Robots evolve to learn cooperation, hunting

Robots evolve to learn cooperation, hunting CNET "If robots are allowed to evolve through natural selection, they will develop adaptive abilities to hunt prey, cooperate, and even help one another, according to Swiss researchers.

In a series of experiments described in the journal PLoS Biology, Dario Floreano of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and Laurent Keller of the University of Lausanne reported that simple, small-wheeled Khepera and Alice robots can evolve behaviors such as collision-free movement and homing techniques in only several hundred 'generations.'"

Walking Robot Maid

South Korean scientists develop walking robot maid: "South Korean scientists have developed a walking robot maid which can clean a home, dump clothes in a washing machine and even heat food in a microwave.

"Mahru-Z has a human-like body including a rotating head, arms, legs and six fingers plus three-dimensional vision to recognise chores that need to be tackled, media reports said Monday.

'The most distinctive strength of Mahru-Z is its visual ability to observe objects, recognise the tasks needed to be completed, and execute them,' You Bum-Jae, head of the cognitive robot centre at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, told the Korea Times."

Giving Computers the Gift of Gab

Endowing Computers With the Gift of Gab from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute "Despite the power of computers to crunch numbers with unfathomable speed and perform quadrillions of calculations per second, the machines are still quite primitive in their ability to truly understand human language.

"This is a glaring digital deficiency that Nicholas Cassimatis, assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is looking to solve. He is leading a multi-university team of researchers to develop unified theories of language and cognition that aim to allow more meaningful linguistic interaction between humans and computers. Only by better understanding the nature of human language, Cassimatis said, can we develop computational systems with human-level language abilities."

Loyola Uses Robots To Treat Lung Cancer

Robots Treat Lung Cancer: from medicalnewstoday.com Another application of the Da Vinci™ surgical system to improve surgical outcomes. "Unlike a traditional lobectomy, which requires a large incision and division of the muscles of the chest and spreading the ribs, the robotic procedure using the Da Vinci™ Surgical System allows surgeons to perform the same surgical procedure through four small incisions, resulting in less pain and reduced loss of blood.

"Robotic surgery for lung cancer is done thoracoscopically, in which a tiny camera is inserted through a small incision in order to give surgeons a three-dimensional view of the inside of the chest, which is very rigid and harder to operate on using traditional surgery. Working through three additional, small incisions, the surgeon controls every move of the robotic arms from a computer console at the patient's bedside. The robot's arms are fully articulated, allowing it to turn and grasp with more agility and precision than the human hand."

Robotic Nurses in Your Future?

Toyota Sees Robotic Nurses in Your Lonely Final Years from Wired.com Toyota is developing "partner robots" to serve in hospitals and homes, with expectations to start selling this year. In part spurred by the shifting demographics (towards a higher percentage of elderly), Toyota envisions a variety of roles these robots could play.

Toyota isn't a maverick in this -- Japan’s Machine Industry Memorial Foundation projects the country could save $21 billion annually by using robots to care for the elderly. The government is also drafting safety regulations for all kinds of personal service robots . A new agency, the Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, has launched a five-year project to improve safety standards for the machines.

Nanoscale Robot Places Atoms With 100% Accuracy

Robot Arm Places Atoms and Molecules With 100% Accuracy hPlusMagazine "Until the mid-1990s, the term "nanotechnology" referred to the goal of creating vast arrays of nanoscale assemblers to fabricate useful human-scale products from scratch in an entirely automated process and with atomic precision. Since then, the word has come to mean anything from stain-resistant pants to branches of conventional chemistry — generally anything involving nanoscale objects. But the dream of a new Industrial Revolution based on nanoscale manufacturing has not died, as demonstrated most vividly by the work of NYU professor of chemistry Dr. Nadrian Seeman.

"In a 2009 article in Nature Nanotechnology, Dr. Seeman shared the results of experiments performed by his lab, along with collaborators at Nanjing University in China, in which scientists built a two-armed nanorobotic device with the ability to place specific atoms and molecules where scientists want them. The device was approximately 150 x 50 x 8 nanometers in size — over a million could fit in a single red blood cell. Using robust error-correction mechanisms, the device can place DNA molecules with 100% accuracy. Earlier trials had yielded only 60-80% accuracy."

AI Report

The AI Report - Forbes.com

"Can machines think? In 1950, Alan Turing, considered by some to be the father of modern computing, published a paper in which he proposed that, "If, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be 'thinking' and, therefore, could be attributed with intelligence." He predicted that a computer would pass this "Turing Test" by the end of the century. That hasn't happened--yet. But the question continues to provoke and inspire. AI might be just around the corner, or it might be centuries away"

GR: check out this Forbes special report, with essays by cyberneticist Kevin Warwick, philosopher Nick Bostrom, Singularity Institute president Michael Vassar, and Google Research Director Peter Norvig.