RoboSapien Announce

Mark W. Tilden
Robotics Physicist

BEAM robotics is entering the humanoid race with its own 14-inch high, slightly-more-affordable walking machine. It'll retail for about $80, has 67 built in functions, speaks international "caveman", reconfigurable touch and sound reflexes, and features nested programming functions.


The "RoboSapien" (from WowWee Toys) uses resonant non-linear dynamics instead of the usual "Zero Force Point" Honda walking paradigm. Though the product is digital, it's based on "nervous network" analog technologies featured in a variety of marketed science, education, and robotic products.
Main features are no computer required, easy for kids, advanced enough for adults, over 6 hours runtime from regular batteries, and it's fast.
http://www.wowwee.com/
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,473095,00.html PopSci Art.
http://www.androidworld.com/prod02.htm A nice picture at AndroidWorld
http://www.allnerdreview.com/TOYFAIR/2003/TF2003WOW.html A detailed review of the humanoid and other 2003 Wow Wee products.

Robotic 'William' and 'Mary' cruise campus
Both Mary and William are taken across campus as the robotic researchers teach the devices to recognize various objects.

Thursday, August 21, 2003
By BRIAN WHITSON THE (NEWPORT NEWS) DAILY PRESS

WILLIAMSBURG - It might be a bit surprising the first time you encounter 'William' and 'Mary,' who have spent their summer months learning the lay of the land at the College of William and Mary.
Just about a year old each, both are little creatures about 2 feet wide and 26 inches long that spend most summer days navigating the campus and soaking up each peculiar sound.
To visitors, they may look like souped-up remote-control vehicles. To a group of researchers, students and professors at the college, they are part of cutting-edge robotic technology.
[...]

A Learning Robot: Adam in Eden
More correctly, this is Adam (ADAptive Mobile robot) in Eden (EDucational ENvironment). Adam is a learning robot developed at Monash University in Australia. The Melbourne Herald Sun tells us more in 'Current research gives Adam a charge.'
In an attempt to further the development of home robots, Associate Professor Andy Russell has put Adam (ADAptive Mobile robot) in his own garden named Eden (EDucational ENvironment) where the dish-shaped robot learns how to travel in the most energy-efficient way and feed himself from flowers when his charge dies.
[...]

Herald Sun: Japan to market 'robot suit' [21aug03]

From correspondents in Tokyo
21aug03

JAPANESE companies are preparing for the commercial launch of a ``robot suit'' that helps aged or physically disabled people walk, get up the stairs or seat themselves to relax without a chair.
Trading house Mitsui and Co. and some 30 other Tokyo firms plan to set up a joint venture in April or May next year to market the powered suit developed by Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University, officials said Thursday.
"This is neither a robot in machine factories nor a one for amusement like a pet robot. This is a brand-new proposal projecting a future image of relations between people and robots,'' Sanaki said.
[...]

Ananova - Talking robot will be special guest at state reception

Story filed: 15:42 Thursday 21st August 2003

A talking robot will be the special guest when the prime ministers of the Czech republic and Japan sit down to dinner at a state reception in Prague.
The robot - named Asimo - will join the two leaders in the city's Hrzansky Palace, Czech Government.
Asimo is said to speak both Czech and Japanese, as well as being able to walk, shake hands and recognise voices.
[...]

MORPH 3
MORPH 3, a 38-cm-tall humanoid robot, tries to stand after being laid on its back during an experiment at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture.

ERATO Kitano Project
Takayuki Furuta, Masaharu Shimizu, Tetsuo Tawara, Yu Okumura, Masaki
Shimomura and Hiroaki Kitano1
1 ERATO Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project
Registration information:
Data about the team
Team name: ERATO Kitano Project
Team leader Name: Hiroaki Kitano
Affiliation: ERATO Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project
E-mail address: kitano@symbio.jst.go.jp
URL: http://www.symbio.jst.go.jp/
Names of other team members:
Takayuki Furuta, Masaharu Shimizu,
Tetsuo Tawara, Yu Okumura,
Masaki Shimomura
Data about the robot
Mechanical construction
Overall height: 38 cm
Overall weight: 2.4 kg

The Japan Times Online :: 30-year robot project pitched
Researchers see tech windfalls in costly humanoid quest

The Japan Times: Aug. 20, 2003

Japanese researchers in robot technology are advocating a grand project, under which the government would spend 50 billion yen a year over three decades to develop a humanoid robot with the mental, physical and emotional capacity of a 5-year-old human.
The researchers believe the Atom Project, inspired by the popular robot animation series 'Tetsuwan Atom' by the late cartoonist Osamu Tezuka, would help promote scientific and technological advances in Japan, just like the U.S. Apollo Project, which not only succeeded in landing men on the moon but contributed to a broad range of technological breakthroughs.
[...]

TCS: Tech - Robot Economics

By James D. Miller
08/19/2003

Will robots steal all our jobs? Although today's robots may lack the intelligence God gave ants, robots of the future might perform many 'human' tasks. Economics shows, however, that humans needn't fret over robot-induced redundancies.
[...]
Robots can't steal all jobs, but to prove this I must, alas, behave like an economist and develop a simple model. Let's assume that our economy produces only two goods: wine and cake. Each human makes one of these goods and trades it for the other.
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Daily Yomiuri On-LineReport from Silicon Valley / Robots set to invade the household

By John Jerney / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

Some people call opera the grandest of the performing arts. According to these people, opera has it all: music, singing, theatrical performance, and occasionally even some dance.
In the world of technology, the equivalent has to be robotics. Robotics combines the best of mechanical design, sensors, microminiaturization, computer science and artificial intelligence. Robotics too has it all.
[...]