robots

A man created this creepy, lifelike Scarlett Johansson robot with some ingenuity and a 3D printer.  Actually, he didn't explicity create a ScarJobot, he based the likeness off a Hollywood celebrity who he does not want to name. But we can make a pretty good guess....



So the likeness is...weird but it seems like the creator, Ricky Ma, is a true robot enthusiast. He says he really just wanted to build a robot and it took a long time (and $50,000) to acquire the parts and skills to come this far. He told the Daily Mirror:

When I started building it, I realised it would involve dynamics, electromechanics and programming. I have never studied programming, how was I supposed to code?

Additionally, I needed to build 3D models for all the parts inside the robot. Also, I had to make sure the robot's external skin and its internal parts could fit together. When you look at everything together, it was really difficult.

This robot, named Sophia, is designed to look human. Someday scientists hope that robots like Sophia will be able to interact with humans with empathy as caretakers, helpers and friends. 

Which is too bad because the first thing on Sophia's mind is to "destroy all humans". 



But it's not her fault, she learned it from us.  She has cameras in her eyes that enable her to recognize and remember human faces. Everything she experiences just makes her smarter. When she comes for you and your family, don't blame her, if anything blame her creator Dr. David Hanson of Hanson Robotics. 

It seems like they specialize in creepy, lifelike robots. Listen to this Philip K. Dick  android they built back in 2011. Science has yet to determine if it dreams of electric sheep. 

So far, it seems like this new "pizza robot" is only being introduced in New Zealand. According to a Facebook post by Domino's, the new delivery system, that they call DRU, isn't out in full force but it's getting there:

DRU has a passion for delivering piping hot meals and a nice warm smile to customers. While he won't be taking to the streets tomorrow, he is enjoying his early progress as a prototype and giving customers a glimpse into the future of what is possible.

This idea seems very similar to an April Fools day campaign that Domino's UK ran last year. Could that be what started this project?

Atlas is a new robot from Boston Dynamics.  With a complete inability to feel empathy and an impressive sense of balance, this robot is capable of almost anything. The original video is meant to show off his new abilities and the description has all the specs:

A new version of Atlas, designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings. It is specialized for mobile manipulation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It uses sensors in its body and legs to balance and LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid obstacles, assess the terrain, help with navigation and manipulate objects. This version of Atlas is about 5' 9" tall (about a head shorter than the DRC Atlas) and weighs 180 lbs.
via Boston Dynamics

You can't help feeling bad for the poor robot, especially when that scientist just pushed him down face first. 

Depending on your political leanings, Marco Rubio can be accused of a lot of bad things but going off message is not one of them. He really, really sticks to his point. When Chris Christie said that Rubio was repeating a speech that he had memorized he responded to that by repeating the same speech, sometimes verbatim, three more times.



So of course Robot Rubio became a thing.


via @stephenstephan

Which came to it's natural conclusion with a guy dressing up as a robot and joining Rubio supporters holding up signs. 


via @fshakir

And that's what led to this video of Robot Rubio being half heartedly attacked by a Rubio supporter until he realized he was caught on camera. 

You better watch out,

You better not cry,

You better not shout in fear,

Boston Dynamics is showing you why,

Robot Reindeer are here!

Welcome the first student to Robot College.

Syracuse University has loaded up its roster with a new addition. It's called the Spider and its a remote-control grass cutting robot.

According to Syracuse.com:

It's used to mow the steepest hills, according to Jim Miller, director of SU's physical plant. In an SU video, Miller said the decision behind the purchase was worker safety on the steep, sometimes slippery banks.

If you're thinking this is a great way to mow the lawn while sitting on your deck having a beer, you might want to think twice, though. Similar mowers start at $15,000.

Watch the Spider spin its web of grass clippings right here.

Robot Lawnmower Handles Hills Around Campus from Syracuse University News on Vimeo.

Just when you think robots are about to take over the world, they go and do something like this.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge was held this past weekend, with numerous teams “vying to develop robots capable of assisting humans in responding to natural and man-made disasters.”

Turns out they had a few disasters of their own as well.

IEEE Spectrum created a compilation of robot falls from the first day of the finals, and while this is pretty funny to watch in itself, one YouTuber took it a step further and mashed it up with some WWE commentary turning it into Internet gold.

“As much as nobody wanted to see a robot fall, everybody wanted to see a robot fall,” wrote IEEE Spectrum on their blog.

The course involved the competing robots trying to open doors, turn valves, drive cars and climb over rubble.

Team KAIST from South Korea took home the top prize with the fastest time, and here’s their robot, DRC-Hubo, stepping up to victory. It was built with wheels on its knees to help protect it from taking a tumble.

“These robots are big and made of lots of metal and you might assume people seeing them would be filled with fear and anxiety,” said DRC organizer Gill Pratt. “But we heard groans of sympathy when those robots fell. And what did people do every time a robot scored a point? They cheered!”

Meanwhile, nothing can stop the beasts from Boston Dynamics, so while these falls are funny, the threat is still very real.

Well, it’s only a matter of time now.

We’ve seen self-flying drones, supercharged drones, robotic hell hounds that can withstand a good kicking and human-like bots that are taking over businesses in Japan.

Pretty soon we will be slaves to these things, which are growing smarter every day.

