IEEE Spectrum has a new chart up of different robots the mimic human babies and children in various ways (on capabilities vs. appearance axes). See IEEE Spectrum: Invasion of the Robot Babies (Infographic) for that and some other interesting links on humanoid robotics.
Of course, if you have time and access to the DVD, a good robot baby movies can be found in Robot Stories. Trailer below
From the io9 posthuman newsfeed is a brief article looking a this form of muscle/nerve prosthetic. I’m constantly amazed by this kind of thing, and can’t imagine what it will look like in 10-15 years time. See Portraits In Posthumanity: Claudia Mitchell – Posthumanity – io9
A couple of related articles about encoding ethics into software:
Interesting article over at Robots Teach Korean Students English – Robots – io9 on the deployment of 1000s of robot language teachers to assist in the learning of English in South Korean schools and pre-schools.
I’m wondering why they’ve embedded this approach in a humanoid form, rather than through an animated avatar on the cellphone for example. Perhaps the physical presence of the robot creates a kind of relationality (e.g. authority figure) that a computer application couldn’t do?
You see this sort of thing in the overseas press from time to time (after all it seems to be obligatory to run a robot story every week or so), but it’s not often you see a robot healthcare story in the NZ context. See Robot to work at rest home.
Interesting short interview on robots and creativity. See Teaching Robots To Be Human.
I’m thinking it looks too much like ALF, but an interesting application in therapeutic robots for children.
I thought this was very good – a virtual reality love story.
See also YouTube – World Builder (high quality)
Similar in some ways to Grek Pak’s Robot Stories.
This looks interesting – really big robot fish being used as sensing devices. Shades of Stingray, perhaps?
See Robot fish detects pollution – technology | Stuff.co.nz.
For those of you who missed out on Stingray in your childhood, here’s a link to the TV show’s title sequence. (Always had a soft spot for ‘scifi’ submarine/underwater shows like Sealab 2020, Man from Atlantis, Stingray and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Though, somehow really didn’t get into seaQuest DSV)