing them to see more and not to scare them from walking inside. The mannequin is the new idea of visual merchandising.  Dr. Ishiguro said that android mannequins will be the future of shop displays and the traditional mannequins "will be no more." The mannequin knows when someone is present; now that is creepy. It can also display a range of emotions while being able to nod, yawn, and wink at a passersby.

Although it may be freaky to see, it is not any more strange than the age-old tactic of real humans in the display windows.  Even that odd job is being taken over my machines. It's a tough world for us humans.

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Many robots have been designed for the benefit of mankind taking over continuously repetitive tasks or in some cases battling other robots for entertainment purposes. However, recently experiments have been done that may allow humans to help out animal populations in times of danger.

Maurizio Porfiri and Stefano Marras from New York's Polytechnic institute have designed a biomimetic robot fish to help study collective fish behavior. The robot fish is the first of its kind engineered to simulate animal mobility. In recently conducted experiments, the robot fish was placed into a flowing stream of water with a real fish to analyze the behavior between the two. When the robot fish remained motionless in the water, the real fish seemed to ignore it and swim about in a sporadic pattern. On the other hand, when the robot fish was simulating natural fish movements and swimming in the water the real fish tended to align in a specific formation with the robot. As the robot swam in formation, the real fish's movements slowed, proving that the fish was saving energy by following along behind the robot. Additionally, this shows that groups of fish may be lead in certain directions by a robot fish. This can prove helpful when humans create ecological disasters such as oil spills that can wipe out endangered species of fish. Nevertheless, it can also help us better understand the behavior of fish.

Can the robot fish "Pied Piper" invasive species out of foreign waters?

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Imitating nature is never easy. Even its most simple processes can prove to be very hard for scientists and engineers to duplicate.  But nature seems to provide Kåre Halvorsen, a Norwegian engineer, with a lot of inspiration for his work in robotics. Kåre Halvorsen, a.k.a. Zenta, has worked on a robot inspired by ants, and now he is expanding his genius in his MorpHex Project.

His new creation resembles a crab crossed with an armadillo. The shell of the robot is made from curved polycarbonate panels each controlled by a motor. The panels and their 25 servo motor give this hexapod RC robot, the ability to walk and dance the way you would expect a crab to do so. When all the panels are pulled in towards the center of the robot, the shapes of these panels reveal they are sections of a sphere, and MorpHex rolls into a ball like an armadillo. 

The project started back in December of 2010 all based on a plastic globe. See the Hexapod robot project board.

Halvorsen has not made the robot capable of rolling but does intend to. Still, at this stage, MorpHex is capable of putting on a mesmerizing show. It is an elegant blend of mechanical and electrical design.

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If the future is all about robots, will there be robot bugs?  UC Berkeley has created and designed a “bot," if you will, that may be the first of the bug infestation, named Clash.  This little guy is 10 centimeters long and weighs only 15 grams.  Clash is a vertical and horizontal climbing robot that, due to his small and lightweight structure, is very quick on his six robotic legs. He just may be one of the fastest climbing bug-bots in existence.  He is able to move upwards at 24 centimeters per second as long as the material he is climbing is cloth.  Whether it be your clothes, your bed comforter, your couch or whatever your imagination can dig up….it looks like it would be entertaining!

Clash’s front four legs have small claws that grip the material while the two back legs provide direction and stabilization. The claws could be swapped with sticky feet, made with "Gecko Tape," so it can climb most surfaces.   You will be surprised by the get up and go of this lively little bot! (see video)

Clash is the next-gen version of Berkeley's "Dash" robot. Aside from Clash, the climbing version of Dash, the team also made a flying configuration named "Dash+Wings." Taking the idea further, they made "BOLT," a cot that can walk and then fly. It is only a matter of time before we see the "Dash-Bolt -Clash+Wings," I have no doubt.

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The next gen robots are coming; the next gen robots are coming... for over 10 years now. The robot, "Cog," was based on the hypothesis that human-level intelligence requires gaining experience from interacting with humans, like infants do. Cog was designed to learn from its embodied experiences rather than hard-coded logic.  As such, Cog may be considered the first cognitive developmental humanoid. Read more about Cog and see more video at the its MIT page.

The Kismet project originally started out as a new head for Cog, but became Cynthia Breazeal’s thesis project. Dr. Breazeal noticed a baby watches their parents very closely, and the parents seem to over emphasize their voice tones and bodily gestures. Kismet's social intelligence software system, or synthetic nervous system (SNS), was designed with human models of intelligent behavior in mind. Learn more about Kismet at its MIT page.

With all of these advancements one can't help but think of movies such as the Terminator and the matrix. These movies depict the world taken over by computer intelligence. When confronted with these questions Dr. Rodney Brooks answers them like this: Could our research be used to harm people? Unfortunately, it probably could. However, almost every type of research (both inside and outside the field of Artificial Intelligence) has this dual nature. A toaster can make 2 pieces of delicious toast, or could be used to burn two hands. Any technological advance can be used to help or hurt people. Like most researchers, we sincerely hope (and believe) that our work will ultimately serve the greater good. So keep your eyes peeled for increasingly more interactive robotic human interactions.

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