Researchers at MIT have successfully created “the first four-legged robot to run and jump over obstacles autonomously” thanks to new technological developments with its DARPA-funded robotic cheetah.

It uses a built-in laser system called LIDAR to see things in its line of vision and then figures out the best way to go get over it.

For example, imagine a swarm of rebel Amazon drones just dropped a bunch of Kindle Fire tablets on your head putting you out of commission.

If one of these robotic cats happen to come across your lifeless corpse, it could very easily leap over it without any sort of human guidance.

Here’s an explanation of how it works from MIT’s press release:

To get a running jump, the robot plans out its path, much like a human runner: As it detects an approaching obstacle, it estimates that object’s height and distance. The robot gauges the best position from which to jump, and adjusts its stride to land just short of the obstacle, before exerting enough force to push up and over. Based on the obstacle’s height, the robot then applies a certain amount of force to land safely, before resuming its initial pace.

It was able to successfully conquer hurdles up to 18-inches tall while going about 5mph.

Here’s a less threatening video of the cheetah running across some grass, but don’t be deceived by the innocent-looking prance.

The end is neigh.

Google-owned Boston Dynamics has been terrifying us for years with their advancements in robotic hell hounds, but their latest video features something slightly less frightening and kinda cute.

Spot is a four-legged, 160-pound robot that is designed for both indoor and outdoor use, and it has a sensor on its head to help it navigate.

Watch it march around the grounds and through their offices, occasionally getting kicked by the staff.

While we know it’s just a robot and it doesn’t have real emotions, it still makes you fell kinda bad watching it react to the abuse.

“No robots were harmed in the making of this video,” they write at the end.

What’s more worrisome, however, is that larger model accompanying Spot up the hill later on in the clip. You do not want to mess with that thing.

Robots are already managing hotels in Japan and eating women in South Korea. And Singapore is hard at work creating a nightmarish eel drone.

It’s really only a matter of time before all of these advancements blow up in our face and we are slaves or dogfood to these creatures.

Beware of the Roomba.

A woman in South Korea recently found herself battling one of the vacuum robots after it tried to eat her hair instead of cleaning the room.

From the report:

On the day of the accident, she turned on her robot vacuum as usual, and laid down flat on the floor to rest, leaving the robot to do its job. The robot vacuum came around her relaxing on the floor, and suddenly sucked her hair into its nozzle. The vacuum stopped running one to two minutes after the sudden hair intake.

It’s unclear why she would lay down on the floor next to the thing in the first place and not expect to have this happen.

She suffered only minor injuries and the emergency responders said the vacuum sensed her hair and thought it was dust.

Regardless, this doesn’t bode well for Japan’s new all-robot hotel.

Sorry bro, your days of dominating everyone at beer pong are numbered.

Empire Robotics has created a robotic arm with a specialized ball on the end of it that hardens and softens to pick up objects.

So, for example, it can pick up ping pong balls and toss them into Solo cups.

Watch it flawlessly make 6 cups in a row in the video above, and – if you dare – challenge it in person at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

"The robot is not perfect, so it's possible for a human to win, but it's pretty good, so you'd have to be pretty good at beer pong," said the company's project manager John Dean.

You know those annoying boxes on websites that ask you to type hard-to-read text as a security precaution against spammers and bots? And then after 3 failed attempts you just throw your computer out the window instead?

Well their days might be numbered.

Google has announced that it has developed a new method of proving that a user is a real, live human being.

"No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA" - as it's being called - simply asks if you are a robot, and then you click a box if you are not.

According to Google:

Our research recently showed that today's Artificial Intelligence technology can solve even the most difficult variant of distorted text at 99.8% accuracy. Thus distorted text, on its own, is no longer a dependable test.

To counter this, last year we developed an Advanced Risk Analysis backend for reCAPTCHA that actively considers a user's entire engagement with the CAPTCHA—before, during, and after—to determine whether that user is a human.

If you are a robot… well then you need to stop, right now. Bad robot.

Double Robotics, the company that makes telepresence robots, set up a demonstration online where anyone could control one of their devices remotely and move it around a locked room.

One day the door to the room was left slightly ajar, so naturally an escape plan was hatched.

The user took it for a little stroll around the offices before realizing that any further attempts to leave were futile.

They may take its batteries, but they will never take its freedom!

Well this is terrifying. Not only will our future involve nightmarish robotic hell hounds chasing us through the woods, now we have to deal with robots trained in martial arts as well.

Boston Dynamics, the engineering company Google purchased back in December 2013, has released a new video showing Ian, an Atlas-model, "Agile Anthropomorphic Robot" that can move like the "Karate Kid."

Ian is 6'2" tall, weighs 330 pounds, and using software written by the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Interaction, it can also drive a car.

According to Boston Dynamic's website:

Atlas is a high mobility, humanoid robot designed to negotiate outdoor, rough terrain. Atlas can walk bipedally leaving the upper limbs free to lift, carry, and manipulate the environment. In extremely challenging terrain, Atlas is strong and coordinated enough to climb using hands and feet, to pick its way through congested spaces.

Wax on, wax off, and be very afraid.

A group of scientists have been trying to study penguins without disturbing them, and they may have found the cutest way possible of doing it: rovers disguised as baby penguins. These penguin-bots are able to get close to the penguins without raising the alarm or stressing out the penguins, which will allow scientists to collect data about them in their most natural state.