The device will investigate the condition of the ill-fated reactor. Device will give workers first peek inside No. 3 reactor
Toshiba and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning unveiled Thursday an underwater robot that will examine the interior of the containment vessel at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant's No. 3 reactor as early a mid-July.
Fuel debris in the reactor lies under about six meters of water. The device has been modified to withstand the radioactive conditions.
The cylindrical robot is 13cm in diameter and 30cm long. It is supplied with power and communicates with its handlers via a cable extending from the back.
Expected to be deployed as soon as mid-July, it can advance around 30 meters and operate for 10-20 hours at a time.
Entering from the containment vessel's side, the robot will take images via cameras mounted on its front and back. Considerable nuclear fuel is thought to have melted down in the No. 3 reactor in the 2011 disaster, but conditions inside the unit are not known.
Images snapped by the robot will help in formulating a plan to recover the molten fuel.
Tesla has released video of an autonomous car charger, capable of plugging itself in.
"The video is just an example of some of the cool stuff we're always working on behind the scenes," Tesla told CNBC, but wouldn't reveal when or if the prototype would be available soon for purchase.
William Santana Li, chairman and CEO of Knightscope, and Stacy Stephens, vice president of marketing and sales, explain how the company's K5 autonomous robot security guards work. They speak with Bloomberg's Pimm Fox on "Taking Stock." (Source: Bloomberg)
Be a part of a rising star in the heart of Silicon Valley. Autonomous robots, predictive analytics and social engagement fuse together to fight crime. Join the Knightscope team today. Apply at www.knightscope.com.
Researchers have developed a robot that hosts quizzes.
Why? Because the scientists see it as a step toward establishing cutting-edge artificial intelligence capable of understanding who is saying what.
The group aims to apply the technology to nursing care and household robots.
Groups from Kyoto University and Waseda University teamed up to equip a commercially available humanoid robot with artificial intelligence. The group is led by Kyoto University instructor Kazuyoshi Yoshii.
IBM of the U.S. is trying to use its Watson artificial intelligence system -- which rather than acting as quiz show host answers questions -- for business. The Japanese researchers intend to enhance the knowledge and flexible judgment of robots with artificial intelligence based on the quiz master robot.
The Japanese robot can discern which contestant speaks up first by a margin of 0.06 of a second. The robot then judges whether the answer is right based on storage banks of right answers.
During an experiment, the robot was interrupted by a contestant while it was reading out, "Books and CDs that have sold more than 1 million copies are......" in Japanese. The robot then identified the contestant, and when the contestant answered "million-sellers," the robot said, "Correct."
Jibo, a new robot developed by researchers from MIT's Media Lab, can see,
hear, speak and complete a variety of tasks around your house. He's
not making cappuccino's yet, but the robot's open platform design gives
developers the ability to teach this bot all kinds of new tricks.
Don't let his size fool you - this little guy has a big
personality.
Meet Jibo. The world's first family robot.
Cynthia Breazeal of the MIT Media Lab created the pint
size companion.
"Interacting with Jibo feels much more like interacting
like a someone rather than interacting like a something. And Jibo as a
robot is something that can move with cameras that can move and see you
and interact with you like a living thing so to speak. It can bring
content to life off the screen in an entirely new way."
Besides singing, Jibo can do things like tell bed time
stories, remind you about your doctor's appointment and even take family
photos.
He's also able to recognize social signals with the help
of a touch sensitive skin.
"What we found through a lot of my research at MIT was
that when you had something physically and socially present people often
communicate through touch so they might pat Jibo if it does something
that they like and Jibo can actually learn from that. Well I want to do
more of that b/c it made my person happy so touch can become a
communication and reward signal to the robot."
And Breazeal says that over time, the robot will get
smarter and have increased functionality thanks to its open source
design which will allow Jibo owners to program new tasks for their bots
and sell them on a app network.
"Eventually as a platform you can imagine adding physical
capabilities to the robot - You can imagine eventually connecting to
home automation, connecting to health devices so it can serve as a
personal coach - so these are the in kinds of things that the platform
will enable over time."
