Saturday - June 27, 2009
Giant alien robots don't actually exist. So the dozens featured in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" had to be built from the ground up. That effort took hundreds of artists, thousands of hours and even caused one computer to explode. "We lost some machinery," visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar said with a smile. "The thing just kind of gave up." A high-tech blockbuster, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is practically two movies in one. There's the live-action element, which took director Michael Bay and his cast to Egypt, Jordan and New Mexico.
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Tuesday - April 28, 2009
Earlier this month, the journal Science reported on a robot that could formulate hypotheses, perform experiments to test those hypotheses, and thereby contribute to scientific knowledge. This technological advance raises legal concerns: Based on current law, if a robot conceived the idea for an "invention," this invention might not have the possibility for patent protection in the U.S.
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Friday - April 10, 2009
These gardeners would have green thumbs -- if they had thumbs. A class of undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created a set of robots that can water, harvest and pollinate cherry tomato plants. The small, $3,000 robots, which move through the garden on a base similar to a Roomba vacuum, are networked to the plants.
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Monday - April 6, 2009
Japan hopes to have a two-legged robot walk on the moon by around 2020, with a joint mission involving astronauts and robots to follow, according to a plan laid out Friday by a government group. Specifics of the plan, including what new technologies will be required and the size of the project's budget, are to be decided within the next two years.
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Friday - April 3, 2009
There may not be a white lab coat big enough for Adam, the newest and most expensive member of the scientific department at Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK. Adam, a $1 million robot-computer amalgam about the size of a large pickup truck, carried out genetic experiments on yeast and reached groundbreaking conclusions without human help, according to a report in the journal Science.
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Wednesday - November 26, 2008
You might not think you have robots in your house, but think again. There's your dishwasher, for instance; you put dishes in it, walk away, and a half hour later they're clean. Same thing with your washing machine. Or your programmable coffeemaker. Though these everyday mechanical devices aren't humanoid, they are on the robotic spectrum, in the sense that they perform functions with minimal human involvement.
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Friday - August 22, 2008
Intel outlined an ambitious vision of future technologies Thursday at this year's Intel Developer Forum held in San Francisco. In his keynote address Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, spoke about and demonstrated several technologies he said would be part of an evolution that closes the gap between humans and machines by 2050.
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Saturday - May 3, 2008
Despite some impressive showings in robotics lately, the accolades are slow to come from industry outsiders. We, the general public, watch Honda's Asimo slowly make its way down a few steps, for example, and unfairly compare it to the glib and golden C-3PO of science fiction, and thus blind ourselves to the miracle before us.
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Monday - February 11, 2008
Growing at more than 25 percent per year, e-commerce gives consumers a lot of what they want: broad assortment and convenient shopping any time from anywhere. To successfully compete with the bricks, all e-commerce has to do is stock the "long tail," ensure order accuracy, ensure nearly instant gratification with overnight shipping and keep shipping costs down.
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Monday - November 5, 2007
An autonomous robotic SUV from Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Racing team won the $2 million prize in the DARPA Urban Challenge by successfully completing an urban obstacle course faster than 10 other finalists in the race, held Nov. 3. "Boss," as the robotized 2007 Chevy Tahoe is called, averaged 14 miles per hour over 55 miles.
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Friday - November 2, 2007
Eleven robotic vehicles will compete in the final race Saturday of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Urban Challenge event. Selected from a group of 35 that participated in qualifying events over the past week or so, the 11 finalists will now have to successfully complete a complex, 60-mile urban course with live traffic in less than six hours.
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