Robohub.org
Views
“Drone Art” – an excerpt from The Drone Primer
This is an excerpt from The Drone Primer: A Compendium of the Key Issues, a free, one-stop, handbook addressing the basic and fundamental questions around drones in all their contexts, from foreign th...
Why is Japan the first to get Dyson’s new 360 Eye?
Reno Tibke
10 Sep 2014
This post originally appeared on Akihabara News.
The Dyson 360 Eye autonomous vacuum cleaner went public in Tokyo on September 4th, and it got a lot of attention - enough to make almost any prod...
Recent robotic vacuum launches change industry from niche to mainstream
Frank Tobe
10 Sep 2014
Recent robotic vacuum cleaner product launches by Dyson and Samsung have transformed what once was a niche market of early adopters and robot enthusiasts into a marketplace of serious consumer produc...
In praise of robot football
Alan Winfield
09 Sep 2014
Republished here is a short piece for The Conversation reflecting on robot football: 4-4-2 becomes 0101: inside the competitive world of robot football, published 4 August 2014.
This summer the ...
If your avatar could talk, what would it say?
Mark Stephen Meadows
05 Sep 2014
Image © Dito Von Tease / ditology.
When I was in high school I was a big fan of graphic novels. In art class I used to splash out paintings – portraits mostly – and would write on them, givin...
Housework 2.0: The battle of the robot vacuum cleaners begins!
Hallie Siegel
05 Sep 2014
The public may be expecting to see robot cyborgs battle it out in distant galaxies, but back here on earth the battle of the robots is taking on a distinctively quotidian reality. The double announcem...
How brain signals could control a variety of devices: BrainGate’s Beata Jarosiewicz
Daniel Faggella and TechEmergence
03 Sep 2014
Link to audio file (23:28), or listen on iTunes
In this interview, TechEmergence talks to Dr. Beata Jarosiewicz from Brown's BrainGate project about the science of making sense of the brain's inner...
Reader poll: Will autonomous cars create more jobs than they displace?
Open Roboethics Initiative
03 Sep 2014
One of the most popular questions when it comes to discussing robotics is the jobs question. Will robots create more jobs, or replace them? Recently, we’ve seen a lot of discussions on the topic o...
Rain on Google’s self-driving car parade
Frank Tobe
02 Sep 2014
Auto World News reminds us that Google's self-driving car can't navigate heavy rain or most roads and that there are still many challenges to solve....
Your robot doggie could really be pleased to see you
Alan Winfield
02 Sep 2014
There have been several stories in the last few weeks about emotional robots - robots that feel. Some are suggesting that this is the next big thing in robotics. It's something I wrote about in t...
Readers support cars that communicate and self-organize
Open Roboethics Initiative
01 Sep 2014
The conventional cars that we drive today don’t really talk to one another. Sure, some of them connect to your cellphones and mp3 players. But they don’t form a communication network with neighbou...
Google’s secret drone delivery program
Frank Tobe
29 Aug 2014
The Atlantic revealed the inside story of Google's two-year secret X-labs drone-delivery project in a detailed story by Alexis Madrigal. Project Wing, as the drone-delivery venture is called, has alre...
Like Amazon, these 9 companies need their own drones
Robert Corday
26 Aug 2014
Superman tribute notwithstanding, contemporary commercial interests like Amazon are fascinated with the potential of drones. These cost-effective, utilitarian machines deliver data, products and recon...
Finally somebody debunks the Pew Research Center’s “AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs” report
Frank Tobe
25 Aug 2014
Kudos to Erik Sofge, Boston-based reporter for Popular Science Magazine. His recent story, "Sex Bots, Robo-Maids, and other Sci-Fi Myths of the Coming Robot Economy," cleverly pokes holes wh...
Does the Small UAV industry need its own coalition?
Hallie Siegel
22 Aug 2014
Last week USA Today reported that Amazon, 3D Robotics, Parrot and DJI had banded together to form a "Small UAV Coalition", hiring DC-based lobbying firm Akin Gump to represent their interests...
Video: The future of robotics, as seen by roboticists
Robohub Editors
22 Aug 2014
At Automatica 2014 in Munich this year, the ECHORD++ project asked roboticists like Vijay Kumar, Uwe Haass, Pere Homs, and Christian Schlegel one simple question: “What do you think is the future of...
Clearpath’s public stance on Killer Robots sets precedence in corporate responsibility
AJung Moon
20 Aug 2014
Last week the Waterloo-based Clearpath publicly pledged not to develop lethal autonomous weapons, otherwise known as "killer robots". In an open letter to the public, Clearpath's CTO Ryan Gariepy wr...
Reader poll: How do you feel about “Swarms of Autonomous Cars”?
Open Roboethics Initiative
19 Aug 2014
A few of days ago, WIRED and Robohub covered a story about “Largest Swarm of Robots” and how self-organizing algorithms can be used by robots to form certain shapes. This inspired us to see wha...
