Robots Category Archives
трепанация дара
18 November 2012 | Art, Lifeform, Robots, Story | No Comments
сюжеты происходят рядом с нами беспрерывно:
Occasionally, [Patrick Tresset] was successful [painter], exhibiting his work in Paris and London. But “along the way, I kind of lost touch with reality. … I kind of lost my ability to function in society,” he said last weekend at a press conference at Ciudad de las Ideas, an annual gathering about big ideas held in Puebla, Mexico, and sponsored by Grupo Salinas.
In his 30s, Tresset made the admirable and difficult decision to seek treatment for his mental health problems—and for him, medication and therapy worked. There was just one problem. “I was able to function again … but I lost my passion for art, for doing things by hand,” he said.
трудно поверить, но его спасли роботы:
Tresset, for one, discovered a novel way to stay mentally healthy with the help of drugs and still pursue what was once his life’s work: He created robots that can draw portraits.
если это не будущее, которое уже состоялось, то я и не знаю, что сказать. и, да, это так же поразительный экскурс в творчество.
the dog didn’t seem to like it
15 August 2012 | Robots | 1 Comment
заобтливых друзей — в каждую семью:
I had dinner with [a robot] — right here in Silicon Valley.
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The main attraction was the PR2, which can pick things up, fold laundry, open doors and bring cups, plates and other small objects to people. The PR2 is pretty stunning to see in action. Its price, $400,000 for the fully functional version, is pretty stunning, too. And although it is impressive to watch, it is still easily baffled by the mundane.
At the dinner, one of the PR2s dropped a soda can on the floor and just stood there, befuddled. It couldn’t figure out what had happened to the can. It was as if it had just performed a wonderful magic trick on itself
или вот еще другой вариант:
Mr. Cousins said he believed the next wave of robots to enter — or invade — the home and work force would be telepresence robots. These machines have a built-in screen and camera and are essentially mobile video-chatting terminals that can be controlled from thousands of miles away.
ну да, ну да. и в самом деле, скорей бы уж побольше роботов с первичными и вторичными половыми признаками.
а в остальном, конечно, 
Миша прав, человек слишком прекрасен, чтобы заниматься работой.
правила восприятия
24 April 2012 | Art, Lifeform, MT, Robots, Technology | 3 Comments
новая эстетика давно уже рвется наружу:
At SXSW this year, I asked four people to comment on the New Aesthetic, which if you don’t know is an investigation / project / tumblr looking at technologically-enabled novelty in the world.
и дальше:
One of the core themes of the New Aesthetic has been our collaboration with technology, whether that’s bots, digital cameras or satellites (and whether that collaboration is conscious or unconscious), and a useful visual shorthand for that collaboration has been glitchy and pixelated imagery, a way of seeing that seems to reveal a blurring between “the real” and “the digital”, the physical and the virtual, the human and the machine. It should also be clear that this ‘look’ is a metaphor for understanding and communicating the experience of a world in which the New Aesthetic is increasingly pervasive.
вот, например:
Because machine/computer vision isn’t very advanced, to exist with machines in the real world we need to mark up the world to help them see. The above image is imagining how this could work, but below is it occurring in the real world QR codes (or something somewhat similar) are placed on a factory floor in a grid solely to aid robots, there is nothing here for us humans to use. And yet the passage of the robots create a pattern, tracks from the wheels and circles where the robots turn and turn and turn. This is computer vision spilling out into the real world.
радует безмерно:
What has been brilliant about the New Aesthetic for me, personally, is that it has produced work, it has made me see and think about the world in a strange way, out of which thinking strange things have fallen, like Rorschmap and Robot Flaneur and Balloon Drones and Shadows, of which more anon.
помните о чуде? ровно так оно и зачаровывает.
сбыча мечт
12 March 2012 | Lifeform, Literature, Robots | 1 Comment
it’s just not evenly distributed yet:
When Richard Garriott de Cayeux threw a costume party the night before his wedding in Paris, his 82-year-old mother dressed up as an Indian princess and attended as a robot.
Helen Mary Garriott wasn’t strong enough to make the long trip from her home in Las Vegas. So Mr. Garriott de Cayeux went looking for alternatives. The one he hit upon was a portable robot about the size of a canister vacuum cleaner with a telescoping neck, binocular-shaped eyes and a screen for a forehead.
Уильям Гибсон, “Прерывание на счет ноль”. Станислав Лем, “Мир на Земле”. итд. итп.
where the wild things are
21 December 2011 | Robots | No Comments
хотя, может, все было совсем наоборот:
PINOKY is a wireless ring-like device that can be externally attached to any plush toy as an accessory that animates the toy, such as by moving its limbs.
ведь правда?
миот
23 November 2011 | Lifeform, Robots | 1 Comment
куда лучшим подарком, впрочем, служат неизменно сбывающиеся пророчества:
In current robotics research there is a vast body of work on algorithms and control methods for groups of decentralized cooperating robots, called a swarm or collective. These algorithms are generally meant to control collectives of hundreds or even thousands of robots; however, for reasons of cost, time, or complexity, they are generally validated in simulation only, or on a group of a few 10s of robots. To address this issue, we present Kilobot, a low-cost robot designed to make testing collective algorithms on hundreds or thousands of robots accessible to robotics researchers. To enable the possibility of large Kilobot collectives where the number of robots is an order of magnitude larger than the largest that exist today, each robot is made with only $14 worth of parts and takes 5 minutes to assemble. Furthermore, the robot design allows a single user to easily oversee the operation of a large Kilobot collective, such as programming, powering on, and charging all robots, which would be dificult or impossible to do with many existing robotic systems. We demonstrate the capabilities of the Kilobot as a collective robot, using a 29 robot test collective to implement some popular swarm behaviors.
