Six of GM's "Damsels of Design," photographed circa 1955. From left: Suzanne Vanderbilt, Ruth Glennie, Marjorie Ford Pohlman, Harley Earl, Jeanette Linder, Sandra Logyear, Peggy Sauer. Image credit: General Motors Design Archive & Special Collections via WNYC
Joseph Medicine Crow crosses over at 102 - author, historian, activist, Medal of Freedom recipient, last Crow War Chief, last link to Battle of Little Big Horn | Washington Post
Boston Dynamics (BD) recently released a video of their new and improved Atlas robot. Lots of great new features and abilities including being tether free, the ability to avoid obstacles, and to function outside.
What also becomes clear in the new video BD released on the new model is that humans will have no problem pissing off robots. It's a little too Terminator AND Battlestar Galactica for our taste because they we all know they will someday want to get even. Luckily, Scifi also tells us that robots will very likely be pretty sassy in their own right so hopefully this trait evolves faster than their interest in kicking our asses.
Here's a link to a post featuring one of our favorite sassy robots.
Now you all know that we are BIG fans of robots here at Future-ish. But we also get a little freaked out when things come a little too close to cylons in Battlestar Galactica or any other scifi in which robots get a little too advanced for our own good.
A new development is both very cool AND a little scary: robots that teach themselves. Yay but eek! Berkeley postdoc Igor Mordatch has created an algorithm that allows robots to perform taks, achieve goals, and teach themselves all along the way. Lucky for us, most of the fascinating work is being done mostly via simulated software robots at this stage.
Image credit: Molly Matalon and Damien Maloney for Bloomberg Businessweek
Great multimedia article on Bloomberg Business by Jack Clark featuring a lab at Berkeley that is giving robots the opportunity to learn like little humans, "This Preschool is for Robots". The teaser line reads "Want machines to learn the way human toddlers do? You need a “classroom” equipped with Lego blocks and plenty of patience", fascinating stuff for sure. When you think of Battlestar Galactica's Number Six, one can only wonder when the social elements of human preschool might come into play...when do robot 'clicks' start?
These little robots debuted in 2013 but we recently ran across them while researching mobility systems of the future. These Nissan EPORO robots are inspired by the movements of group animals and will serve to help car engineers reduce car injuries and fatalities. With eyes like bumblebees and movements like swarms of fish, the EPORO is breaking new ground in understanding how robot cars can interact in safe ways.
And yes, they do remind us a little of another little robot, perhaps one of the most famous little robots in the world...R2D2.