If drinking and driving, ride the car that doesn’t need your input or let it go home w/o you
Open Roboethics Initiative
18 Aug 2014
For the past few months the Open Roboethics initiative and Robohub have explored the topic of autonomous cars in the form of biweekly polls. We were able to find out a lot of interesting facts about w...
Why do people love robots? Find out in this Botscar-winning Robot Film Festival short
Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain
11 Aug 2014
"Why We Love Robots" is a 5-minute short documentary film co-directed by UC Berkeley Prof. Ken Goldberg and his wife, award-winning filmmaker Tiffany Shlain. The film was nominated for an Emmy Award a...
Robocar news: UK Legalization, MobilEye IPO, Baidu, new LIDAR and more
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
05 Aug 2014
A whole raft of recent robocar news....
Reader poll: Should an autonomous car be able to drive w/o a human passenger?
Open Roboethics Initiative
05 Aug 2014
A couple of months ago, we asked our readers whether three different unlicensed groups of individuals should be able to ride in autonomous cars alone. The individuals were: a child under the legal dr...
Readers split on whether they will miss driving their non-autonomous car
Open Roboethics Initiative
04 Aug 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MGQqaY3eo
Driving has become an integral component of our daily lives, especially in developed countries. Cars are not just a means for us to get from point A to p...
Drone Startups: Maps Made Easy
Dronologista
30 Jul 2014
Aerial mapping can be quite time-consuming and expensive. Even if you are employing a UAV to do it, it might take hours for all the post-processing, time-stamp shifting and deleting blurred photos. An...
Mind of life: An excerpt from Daniel Wilson’s new sci-fi novel, Robogenesis
Daniel Wilson
29 Jul 2014
This excerpt is from my novel Robogenesis, in which humankind is trying to put together the pieces of a shattered civilization after a war between men and machines. In the aftermath of the robopocalyp...
What would be the energy cost of artificially evolving human-equivalent AI?
Alan Winfield
28 Jul 2014
Want to create human-equivalent AI? Well, broadly speaking, there are three approaches open to you: design it, reverse-engineer it or evolve it. The third of these - artificial evolution - is attrac...
The two cultures of robocars
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
24 Jul 2014
I have many more comments pending on my observations from the recent AUVSI/TRB Automated Vehicles Symposium, but for today I would like to put forward an observation I made about two broad schools of ...
When fully autonomous cars are the norm, will you miss driving?
Open Roboethics Initiative
22 Jul 2014
A few weeks ago, one of our readers, Javier Lopez, submitted a number of questions to the ORi team. He brought up many interesting points, and we won’t attempt to cover them all in one poll. But on...
Autonomous car poll: Participants choose random chance over informed decision
Open Roboethics Initiative
21 Jul 2014
Given a choice between crashing into a motorcyclist wearing a helmet vs. a motorcyclist who isn’t wearing one, which one should an autonomous car be programmed to crash into? What about the choice b...
Robots for entertainment – Part II
Frank Tobe
21 Jul 2014
Entertainment users of robots include movie studios (e.g., “Gravity”), entertainers (e.g., Blue Man Group), rides (Disney Epcot Center), resorts (Wynn) and bartenders (Bicardi and Coca Cola)....
JIBO: A game changing social robot
Frank Tobe
20 Jul 2014
JIBO, a 2013 Boston startup, launched an IndieGoGo campaign last week and is off to a rousing start, lots of favorable press, and, as of the time of this writing, has raised more than $700,000 over th...
Deploying automated vehicles
Bryant Walker Smith
16 Jul 2014
In 2012, the Nevada DMV issued the first license to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in the US. The red license plates are only for autonomous test vehicles and are meant to make the cars easi...
China International Robot Show (CIROS) a BIG hit
Frank Tobe
16 Jul 2014
CIROS, the China International Robot Show held last week in Shanghai had record crowds, record numbers of exhibitors, 168,000 sq ft of exhibition space, and exuded confidence in a thriving up-and-comi...
Will agricultural robots arrive in time to keep fruit and vegetable costs down?
Frank Tobe
11 Jul 2014
Grape pickers migrate from field to field in northern Mexico and California. Photo credit: Tomas Castelazo (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons.
77% of all agricultural workers in the US are foreign bor...
Facebook – Our ffriendly automated identity bender
Jason Millar
11 Jul 2014
I like Star Wars. I like technology. I like philosophy. I like teaching. I like the occasional meme. I like robots. I like a lot of things.
But if I were to give an accurate account of the things t...
Building Social Robots: The Journey of Pleo
Bob Christopher and Jibo
11 Jul 2014
Building a robot company is difficult, very difficult. It requires unwavering belief in yourself, in your idea, in your team and ultimately in your product. But it is also one of the most thrilling ex...
