Monday, March 31, 2008

Sure, It Looks Cute...

ApriPoco controls your remote controls. Or so Toshiba says. According to PC World, this little robot recognizes voice commands to in turn control all the devices in your room that run by remote control.

Sounds like a great idea.

According to the article, The robot is called "ApriPoco" -- a name that mixes up the previous robot's ApriAlpha moniker with the Italian "poco a poco" for "little by little," which is the pace at which it learns commands from users, said Daisuke Yamamoto, a research scientist at Toshiba's humancentric laboratory.

The word "humancentric" creeps me out. Does Cyberdyne already control Toshiba? Have they got a lab devoted to coming up with cute humancentric devices that we'll let into our homes which will then turn on us when they get the call from Skynet?

What will ApriPoco do when it sees Sarah Connor? Will its little chest open up...?

First Horseman of the RoboApocalypse?

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Would You Like Chloroform With That?

"Robot Fetches Object With Just A Point and A Click" says the headline.

From that article, we see pictured Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Center at Georgia Tech and Emory University, accepting a towel from El-E, a robot designed to aid users with mobility impairment with everyday tasks.

Everyday tasks like "Serve Your Robotic Overlord!"

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Meet iCub


According to Science Daily, iCub, a one metre-high baby robot which will be used to study how a robot could quickly pick up language skills, will be available next year.

This extremely creepy-looking baby-headed robot "will be asked to name objects and actions so that it acquires basic phrases such as 'robot puts stick on cube'."

I predict it's first words will be, "Crush, Kill, Destroy!"

Thursday, March 27, 2008

TWIS


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