A portrait drawing robot

A team at the Goldsmiths, University of London, have developed a robot that can draw as well as a professional artist. The forger has ‘eyes’ linked to an artificial mind which imperfectly simulates a small part of the trainer’s abilities, the Daily Mail reported. During a demonstration, artist Patrick Tresset, who is working with Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie in the project called AIKON-II, trained the robot to take portraits of humans, based on his abilities. It was found that the device watched his master sketching portraits and then put into practice what it has learnt. The AIKON Project will follow two main research paths: one starts from the study of sketches in archives and notes left by artists and the other is based on contemporary scientific and technological knowledge. Explaining more about the project Prof Fol Leymarie said: “Even if still partial, the accumulated knowledge about our perceptual and other neurobiological systems is advanced enough that, together with recent progress in computational hardware, computer vision and artificial intelligence, we can now try to build sophisticated computational simulations of at least some of the identifiable perceptual and cognitive processes involved in face sketching by artists.” The system has always been very limited by its lack of “awareness” of what it was drawing — and the next step being worked on by Tresset and Prof Fol Leymarie is to tweak the machine so that it can think for itself and draw in its own style. In a few years it could possibly recreate our finest classics without our detecting it as a fraud.

Drug Dealer Robot

A company named Remedi SeniorCare is producing a robot to dispense drugs to people in health care facilities and pharmacies. The automated, computerized system packages, labels and dispenses thousands of
individual drug orders a day. Michael G. Bronfein, Remedi's chief executive said, "It's like a big Pez dispenser", gleefully, he added, "But with a super-gigantic brain".

The automated system requires up to five people, including a maintenance person, to operate as opposed to16 people to do the same job.  It can dispense medication to patients but it doesn't make sure they take them.  Should a person be unable to take their pills or stockpiles them, the robot doesn't care.  Instead of health care facilities, they can call themselves, don’t care facilities.

Mr. Noboto
http://noboto.blogspot.com

Automobots

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.  It appears that Google is behind a robot car project designed to take the human error out of driving.  They took some Priuses and outfitted them with sensors, computers, and gadgetry so they could driver themselves.  The robot cars can react quicker to obstacles and therefore travel closer together than human drivers.  The automobots could use fuel more efficiently by keeping itself in peak shape and not having the lead foot some of us have.  With a navigation system equipped with speed limits and road conditions, the robot obeys all traffic laws.  A driver, I mean occupant, can get to their destination well rested because they could sleep on the trip. The vehicle can be programmed with a more defensive or aggressive driving profile depending on how much of a hurry you are in. The nobel principle here is that the car can mimic human decisions on the road without being distracted or impaired and thus get in less collisions.  
Of course I’m going to take this to the obvious next step. If the robot is so smart, will you need a license?  Could you just have your children delivered to and picked up from school?  If an animal runs out in front of the vehicle and it needs to decide wether to kill or drive into oncoming traffic, what will it do?  When it reaches its service interval, will the car just go leaving you stranded. If there is an accident, and the robot is driving, who is at fault?  I have more questions than answers about the wisdom of this whole thing.
Let's say an  automobot is an alcohol burning, super charged, 800 horsepower Mustang.  It could be sent south of the border on package runs with a program profile not to care about any Priuses and to take evasive actions, when necessary, to deliver "cargo"on time and without stops.” Oh yeah, lets give it weapons for self preservation.

What do you Think?

Robo-Invester

How would you like a robot to make and spend your money for you?  There is some buzz on the web about the forex robot.  This is a computer based program designed to monitor the stock market long term trends, daily movements, or semi-daily trends.  It will make trades for you based on analysis. The contention is that people use too much emotion when it comes to making business decisions and that there should be no emotion in making money. At the end of the day you might find your entire portfolio has changed but don't take it personally, the program overruled you based on data.
What happens when the program decides to leave you out of the equation
because you give it unsound instructions?  Does it create a pay-pal account in its own name to hire a bodyguard against you, open offshore accounts to shield capital gains, or move out of your computer all together to reside in the web taking your money with it?

Don-8r the panhandling robot set to make the homeless obsolete

By Brian Heater 
posted Apr 26th 2011 7:34AM

Until now, one field has been safe from robotic interference: collecting money on the street. Not for long. A space already overcrowded with guitar playing hippies, dogs in bandanas, and children carrying bright orange UNICEF boxes has a new force to reckon with. It's Don-8r (pronounced "donator," for those who don't speak robot), programmed expressly to collect change and be adorable. University of Dundee student Tim Pryde created the coin-fueled robot to help raise money for charity. It's taken a few spins around the school's campus and has already mastered the three Ps of money collection: politeness, persistence, and performance -- the latter accomplished via color changing lights in its orb-like head. Video of Don-8r doing its thing after the break.

Robot Snake

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has developed a robot snake equipped with video and audio equipment that moves on the ground for intelligence collection. It can be used for special forces stealth operations, for crawling through Hamas tunnels, into Hezbollah bunkers, or perhaps your home.

The six-foot long snake can be camouflaged and fitted with explosives and detonated inside a location. The snake can crawl into target positions through sewage pipes, under buildings and through forests. It’s operated by one person with a laptop computer.

Drone Frindly fire

On  April 6, 2011 two U.S. troops were hit by "friendly fire" from a drone aircraft. The two were killed by a Hellfire missile after being mistook for insurgents moving to attack a group of Marines in southern Afghanistan, the Tribune Washington Bureau reported April 11, 2011.
Many Predators and more heavily armed Reaper drones fly every day over Afghanistan, operated remotely by pilots at air bases in the United States. Cameras aboard the drones provide live video feeds to ground combat units. The missile strike occurred about 9:30 a.m. near the town of Sangin.

Robosapien

Robosapien has touch sensors and a sound sensor for detecting obstructions and responding to  noise, music or spoken commands. His walks, whistles, high-fives, he picks up objects, he can throw or knock down things with his arms; he executes karate chops.  He can dances to tunes he hears, his eyes flash, he talks, grunts, burps, roars, raps and passes gas.  Perhaps he will even do exercises while owners sit on their fat backsides.

Philliebot

Mark Wednesday 4/20/2011 in your calendar as the day a robot threw out the ceremonial first pitch of a Major League Baseball game between the Phillies and the Brewers.  It was developed by University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science. It may look like fun and games now but before very long, there will be robots calling the strikes.

Robots are a threat

Robots are a threat to society. A robot is any machine or mechanical device that operates automatically with human like skill. They take our jobs, limit our imagination, and monitor our activities. They have progressed from tools to coworkers and often, we find ourselves serving them. Robots do not buy products and neither will out of work humans.  The trend of diminished need for humans must stop now.