According to Plastic Pals:

The Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST) held an open house Technology Exhibit, where some of their latest research and development projects were showcased . . . Mahru III, a humanoid robot co-developed by KIST and Samsung, copies the movements of a human wearing a special suit which senses muscle movements.

via Plastic Pals

I had two gut reactions while watching this video about Japan's new Child-robot with a Biomimetic Body (CB2). First I thought, No way could that be real — that's a tiny disturbed man in a suit. Followed by, We must kill this now, before it tries to eat the children of the world. Frankly this is the creepiest robot video I've ever seen.

According to the report:

The robot can record emotional expressions using eye-cameras, then memorise and match them with physical sensations, and cluster them on its circuit boards. The professor, also a member of the Japanese Society of Baby Science, said his team has made progress on other fronts since first presenting CB2 to the world in 2007.

In the two years since then, he said, CB2 has taught itself how to walk with the aid of a human and can now move its body through a room quite smoothly, using 51 "muscles" driven by air pressure. In coming decades, Asada expects science will come up with a "robo species" that has learning abilities somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee.

Yeah, until it kills us all. Good luck with your giant robot baby I'm not getting anywhere near that, because I think we all know where this will end:

[Briet Bart picture via Pink Tentacle]

In an astounding presentation this Tuesday at the Honda Tokyo headquarters, the car manufacturer debuted this video presentation where a subject, donning the heavily monitored helmet, made the ASIMO robot move, using his brain.

According to Britebart the robot can respond to commands to move its right hand or left hand, trot and mimic eating - all through the power of mind control. The project's still in the heavy research mode and isn't ready for a live trial, as the helmet wearer could be too easily distracted. Also, since brain patterns are not universally the same, each subject needs two to three hours of study before linking up to ASIMO.

But I'm even more curious as to what happens when the sexy lab instructor shows up? All kidding aside, this truly is a jaw-dropping feat. This technology could enable millions of disabled people to control robotic avatars or wheelchairs, along with numerous other possibilities. It's hard not to think that somewhere Ronald D. Moore is rubbing his hands together in delight, muttering "I warned you all."

Photo from AP/Koji Sasahara

I'm actually very curious about who decided to put horns on Boston Dynamics' quadrupedal robot, and whether they considered the possibility of a horned robot uprising. Also, if you haven't seen this earlier video of BigDog Beta, I encourage you to do so — especially when the cameras catch him getting busy in the park with a couple of bystanders.

[via Gizmodo]

The Sex Counter Cock Ring does exactly what the name suggests:

A stretchy, orgasm-enhancing cock ring that actually counts your BPM - otherwise known as Bonks Per Minute! Slide the cock ring over your penis and enjoy a longer, harder erection as well as the fun of knowing how many times you've thrust per session!

Okay, let's leave the longer, harder part on the table for a second and think about this whole thrust counter thing: Does it beep with each thrust? What does it define as a thrust? How does it know when your session is over, as opposed to just taking a break? Luckily, the makers already know who their target audience is:

Make a little note of your BPM and see if you can up your effort next time - perfect for fitness gurus and competitive couples!

Yes; buy this cock ring and then tell your fitness guru how many thrusts you managed the night before. I'm sure they'll be thrilled.

Sex Counter Cock Ring [LoveHoney.co.uk]

As our sister site Fleshbot reports, live from a floor show at the Adult Entertainment Expo, AEBN's Real Touch is a variable speed, textured delight - it even delivers "throbs" at appropriate moments. And it's programmed to respond to input from porn movies. So plug this baby into your computer, fire up your favorite vid, and the Real Touch will match the speed and intensity of the action on screen.

No word yet on whether you can program it to emulate the stages of the female sexual response cycle, including involuntary muscle spams every 0.7 seconds. But Fleshbot does have a video of the device in action.