Jibo will cost between $499- $599 (USD) when it comes out
in 2015. Till then, Breazeal and her team will be fine tuning Jibo,
making sure he's ready for his big debut.
Pepper's "foremost function is to understand people's feelings," SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son from Japan, said at a news conference Thursday. "This is the first robot that acts on its own initiative."
When Son smiled at Pepper for a demonstration, the robot sparked laughter by saying, "What a mediocre smile. That would break a deal with an important business partner."
Pepper robot can read people's emotions and carry on conversations
Softbank plans to expand its uses by adding various apps for dance and comedy, for example. The current model connects to the Internet via WiFi, but in the future, it will likely become compatible with the LTE (Long-Term Evolution) data service as well.
Priced at 198,000 yen ($1,910), Pepper was developed specifically to communicate with people. It can read stories to children, help liven up a party and serve as a family pet.
Standing 1.2 meters high, it moves about on wheels and is controlled by cloud-based artificial intelligence. The 10.1-inch tablet computer on its chest can show information in response to queries, such as displaying a weather forecast if a person were to ask whether it will be sunny tomorrow.
Pepper is powered by a lithium-ion battery, the robot can operate for more than 12 hours per charge.
Softbank worked with French venture Aldebaran Robotics, in which it took a stake two years ago, to develop the robot. Production will be contracted out to Taiwanese electronic manufacturing service company Hon Hai group.
"Though this will make little profit for a while, we'll cut costs through mass production," Son said.
SoftBank will release Pepper in February 2015.
Take a look to Pepper to watch what is he talking about with people on this Japan Times video:
On June 5, SoftBank Corp. unveiled Pepper, a consumer robot to be released in Japan early next year for ¥198,000. Currently, you can meet Pepper in select SoftBank Mobile stores, such the company's flagship store Omotesando.
China: Restaurant owner finds way to cut costs, makes robots cook and serve. Video.
A restaurant in China has started serving food that's been prepared by robots. The owner of the eatery in the Heilongjiang Province came up with the idea as a way of cutting costs.
With the BionicOpter, Festo has technically mastered the highly complex
flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature,
this ultralight flying object can fly in all directions, hover in
mid-air and glide without beating its wings.
BionicOpter – Inspired by dragonfly flight
With the BionicOpter, Festo has technically mastered the highly complex flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature, this ultralight flying object can fly in all directions, hover in mid-air and glide without beating its wings.
Thirteen degrees of freedom for unique flight manoeuvres
In addition to control of the shared flapping frequency and twisting of the individual wings, each of the four wings also features an amplitude controller. The tilt of the wings determines the direction of thrust. Amplitude control allows the intensity of the thrust to be regulated. When combined, the remote-controlled dragonfly can assume almost any position in space.
Highly integrated lightweight design
This unique way of flying is made possible by the lightweight construction and the integration of functions: components such as sensors, actuators and mechanical components as well as open- and closed-loop control systems are installed in a very tight space and adapted to one another.
With the remote-controlled dragonfly, Festo demonstrates wireless real-time communication, a continuous exchange of information, as well as the ability to combine different sensor evaluations and identify complex events and critical states.
Amazon Kindles Fire HDX 7 and HDX 8.9
inches tablets
The "trials" for DARPA Robotics Challenge are over. After two days in which some of the most advanced robots in the world had to face difficult obstacles, the design that won first place was SCHAFT, developed by a team of the same name which is now under the wing of the Mountain View giant, Google.
Will have to wait until late 2014 for the final winner of the DARPA Robotics Challenge . The " trials" that determine the finalists were conducted between Friday and Saturday. Sixteen teams participated , all backed by institutions, agencies and companies of high prestige.
The tests, very focused on rescue and emergency scenarios led to limit the capabilities of all the robots , however , had the advantage of operating in " bound " , something that does not happen in the finals. In total , eight tests were : vehicle ( or is, lead ) , Property Ladder , Rubble , Door , Wall, Valve and Hose. None of the robots got a perfect score (32 points was the maximum ) , but one of them was very close : SCHAFT His name is owned by a Japanese team of the same name , and now responds to Google . If there was any doubt about the turn of Mountain View to robotics , this victory just dissipate it.
