Elon Musk believes it’s feasible, a “Terminator”-like scenario could erupt out of an artificial intelligence, making the conspiracy-theories seem legit.
A computer program called Eugene Goostman, which simulates a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy, is said to have passed the Turing test at an event organised by the University of Reading.
Film-making via drones has been given the red light in SA…
A DJ that goes by Squarepusher collaborated with a Japanese robot band called Z-Machines to create an EP called ‘Music For Robots.’ Check out the behind-the-scenes video that shows how these robots learned how to shred on the guitar.
Apparently the robots will kick off their revolution by stealing our jobs. If you hold one of these “easily computerizable” positions, it’s probably time to look at something like dance choreography, or the priesthood.
After a 4.4 magnitude quake shook Californians awake in the early hours of 17 March, the LA Times were the first to report the incident, mere minutes after it was announced by the U.S. Geological Survey. You might be thinking it sounds faster than humanly possible. Well, yes. It was written by Quakebot.
The audience members at the CeBit convention’s opening were in for a surprise. Guests that included German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, were welcomed by an articulate robot thespian. Meet RoboThespian, the greatest threat to overpaid actors.
Yup, the ‘merican army is seriously considering replacing thousands of soldiers with robots in order to cope with sweeping troop cuts.
The tumultuous streets of Kiev are attracting thousands of anti-government protesters, and drones are getting the best footage. Latest reports suggests that over 200,000 individuals are involved in the protest – a protest that a remote-controlled quadcopter was able to capture in stunning detail.
While Amazon was shooting its mouth off about drones that can deliver packages, Google was quietly acquiring several technology companies in a bid to create a new generation of robots.
A lot of people are talking about Jeff Bezos’ plans for the delivery methods of Amazon, and “drone” has become something of a buzzword. So you should know that Amazon’s new PrimeAir service wont actually be using drones. They’ll be using robots.
We all started dreaming about house-cleaning domestic robots ever since we saw those efficient little robots zipping around spaceships in the ‘Star Wars’ movies. While we might not have achieved quite that level of household domestic robot penetration just yet, we’re not far off.
Robots’ natural enemies are stairs. Climbing up and down stairs is something we as humans have pretty much mastered, but robots are finding it a touch more difficult. These M-Blocks, created by the brainiacs at MIT, would have no problem with stairs though. These modular robots can jump though the air, catch onto each other, spin and roll around to form new shapes, all with no external moving parts.
Say hello to WildCat, the quadrupedal Cheetah robot created by the collective brains at Boston Dynamics. See WildCat run. Imagine WildCat running after you. The robot can reach speeds of close to 26km/hr, which is without a doubt faster than I can run on a Monday morning.
We all dream of a world where you can throw a massive house party, pass out and wake up to a spotless house. Now, unless you have an OCD nocturnal roommate, that’s not going to happen. But then again, it just might. One day, flying robots will clean the house as you slumber. Yebo, yes.
This robot, ATLAS, has been developed by Boston Dynamics for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The capabilities of this robot are amazing and slightly scary.
Currently being developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, this snake robot can maneuver its way into spaces that conventional robots can’t.
Biomedical engineering professor Bin He from the Univeristy of Minnesota is the brains behind this technology. The technology is a brain-computer interface which enables people to use their thoughts to direct the robot. It’s not only in X-men movies.
Are you holding a heavy pot of food with two hands and need to open the fridge to put it in? Don’t stress, this robot can anticipate your next move and assist you. Yes, he can open the fridge door for you. He could even prove to be very handy in pouring your ice cold beer.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there have been machines popping up in jobs that us humans once did. A reported 1,1 million robots are amoung us in the working world. In 2011 the robot industry made a hefty R77 128 000 000,00 in sales on the estimated 160 000 robot units they sold. So, what […]
Your dreams of one day wearing a “bionic exoskeleton” may soon be coming true. Headway is being made in the area of rehabilitation, where exoskeletons are used to assist people with lower-body paralysis to walk upright.
The contraption consists of three arms that can do pretty much everything your average bartender can – from measuring shots to slicing lemons.
American scientists, Dr Kevin Ma and his team led by Dr Robert Wood, have created a flying robot as small as a fly. Dubbed the “robo-fly”, the robot is built from carbon fibre, weighs less than a gram and has “super-fast electronic muscles to power its wings.”
A team of scientists from the United States and China have experimented in creating an array that can sense pressure similar to the interpretation of touch on your fingertips. This experimrnt could lead to further development of artificial skin which would be able to “feel.” Even robots could have a sense of touch with these sensors.
We gave up on taxis years ago, but one thing is for sure, the vast majority of SA’s cycling community feel there is a minority ruining their reputation by cycling through red lights. This Santam cyclist is one of them.
The Pentagon’s blue-sky researchers recently took an upgraded LS3 (Legged Squad Support System) robot out on a walk through the woods and hills of Fort Pickett, Virginia. This was the first test conducted on the LS3 after bolstering the autonomy functions for this R459m project – now in its fifth year.
A self-controlled swimming robot has completed an epic journey from San Francisco to Australia. It took just over a year, but it’s collected some useful data along the way.
Usain Bolt recently made history again when he dominated both the 100m and 200m sprints in spectacular style at the Olympic Games, reconfirming his status as the fastest man alive. Fastest man. Boston Dynamic’s Cheetah just crushed Bolt’s all-time top speed of 44,72 kph and in doing so marked the commencement of the slow, but inevitable, robopocalypse.
‘Robot and Frank’ stars Frank Langella as an old man forging an unlikely bond with his Peter Sarsgaard-voiced robot butler, which starts off as an odd-couple comedy and then turns into a heist film, because Langella used to be a jewel thief. It looks pretty great, and they loved it at Sundance. Take a look.
A group of scientists in South Korea has developed the world’s first completely autonomous prison guard. Far from being a glorified Roomba, the robo-guard was “designed to study human behavior, the robot is able to detect abnormal prisoner activity and report back to its controllers.” Click through for the video.