Singularity watch: Through computer, brain can direct a robot

From my Boston Globe column this week:

Wearing what looks like a swim cap wired with electrodes, you can “command’’ a robot to move left, right, and forward by looking at corresponding areas on a computer screen, the Northeastern researchers say.

Here’s how it works:

Each quadrant on the user’s computer screen represents a different command and flashes at a different frequency.

Staring at a particular quadrant causes the user’s visual cortex to emit a corresponding frequency, which a computer translates into a directional command.

The system then wirelessly transmits those commands to the laptop on the back of the robot. (The user can track the robot’s whereabouts by using a Skype video connection with the laptop.)

via Through computer, brain can direct a robot – The Boston Globe.

Pentagon shooter aimed to create synthetic life

Photo: Zoe/Flickr CC

Mad scientist proposed creating self-assembling nanobots and “smart dust” with DNA.

This week’s anti-government, lone gunman, John Patrick Bedell, is another perfect poster boy for the government’s crackdown on the pro-pot and 9/11 truth movements.

Bedell, who was killed at a subway entrance to the Pentagon, was bent on according to the LA Times,

“revealing the truth behind the 9/11 “demolitions.”

Bedell also bore a grudge against the authorities, who busted him with weed at his California home some time ago.

But the mad scientist’s greatest passion may have been bringing about the Singularity — that future point in human evolution, predicted by Ray Kurzweil and others, when genetics, nanotechnology and robotics become a single science, reality and virtual reality become indistinguishable, and people become immortal.

Bedell, in 2006, proposed blending DNA with standard, integrated circuits, to create self-propagating “smart dust,” tiny, self-propagating — indeed, living — sensors and robots that could provide governments will blanket surveillance capabilities.

And in this way, Bedell shares something with another gun-wielding nerd in the news: UAH shooter, Amy Bishop, designer of a cyborg mechanism, the Neuristor.

Here’s Bedell’s proposal for the DNA-integrated circuit hybrids:

via Pentagon shooter apparently doubted 9/11 facts in Web posting – latimes.com.

Click here for a primer on synthetic biology.

Interested in tech from the Hub? Check out this week’s User Friendly

UM's foot of fury makes walking more efficient

Amputees wearing prosthetics have to expend almost a quarter more energy than the rest of us, to walk the same distances.

This new, microchipped artificial foot (above) compensates for that.

via PLoS ONE: Recycling Energy to Restore Impaired Ankle Function during Human Walking.

Tiny planes to snoop inside homes

Photo: John Brian Silverio. Flickr/CC

Photo: John Brian Silverio. Flickr/CC

Another wacky one, courtesy of DARPA:

The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking approaches to allow a small (Nano Air Vehicle to Micro Air Vehicle scale) air vehicle to be Teleoperated and Hover In Place (TeleHIP) in GPS denied environments. It is anticipated that the flight environment for this capability will be primarily in buildings or similarly sized enclosures. The development of a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capable of such missions would add a new capability to urban intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and provide increased situational awareness for warfighters.

via Defense Sciences Office.

Robots to eat useless eaters

In fairness, new DoD killer robots are omnivores:

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment and other organically-based energy sources, as well as use conventional and alternative fuels such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

via Military Robots to Feed on Human Flesh « Aftermath News.

Stupid animatronic trick of the day

Photo: CC/Toni Lucatorto

Photo: CC/Toni Lucatorto

Japan is talking-up yet another bipedal robot (at least officials are not describing this one as a potential sexual partner, yet), to help humans settle-in on the moon, in about ten years.

TOKYO (AP) — 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, according to Japan’s Strategic Headquarters for Space Development, a Cabinet-level working group.

via The Associated Press: Japan aims for walking robot on the moon by 2020.

Stupid animatronic trick of the day

Yet another do-nothing Japanese robot (part of an ongoing game of one-upsmanship between automakers and electronics companies) that mimics one or more aspects of human behavior…Found on Drudge (www.drudgereport.com), who eats this stuff up.

more about “Stupid animatronics trick of the day“, posted with vodpod

At least the AFP didn’t lead its story with the tired line, “It sounds like science fiction, but…”

The creators of the Child-robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, say it’s slowly developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, mimicking a mother-baby relationship.

A bald, child-like creature dangles its legs from a chair as its shoulders rise and fall with rythmic breathing and its black eyes follow movements across the room.

It’s not human — but it is paying attention.

via Japan child robot mimicks infant learning.

But to say the CB2 is “paying attention,” or “developing social skills,” is a stretch, if you consider these to be functions of a conscious mind.

More to Middle Earth than imagined – The Boston Globe

Mines of Moria, from Westwood, Mass.-based Turbine

Image: LOTR: Mines of Moria, from Westwood, Mass.-based Turbine

In my Boston Globe column today, I embrace the latest Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, and note the growth of a Middle Earth MMO. Both products are from Massachusetts-based companies.

Please take a moment to read the column, and comment at Boston.com!

Just in time for Great Depression 2.0:

Westwood-based Turbine (it’s at www.turbine.com) last week launched a game that will keep you busy for as long as you can keep the lights on.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria is the first expansion pack for Turbine’s massively multiplayer online game about hobbits, wizards, and whatnot.

LOTRO: Mines of Moria shows there is even more to Middle Earth than MMO players could have imagined.

via More to Middle Earth than imagined – The Boston Globe

IBM, DARPA, building "cat brain"

Can killer robocats be far behind?

CC/Arizona Parrot

Photo: CC/Arizona Parrot

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains. Part of a field called “cognitive computing”, the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists. As a first step in its research the project has been granted $4.9m £3.27m from US defense agency Darpa. The resulting technology could be used for large-scale data analysis, decision making or even image recognition. source: news.bbc.co.uk

via IBM to Build Cat-like Brain

Don’t know why, but this story appears to be a re-report of a story that ran a month ago: Click here for that one.