I think the only word to describe SCHAFT action is "impressive" but we must also remember that this kind of designs continue to evolve, therefore,we have not seen its roof. SCHAFT stayed in front at this stage of Robotics Challenge with 27 points, followed distantly by the IHMC Robotics team that scored 20 points on Atlas-Ian, Tartan and Rescue, the robot CHIMP scored 18 points. Tests proved far more complex than they appear.
In fact, there were three teams who failed to get any points, and to the surprise of many, one of those teams was the NASA robot that used his Valkyrie. The top eight teams will receive one million additional dollars to continue its development and prepare robots face the final. The jackpot? Two million dollars.
Video: World's top robots compete in international event.
WorldWide tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.
Humanoids from the United States, China, Japan and Korea compete in a ''robot olympics'' of sorts, aimed at testing their ability to handle disaster relief.
Robots battle it out in Miami in a fierce two-day "robot olympics" of sorts. Top robot makers from around the world are showcasing their advanced humanoids in what is known as the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
A total of seventeen teams from the United States, China, Japan and Korea are participating in the two-day trials. They're aimed at awarding the gold to the robot that bests deals with disaster response. Organizers have put their robots through rigorous training in order to face the challenge. NASA's Robonaut was part of the U.S. team, and team leaders - like Kimberly Hambuchen - were happy with the outcome.
KIMBERLY HAMBUCHEN, TEAM LEADER FOR HUMANOID ROBOT INTERFACE, SAYING: "We were able to create this humanoid robot that can go into places where humans can go. If humans can go there, this robot can go there and that's good for, not only this competition where we want to put the robot into a disaster response situation, but also for NASA, in general, because we send humans into outer space and we would like to be able to send robots that don't need any specialization."
The event is open to the public, and organizers hope audiences gain a new awareness of the current affairs surrounding robotics, and their interaction with humankind in the future.
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Kirobo from Japan is now in the International Space Station, but he is an astronaut robot.
"Mr. Wakata,
are you not here yet? I really want to see you soon," the pint-sized
android said in a message released by its project team in Japan Wednesday.
The wide-eyed and bootie-wearing "Kirobo" -- roughly the size of
a chihuahua -- left Earth on a cargo-carrying rocket and reached the space
station on August 10.
"Good morning to every one of you people on Earth. I am robot
astronaut Kirobo. I am the world's first talking robot astronaut. Nice to meet
you," the automaton said in Japanese.
Wakata along with Mikhail Tyurin of Russia and NASA astronaut Rick
Mastracchio will be aboard the Soyuz-FG rocket which will set off from
Kazakhstan at 0414 GMT Thursday for a six-hour journey to the ISS.
Kirobo, which stands just 34 centimetres (13.4 inches) tall and weighs
about one kilogram (2.2 pounds), is programmed to communicate in Japanese and
keep records of its conversations with Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to
command the ISS.
"My dream is to see human beings and robots live together as
friends," the robot added. "I will talk to you a lot from space so
please listen to my chats."
The humanoid was created jointly by advertising firm Dentsu, the University
of Tokyo, robot developer Robo Garage and Toyota.
The robot is part of a study aimed at seeing how a non-human companion can
provide emotional support for people isolated over long periods.
Bo Preising, Suitable Technologies' vice president of engineering, at left, talks with fellow engineers, Josh Faust, center on screen, and Josh Tyler, on screen at right, both using a Beam remote presence system in Palo Alto, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012. More employees are working from home, but there's still no substitute for actually being at the office. Enter the Beam. It's a roving computer screen _ with video cameras, microphones and speakers _ that stands five feet and rides on motorized wheels. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Beam - a mobile video-conferencing robot machine allows employees to interact.
Engineer Dallas Goecker attends meetings, jokes with colleagues and roams the office building just like other employees at his company in Silicon Valley.
But Goecker isn't in California. He's more than 2,300 miles away, working at home in Seymour, Indiana.
It's all made possible by the Beam - a mobile video-conferencing machine that he can drive around the Palo Alto offices and workshops of Suitable Technologies. The 5-foot-tall device, topped with a large video screen, gives him a physical presence that makes him and his colleagues feel like he's actually there.
