Robots

Rise of the rat-brained robots

Posted by Jeff

Via

: AFTER buttoning up a lab coat, snapping on surgical gloves and spraying them with alcohol, I am deemed sanitary enough to view a robot's control system up close. Without such precautions, any fungal spores on my skin could infect it. "We've had that happen. They just stop working and die off," says Mark Hammond, the system's creator. This is no ordinary robot control system - a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made - and continue to make - connections with each other.

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Robots: Combat Robot Attempts Rebellion Against Human Masters in Iraq, Army Pulls Plug for 10-20 Yea

Posted by Jeff from Gizmodo

Apparently, there was an incident where "the gun started moving when it was not intended to move," meaning it totally pointed somewhere it wasn't supposed to-like at friendlies, which resulted in recall from the field and might've set the program back 10-20 years, according to the Army's Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey.

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Robotic Fly to Descend on New York

Posted by Jeff from Slashdot

Harvard University's tiny microrobotic fly, hailed by its creators as 'the first robotic fly that is able to generate enough thrust to takeoff,' will be showcased at New York's Museum of Modern Art starting Feb. 24. The life-sized 'Flybot' reportedly has a wingspan of 1.2 inches (3 cm) and weighs a mere 0.002 ounces (60 mg). This project of the Harvard University Microbotics Lab has received funding from DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which hopes to gain access to mic

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Robot swarm works together to shift heavy objects

Posted by Jeff from Newscientisttech

A "swarm" of simple-minded robots that teams up to move an object too heavy for them to manage individually has been demonstrated by robotics researchers. The robots cannot communicate and must act only on what they can see around them. They follow simple rules to fulfil their task - mimicking the way insects work together in a swarm.

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Much assembly required for new robot - Innovation

Posted by Jeff from MSNBC

Sounds like too much work for me. I need a robot to assemble my robot.

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Honda's robot grows up, ready for the office

Posted by Jeff from MSNBC

I just want an Aibo.

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Remote-control prostate surgery shows advantages over conventional surgery

Posted by Jeff from Seattle Times

Its like arthroscopic but with more incisions. No room for a surgeon's hand, just the remotely operated instruments. A short would be bad.

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