SOURCE: Fleshbot (NSFW due to nekkid pictures in the ads on this site)

Researchers at Boston Engineering and at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering created GhostSwimmer, which a refined version of an initial MIT prototype called RoboTuna. Since the tuna is one of the fastest fish in the oceans, the RoboTuna team reasoned, a robot that could mimic its movements would be an ideal underwater vehicle. RoboTuna — and, by extension, GhostSwimmer — resulted from an extensive study of the hydrodynamics of tuna motion and an intricate mimic design. GhostSwimmer swims by manipulating its dorsal (back), pectoral (chest), and caudal (tail) fins; like its biological namesake, it can reach up to 70 kilometers per hour.

This speed caught the eye of the Navy, who want to use GhostSwimmer as both a spy vehicle and a prototype for a future class of fuel-efficient submarines. After a few more years, we might have an entire school of robotic fish confusing the hell out of the rest of the ocean.

A fin-tuned design [via Economist]
MIT RoboTuna home page

The Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, led by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, has been working on lifelike robots, called "actroids," for several years; their first prototype went public in November 2003. The childlike Repliee R-1 has 50 sensors inside its body, and its silicon skin was formed from a mold of a human girl. I wonder what that girl thinks of her actroid twin:

The Repliee R-1's words are barely intelligible, but I thought I caught it saying "itai" — Japanese for "hurt." So much for avoiding the disturbing moral implications of super-realistic androids.

It's also a shame that the editors of this video couldn't spell "sensors" properly — I don't think putting this robot in a room with 50 señors is necessarily a good idea.

Repliee Robot Makes Me Scream and Cry Like a Little Girl [Gizmodo]
Intelligent Robotics Laboratory [Osaka University]

Image from DVICE.

Recognizing a face is harder than it sounds. Using Active Appearance Modeling (one of the common methods in use today), a computer has to compare a face it sees to an "average face" it has previously learned. It works pretty well when the subject smiles and stares right into the computer's camera, but in real life, lighting, facial expression and "3D pose variation" present serious obstacles.

The Robotics Institute team is working on that last bit. Whenever you turn your head, part of your face is occluded. Without the right features to make its comparison, the computer can't recognize you. New algorithms and programming methods allow for the creation of 3D face meshes that can be adjusted on the fly to fit the subject's face, even if she turns partly away from the camera.

Of course, the government will use this technology to track our every move long before we have friendly helper robots who know us on sight, but it's nice to know we live in a world where something called the Robotics Institute actually exists. Image by: Robotics Institute.

AAM Fitting Algorithms. [Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute]

The folks at Andrew Maynard Architects explain their project, with tongues planted mostly in cheek:

The age of the outer-suburb is soon to come to an end. Many analysts believe that Peak-Oil will be reached soon after 2011. When we hit Peak-Oil we will not only have no petrol to run cars, furthermore we will no longer have many of the goods we need and there will be huge food shortages as food production and distribution relies heavily on oil based fertilisers which drastically increase yields.

With no cars people will no longer be able to reach the suburbs and hence metropolitan populations will swell as suburban refugees are forced to wander into the cities . . . The suburbs will decay . . . At Andrew Maynard Architects, we have decided to give mother-nature a hand. We have begun designing the first suburb eating robot and we hope to go into production in early 2019. We have called our robot the CV08. In short, CV08 consumes the abandoned suburbs through its front 2 legs. It processes the materials and fires off compacted recycling missiles to awaiting recycling plants. CV08's middle legs and one rear leg follow the front legs to terra-form the newly revealed earth with native Flora and Fauna. Vast stocks of the Flora and Fauna are stored within CV08 in carbonite sleep until they are required to colonise what was previously suburban wasteland.

Over 50% of Australians are currently over-weight due to complete car dependence, a sedentary lifestyle and over eating. With this in mind the 6th leg has been designed to pick up, and apply liposuction to over-weight Australians that have been to slow and unfit to migrate into the denser areas with the rest of the population. As there is no longer a steady stream of oil, CV08 fuels itself with the vast quantities of excess human fat that it finds on its journey through the suburbs.

Something about this video made me think of nice black metal, perhaps from Sweden. I'm not sure why. So I made a little snippet with a new soundtrack.

New Video of BDI's Robot [IEEE Automaton]