"This gives you that casual interaction that you're used to at work," Goecker said, speaking on a Beam.
"I'm sitting in my desk area with everybody else. I'm part of their conversations and their socializing."
Suitable Technologies, which makes the Beam, is now one of more than a dozen companies that sell so-called telepresence robots. These remote-controlled machines are equipped with video cameras, speakers, microphones and wheels that allow users to see, hear, talk and "walk" in faraway locations.
More and more employees are working remotely, thanks to computers, smartphones, email, instant messaging and video-conferencing. But those technologies are no substitute for actually being in the office, where casual face-to-face conversations allow for easy collaboration and camaraderie.
Telepresence-robot makers are trying to bridge that gap with wheeled machines - controlled over wireless Internet connections - that give remote workers a physical presence in the workplace.
These robotic stand-ins are still a long way from going mainstream, with only a small number of organizations starting to use them. The machines can be expensive, difficult to navigate or even get stuck if they venture into areas with poor Internet connectivity. Stairs can be lethal, and non-techies might find them too strange to use regularly.
"There are still a lot of questions, but I think the potential is really great," said Pamela Hinds, co-director of Stanford University's Center on Work, Technology, & Organization. "I don't think face-to-face is going away, but the question is, how much face-to-face can be replaced by this technology?"
Technology watchers say these machines - sometimes called remote presence devices - could be used for many purposes. They could let managers inspect overseas factories, salespeople greet store customers, family members check on elderly relatives or art lovers tour foreign museums.
Some physicians are already seeing patients in remote hospitals with the RP-VITA robot co-developed by Santa-Barbara, Calif.,-based InTouch Health and iRobot, the Bedford, Mass.,-based maker of the Roomba vacuum.
The global market for telepresence robots is projected to reach $13 billion by 2017, said Philip Solis, research director for emerging technologies at ABI Research.
The robots have attracted the attention of Russian venture capitalist Dimitry Grishin, who runs a $25 million fund that invests in early-stage robotics companies.
"It's difficult to predict how big it will be, but I definitely see a lot of opportunity," Grishin said. "Eventually it can be in each home and each office."
His Grishin Robotics fund recently invested $250,000 in a startup called Double Robotics. The Sunnyvale, Calif.,-company started selling a Segway-like device called the Double that holds an Apple iPad, which has a built-in video-conferencing system called FaceTime. The Double can be controlled remotely from an iPad or iPhone.
So far, Double Robotics has sold more than 800 units that cost $1,999 each, said co-founder Mark DeVidts.
The Beam got its start as a side project at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park where Goecker worked as an engineer.
A few years ago, he moved back to his native Indiana to raise his family, but he found it difficult to collaborate with engineering colleagues using existing video-conferencing systems.
"I was struggling with really being part of the team," Goecker said. "They were doing all sorts of wonderful things with robotics. It was hard for me to participate."
So Goecker and his colleagues created their own telepresence robot. The result: the Beam and a new company to develop and market it.
At $16,000 each, the Beam isn't cheap. But Suitable Technologies says it was designed with features that make "pilots" and "locals" feel the remote worker is physically in the room: powerful speakers, highly sensitive microphones and robust wireless connectivity.
The company began shipping Beams last month, mostly to tech companies with widely dispersed engineering teams, officials said.
"Being there in person is really complicated - commuting there, flying there, all the different ways people have to get there. Beam allows you to be there without all that hassle," said CEO Scott Hassan, beaming in from his office at Willow Garage in nearby Menlo Park.
Not surprisingly, Suitable Technologies has fully embraced the Beam as a workplace tool. On any given day, up to half of its 25 employees "beam" into work, with employees on Beams sitting next to their flesh-and-blood colleagues and even joining them for lunch in the cafeteria.
Software engineer Josh Faust beams in daily from Hawaii, where he moved to surf, and plans to spend the winter hitting the slopes in Lake Tahoe. He can't play pingpong or eat the free, catered lunches in Palo Alto, but he otherwise feels like he's part of the team.
"I'm trying to figure out where exactly I want to live. This allows me to do that without any of the instability of trying to find a different job," Faust said, speaking on a Beam from Kaanapali, Hawaii. "It's pretty amazing."