Как это обычно бывает в истории, никто не понимал значения происходящего, поскольку открытия, которым предстояло слиться в DEHUMANIZATION TREND IN NEW WEAPON SYSTEMS, совершались в очень далеких друг от друга областях науки. Интеллектроника создала дешевые, как трава, микрокалькуляторы, а нейроэнтомология разгадала наконец загадку насекомых. Ведь, скажем, пчелы тоже живут в сообществах, работают ради общей цели и общаются между собой при помощи особого языка, хотя мозг человека в 380.000 раз больше нервной системы пчелы. Рядовому солдату вполне хватило бы сообразительности пчелы, только видоизмененной на военный лад.
и это даже не говоря о “Непобедимом”, ага.
пыхтелки и жужжалки
9 October 2011 | Lifeform, Robots, Software | No Comments
новости с передовой:
The U.S. line of Predator and Reaper unmanned arial vehicles (UAVs) was hit by a computer virus that is logging the keystrokes of pilots as they steer the UAVs remotely through Afghanistan and other warzones, found Wired’s Danger Room blog.
According to security researcher Miles Fidelman, however, the virus may be an internal Department of Defense (DoD) security monitoring package. He noted there are “a couple of vendors” who sell such technology to the DoD, which are “essentially rootkits that do, among other things, key logging.”
и другая цитата:
— То, что спереди выглядит замысловатой тайной, сзади просто, как проволока, — продолжал он. — Послали самые лучшие программы производства оружия на Луну? Послали. Они совершенствовались в течение икс лет? Еще как совершенствовались! Налетели друг на дружку на всех парах? Ясно, иначе и не могло быть. Кто победил? Как всегда, тот, кто в наименьшем объеме сосредоточил наибольшую вредность. Выиграли паразиты, эти молекулярные ничтожества. Даже не знаю, окрестили их уже как-нибудь или нет. Я бы предложил Virus Lunaris Pacemfaciens. Только хотелось бы знать, КАК и ЧТО заманило тебя на Луну, чтобы ты высадился там и привез эту благотворную чуму? Теперь можешь мне рассказать — приватно, потому что правительствам это уже без разницы.
— Уничтожены все программы? И компьютерные, и все, все? — спросил я, ошеломленный. Только теперь я начал сознавать размеры катастрофы.
— Да, это так, дорогой. Ты принес миру мор.
voiceless, passive, inanimate objects
29 January 2011 | Robots, Sex | 2 Comments
She can speak four different languages fluently, listens to you, can be sexy and flirty or mothering and nurturing. To some she might be the perfect companion, to others she is stereotyping women by being the world’s first sex robot.
а уж какое разнообразие, прямо дух захватывает:
The robot comes with different personalities, including “Young Yoko”, a beginner at the sex game, and “S&M Susan”, an experienced lover who will have no problem with causing a little pain if requested.
Roxxxy can also be programmed into a “Frigid Farrah” personality where according to Truecompanion website, “if you touched her in a private area, more than likely, she will not be too appreciative of your advance”.
но вообще, конечно, я только рад:
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirms that having a companion, particularly in one’s elder years, can increase life expectancy.
хотя самое смешное — это корни, разумеется:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if, say fifteen years from now, there’s a Time magazine cover story on the man who invented the world’s first commercially successful sex robot, and it turns out that he, and it will almost definitely be a “he”, came from a military R&D background,” [Peter] Nowak says.
чистый “Мир на земле”, не меньше.
три закона роботехники
18 January 2011 | Robots | 3 Comments
долгожданная сиеста не за горами:
At just five feet tall and 86 pounds, the HRP-4 may be the office grunt of tomorrow. The humanoid robot, developed by Tokyo-based Kawada Industries and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technology, is programmed to deliver mail, pour coffee, and recognize its co-workers’ faces.
сколько чашек кофе он должен выпить, чтобы достигнуть настоящих беловортничковых вершин? сколько заточенных карандашей предстоит ему воткнуть в глухие стены непонимания, и сколько чертовски важных документов надо украсть, чтобы выжить в офисной борьбе:
For businesses with deeper pockets, there’s the PR2, a “personal robot” developed by Willow Garage, a robotics research group in Menlo Park, Calif., founded by Scott Hassan, one of the original architects of the Google search engine. PR2 officially hit the market last September for $400,000, and Samsung became one of its first customers. Unlike more affordable office robots, the five-foot-tall, two-armed, rolling PR2 can do remedial problem solving, open doors without instruction, and plug itself into a wall socket when its battery is running low [emphasis mine]. And as seen in Garage’s video demonstrations, it can fetch a beer from the fridge and play a mean game of pool. Soon enough, people won’t even need real friends.
к чему эти громкие слова о друзьях — уже прямо сейчас, я уверен, работать в подобном коллективе было бы и легче, и спокойнее — где еще найдешь хоть кого-нибудь, готового и в самом деле принимать решения?
механические сказки
21 November 2010 | Robots | No Comments
прекрасные японские игрушечные роботы:
Everyone is always looking for the next big thing. In the 1960s, it was going into space. In the ’40s and ’50s, the frontier was technology, with a particular focus on “What’s going to make our lives easier?”
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Robots fit into that drive for convenience. They were going to be the next big thing. Everyone would have a personal robot, like Rosie the robot on “The Jetsons,” who would do your chores for you.
и трава раньше зеленей была, и роботы роботящей:
Any kind of vintage collectible reminds us of a simpler time, when things were a little bit easier to digest.
любуюсь непрестанно.