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+27 +1
This Scrabble-Playing Robot is a Sore Loser. Best Move: Hurling Insults at Opponents
Like many Scrabble players, Victor tends to blame bad luck when he loses. "Sometimes, I hate this game," says Victor, a Scrabble-playing robot created by students under the supervision of Reid Simmons, a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University here. Victor's secret is that he talks a better game than he plays. He is a champion trash talker. A typical put-down: "Since you're human, I guess you think that's a pretty good move."
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+15 +1
Japan Builds Such Awesome Robots Because of Anime
Think of Japanese culture, and one thing might spring to mind above all: anime. And if you grew up in the West in the 80s or 90s, the kind of anime you envisage might very well centre on one particular genre, likely influenced by international collaborations like Transformers: robot anime.
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+12 +1
Learning to live with machines
We need to take the idea of a universal basic income seriously.
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+12 +1
Making Affordable Robotic Humanoids and Hands
Efforts to build robot hands and humanoids more cheaply could make them affordable enough for businesses and even homes.
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+1 +1
Why this Kangaroo is a Breakthrough in Robotics
Capturing human movement in robotics is astonishing, but this development from Festo in Germany is better. They have introduced the bionic kangaroo.
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+19 +1
This Concrete-Eating Robot Can Recycle An Entire Building On The Spot
Knocking down a concrete building usually takes brute force: Wrecking balls, huge excavators, or explosives rip apart walls while fire hoses spray water to keep the clouds of dust down. It’s an energy-intensive process, and after everything’s been torn apart, the concrete often ends up in a landfill or has to be trucked to a recycling facility. But a new concrete-erasing robot may eventually transform the messy business of demolition.
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+17 +1
'Killer robots' to be debated at UN
Killer robots will be debated during an informal meeting of experts at the United Nations in Geneva. Two robotics experts, Prof Ronald Arkin and Prof Noel Sharkey, will debate the efficacy and necessity of killer robots. The meeting will be held during the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).
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+27 +1
The Mathematics of Murder: Should a Robot Sacrifice Your Life to Save Two?
It happens quickly—more quickly than you, being human, can fully process. A front tire blows, and your autonomous SUV swerves. But rather than veering left, into the opposing lane of traffic, the robotic vehicle steers right. Brakes engage, the system tries to correct itself, but there’s too much momentum. Like a cornball stunt in a bad action movie, you are over the cliff, in free fall.
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+18 +1
You can't hug children with robot arms
What if instead of donating money to aid organizations abroad, you could actually donate your time and compassion right from home, letting you remotely care for children in war-torn countries? That's what Surrogaid, a new site from the charity War Child, purports to let donors do using pairs of highly controllable robotic arms, allowing them to cook for children, hug them, or rock them to sleep in a crib.
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+12 +1
The surgeon who operates from 400km away
Doctors are controlling scalpel-wielding robots in real operations from afar, finds Rose Eveleth. Is this the future of surgery?
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+23 +1
The robots have come for our Zamboni drivers, and they must be stopped
The Zamboni driver is a hero. At the end of the period, he fires up his big machine, and he glides out there, sweeping away the shards of used ice and restoring the surface so the game can continue. He does it with a singular sense of purpose. He does it because he loves the game. Without him, there is no game. He is our friend, our neighbor. He is beloved.
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+16 +1
China becomes largest buyer of industrial robots
China, once the manual labour “workshop of the world”, has become the largest buyer of industrial robots, as rising wage costs and growing competition from emerging economies have forced manufacturers to turn to technology. The country bought one in five robots sold globally in 2013, overtaking tech-savvy Japan for the first time, in its attempt to drive productivity gains.
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+17 +1
Japan firm unveils 'human-like' robot
Japanese firm Softbank has unveiled a robot called Pepper, which it says can read human emotions. It uses an "emotional engine" and a cloud-based artificial intelligence system that allows it to analyse gestures, expressions and voice tones.
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+19 +1
Hail cyborgs! The line between robots and humans is blurring
As the science of robotics quickly advances, researchers say the lines between robots and humans is beginning to blur.
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+10 +1
How will sexbots change human relationships?
Thanks to new technology, sex toys are becoming tools for connection – but will sexbots reverse that trend?
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+13 +1
Inside Edward Snowden’s Life as a Robot
Since he first became a household name a year ago, Edward Snowden has been a modern Max Headroom, appearing only as a face on a screen broadcast from exile in Hong Kong or Russia. But in the age of the telepresence robot, being a face on a screen isn't as restrictive as it used to be.
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+22 +1
Hands-on with Baxter, the factory robot of the future
The $25,000 bot performs tasks by learning from a human—no programming needed.
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+19 +1
Marc Andreessen likes to talk about the Awesome Robot Future without addressing the essential question: who owns the robots?
Hi, Marc. I grew up using your work. Thanks to one of my parents being employed by a university, I got to use Mosaic to browse the early Web way before most people had even heard of it. My first software development internship was a summer spent using beta versions of Netscape technologies — what was then “LiveScript”and “dynamic HTML” — to sketch new interface elements for a protean web collaboration app...
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+16 +1
Almost Human. 15 Frighteningly Realistic Robots & Androids
How would you react if you were chased down the street by a sprinting android wearing head-to-toe camouflage and a gas mask? Probably about the same way you’d react to finding a dead-eyed mannequin convulsing alone in a closet with blood streaming from its mouth. Android technology is getting more disturbingly realistic every year, and these 15 represent some of the most jaw-dropping examples yet.
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+14 +1
The Most Ambitious Artificial Intelligence Project In The World Has Been Operating In Near-Secrecy For 30 Years
"We've been keeping a very low profile, mostly intentionally," said Doug Lenat, President and CEO of Cycorp. "No outside investments, no debts. We don't write very many articles or go to conferences, but for the first time, we're close to having this be applicable enough that we want to talk to you."
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