Kibo a mini companion and communications robot to arrive to the ISS in summer 2013.
Tomotaka Takahashi's concept sketch of the robot
A humanoid robot that
will be serving as a companion and communications device to Japanese
astronauts living in the Japanese Experiment Module “Kibo” on the
International Space Station is expected to be completed by February next
year. This was the announcement made by Dentsu, Inc. who is part of the
joint effort to make the robot.
The design and specifications are subject to change.
The coloring, speech and voices of the two robots (one in space and one on Earth) may differ slightly.
The KIBO ROBOT PROJECT,
whose aim is to create a humanoid communication robot that will be a
companion for the Japanese astronauts who will be living in the Kibo
Experiment Module, was jointly submitted by Dentsu, RCAST and ROBO
GARAGE in response to the call last year from the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency (President: Keiji Tachikawa) for a feasibility study
proposal on the theme of solving social issues in the experiment module.
The proposal was accepted, and the project team has been working for
more than a year on developing a robot that can communicate with the
astronauts via autonomous actions and remote operations. The robot will
also transmit information from the Kibo module to Earth.
In winter 2013 the robot will come face-to-face with Koichi Wakata, the
first Japanese commander of the International Space Station, and will
take part in the world's first conversation experiment held between a
person and a robot in outer space. A second robot with the same
specifications will be built to serve as a backup and for demonstration
purposes on Earth.
Together with leading engineering companies in Japan, RCAST and ROBO
GARAGE have been working on the development of the robot hardware, while
Dentsu has been involved in the creation of the conversation content.
Toyota Motor Corporation (President: Akio Toyoda; hereinafter "Toyota"),
a new addition to the project team, is responsible for the voice
recognition and natural language processing functions that comprise the
robot's intelligence. Through its participation in this project, Toyota
will gather data and collate the accumulated technology that is
instrumental to interactive services as well as the development of the
"Toyota Partner Robot" that can coexist with people.
The project collaborators hope that the project's activities will
disseminate Japan's technological strengths to the international
community, and make a contribution to the development of industry and
science education.
for the International Space Station in Summer 2013
Dentsu Inc. (Tokyo) President & CEO: Tadashi Ishii; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 58,967.1 million yen announced today that the humanoid communication robot being developed under the KIBO ROBOT PROJECT, a joint research project being carried out in collaboration with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo (Director: Dr. Yoshiaki Nakano; hereinafter “RCAST”) and ROBO GARAGE Co., Ltd. (CEO: Tomotaka Takahashi; hereinafter “ROBO GARAGE”), is expected to be completed in February 2013. In the summer of the same year, it will be sent to the Japanese Experiment Module “Kibo” in the International Space Station.
The KIBO ROBOT PROJECT, whose aim is to create a humanoid communication robot that will be a companion for the Japanese astronauts who will be living in the Kibo Experiment Module, was jointly submitted by Dentsu, RCAST and ROBO GARAGE in response to the call last year from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (President: Keiji Tachikawa) for a feasibility study proposal on the theme of solving social issues in the experiment module. The proposal was accepted, and the project team has been working for more than a year on developing a robot that can communicate with the astronauts via autonomous actions and remote operations. The robot will also transmit information from the Kibo module to Earth.
In winter 2013 the robot will come face-to-face with Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station, and will take part in the world’s first conversation experiment held between a person and a robot in outer space. A second robot with the same specifications will be built to serve as a backup and for demonstration purposes on Earth.
Together with leading engineering companies in Japan, RCAST and ROBO GARAGE have been working on the development of the robot hardware, while Dentsu has been involved in the creation of the conversation content. Toyota Motor Corporation (President: Akio Toyoda; hereinafter “Toyota”), a new addition to the project team, is responsible for the voice recognition and natural language processing functions that comprise the robot’s intelligence. Through its participation in this project, Toyota will gather data and collate the accumulated technology that is instrumental to interactive services as well as the development of the “Toyota Partner Robot” that can coexist with people.
The project collaborators hope that the project’s activities will disseminate Japan’s technological strengths to the international community, and make a contribution to the development of industry and science education.
Project Team Members:
Dentsu Inc.
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo
