Rael Lyra [deviantART via FFFFOUND!]

PeiPei
The Ronin
Flea
Sentry
The Rich Cousin

For a limited time, Japanese robotics company Kokoro will offer two animatronic dopplegangers to consumers willing to shell out 20.1 million yen per unit. Kokoro is the maker of the Actroid, a line of interactive robotic receptionists that can move their upper bodies, mimic human facial expressions, recognize human speech, and speak themselves. The robotic double will have similar features, and its appearance, movements, and voice will be based on its owners.

Anyone who wants to be immortalized in silicone can order the doubles from Sogo, Seibu, and Robinson's department stores in Japan between January 1st and 3rd. But only two doppleganger robots will be available; if more than two people are interested in the eerie automated replicas, potential buyers will have to draw lots.

Robot doppelgangers for sale [Pink Tentacle]

Coolvibe describes this as "lost and forgotten" concept art (although we've seen a couple of these before) from The Matrix from various concept artists, including Richard Mahon and George Hull. Check out more images at Coolvibe.

Lost concept art from The Matrix [Coolvibe]

A few of Abeeglen's screenprinted mechanical beast cards are available at his Etsy shop.

[Ryan Abegglen via Super Punch]

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

Hollywood Parts is selling off everything from the Terminator Salvation set — and we mean everything. Even boxes of clean t-shirts. While some of the things in this list could be interesting to own, like the Terminator X-Rays, or half metal skeletons of dead terminators, much of this stuff is the worst, especially this silver platform shoe get-up that Helena must have worn when she was a floating head at the end??? This costume must be from the trashed script many moons ago — sad really, 'cause that outfit could only have spiced up this film.

[via IESB]

Remember, this is a personal bot, so you couldn't have it do things like run the US economy or reorganize the military. What I thought was interesting was that the top two uses that people voted for - housework and sex work - are traditionally "feminine" forms of labor. We want our robots to replace housewives and hookers.

Of course, we don't know for sure if these results were skewed by the options on offer. For example, we don't see any poll options for stereotypically "masculine" jobs like "fix my computer," "do household repairs," or "work a job you hate all day to earn money." I mean, given the choice, would you rather have a personal robot who does your housework, or a personal robot who does your crappy day job so you can stay home and work on that artistic masterpiece or go surfing?

via IEET

Artist Brendan Lee Satish Tang created the Manga Ormolu series as an exploration of cultural mixing, blending traditional high art with modern pop. It's meant to reflect on cultural appropriation and assimilation, but with fun, slightly ridiculous results.

Manga Ormolu enters the dialogue on contemporary culture, technology, and globalization through a fabricated relationship between ceramic tradition (using the form of Chinese Ming dynasty vessels) and techno-Pop Art. The futuristic update of the Ming vessels in this series recalls 18th century French gilded ormolu, where historic Chinese vessels were transformed into curiosity pieces for aristocrats. But here, robotic prosthetics inspired by anime (Japanese animation) and manga (the beloved comics and picture novels of Japan) subvert elitism with the accessibility of popular culture.

Manga Ormolu [Brendan Tang via Nerdcore]

This is a Sentry, one tough robot. Stronger than the average Slobot, and a good choice to protect and serve. But not in a mindless way, like some kind of... well... robot. More like a robot with an attitude (albeit, a good one).

This is a sloQee 7b. OK, he's got four arms. Wouldn't you like to have four arms? Just think of the fun you could have. But alas, he has no eyes. Maybe not such a bad thing, though, ya know?

Another helpful robot, designed to assist humans with limited mobility. He's got one huge eye right in the middle of his head, and yet....

An underwater, shark-hunting robot. No need for a harpoon, he lulls the sharks into submission. Such talent!

Ok this guy is a jokester. Do not be swayed by his innocence. He's a slayer, truly he is. His jokes will kill ya. Puns, knock- knock jokes, you name it.

If you want to get the game this weekend, you need this girl. She can make sure the picture is perfect. After all, it is a big game weekend, isn't it? (Gobble gobble.)

A robot pharmacist, 'nuff said...

Sometimes you just gotta give in to popular culture, don'tcha? And what better way than with a Simpsons slobot - d'oh!

Ok, he might be a teddy bear robot. So what? Nothing wrong with more teddy bears in the world, even if they are made of metal.

Ok, no arms. Tru dat. But he's still useful. How, you ask? He's a tree herder on Mars. Oh yes he is.

The Three Philosophers - I don't know about you, but when I see these three guys, I just know I am in the presence of wisdom. Don't they look smart and all-knowing? It's kinda freaky, really. Okay, gotta look away now.....

Ahhh, yes. A more civilized robot. He makes tea. And not just any kind of tea, but the proper British kind. How many lumps do you take?

Guardian Robot - the strong but silent type.

Stubby little arms, but take a look at those legs. Must be a soccer player.

Cute green child-like slobot - for the kiddies (or the child in you, huh?). Not only that, he glows in the dark.

Some of these slobots are currently part of the Toying with Art exhibit at the Cameron Art Museum (thru March 2010). Go check it out.

And for more info on Slobots, see Mike's website.

The San Diego-based Scripps Institution recently got funding from the National Science Foundation to build and deploy legions of "autonomous underwater explorers," or AUEs. In the design given on the Scripps website, these devices look like small weather balloons with boom-box antennae rising from the top. The largest models would be about the size of a soccer ball.

The AUEs, according to Scripps researcher and project point-man Jules Jaffe, will be able to move and gather data independently, riding the ocean's subsurface currents. They'll be networked and capable of communicating with each other; they'll be sensitive to external conditions like temperature, pressure and salinity; and they'll be equipped with compressed-air canisters that they can use to regulate their own buoyancy.

In a presentation given this past summer, Jaffe talked about how these robots could be used to track algae blooms, monitor the dispersal patterns of microscopic larvae, and locate certain submerged items, like the black box from a downed plane. The initial distribution would take place off the California coast, but Jaffe used the word "global" a few times in his remarks, and it's clear that his ambitions for the project have a wider scope than just one area of the east-equatorial Pacific.

Who's building the AUEs? While the Scripps team will be responsible for the first wave of robots, Jaffe sees a day when middle school or high school students will be able to build their own working versions from a kit in the classroom. These homemade AUEs would be fully functional, and once they were assembled, they'd be sent out into the field to gather data. The students could then track the progress of their own robots through the ocean.

In the talk linked above, Jaffe also outlined his plan for rounding up the robots at the end of their missions:

We've gotta be pretty green, right? Because we don't want to be throwing stuff in the ocean. So my plan is, we offer [people] a hundred bucks for every one they get, and we're gonna give them the GPS coordinates. And we're gonna tell them, look, if you get these to me before I'm finished using them, I'm not gonna pay it. And I have a feeling you would get a lot of them back. I mean, it's a pretty good deal… I have a feeling, if you went out in a day, you'd probably make five hundred, a thousand bucks in a five-mile radius.

Photo by jon hanson, used under Creative Commons license.

The plot of The Dream Machine has yet to be revealed (at least in English), but Kon gave his overview on the film last year in an interview with Anime News Network:

The title will be Yume Miru Kikai. In English, it will be The Dream Machine. On the surface, it's going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It'll be like a "road movie" for robots.

The official site for the movie has launched, bringing with it the first images of Kon's enigmatic robots, Robin and Rurico.

[via Twitch]

Artist Chris Foss is known for his visionary presentation of future technology and weird vistas. He illustrated many book covers in the 70s, 80s and 90s including the Lensman series, Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and Jack Vance's Demon Princes novels. His covers frequently feature spaceships that are sturdier and chunkier than the usual sleek space rockets you see on many other book covers of the time.

His cool vision of the future led him to be asked to work on production designs for Alejandro Jodorowsky's uncompleted Dune movie, in the mid 1970s, and later on Ridley Scott's Alien and Superman: The Movie.

As Alejandro Jodorowsky said in 1977:

And thus were born the mimetic spaceships, the leather and dagger-studded machines of the fascist Sardaukers;- the pachydermatous geometry of Emperor Padishah's golden planet; the delicate butterfly plane and so many other incredible machines, which I am sure will one day populate interstellar space. Chris Foss knows that today's technical reality is tomorrow's falsehood. Chris also knows that today's pure art is tomorrow's reality. Man will conquer space mounted on Foss' spaceships, never in NASA's concentration camps of the spirit. I was grateful for the existence of my friend. He brought the colours of the apocalypse to the sad machines of a future without imagination.

He has a website, ChrisFossArt.com, where you can see more of his work and buy signed prints of all of these images. And he has a group on Facebook, where you can keep up with his projects.

Pirate Ship, From Jodorowsky's Dune.
Harkonnen's flagship, From Jodorowsky's Dune.
Spice transport, from Dune.
Emperor's palace, from Dune.
Guild Tug, from Dune.
Breaking the Light Barrier
Awesome space image.
Awesome spaceship.
Image for ConceptShips blog.
Awesome spaceship.
Amazing space image.

According to Kappel, he's only making 30 of each 8x10 fine art print, and they'll be hand-numbered and professionally printed on museum-quality 505 Somerset Velvet stock. They go for $45 each, including shipping. So far, it's just these five prints, which include my favorites, "Your Wrecks Make Mechs" and the weird lava robot image.

Also, Kappel says he's showing his art at Crema Bakery and Cafe in Portland, through December, and some kid-friendly paintings will be at Black Wagon in North Portland at the same time.

Order your own prints here. [Space Monkey Designs]

In "The Machine Stops," almost everybody lives underground, and we're given hints that the surface of the Earth is no longer habitable. And all of your needs are met by the Machine, which is a kind of master computer that supplies beds, baths, foods, and other comforts and staples — so you never have to leave your little cell. And most significantly for those of us who do most of our socializing via the Internet, everybody uses the Machine to communicate.

At one point, our main character, Vashanti, puts herself in isolation mode for three minutes, so she can talk (basically via webcam) with her son Kuno, who's on the other side of the world. When she goes out of isolation, her room is filled with all of the tons of messages and communications that she's missed over the past three minutes. It really is like Forster is describing turning your IM and Twitter clients back on and being bombarded:

There were buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.

Vashti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one"s own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? - say this day month.

Eventually, Vashti and people like her outlaw visiting the surface of the Earth altogether, and as the years pass they begin to worship the Machine which supplies all their needs. And then Kuno warns Vashti that "the Machine stops." Vashti shrugs it off, until more and more things start going wrong — the computer produces mouldy artificial fruit and stinking bathwater, and then it stops providing beds upon request. By the time Vashti realizes that the Machine really is failing once and for all, it's way too late to save herself, or the other humans who are living underground and depending on the Machine for everything.

It's well worth reading "The Machine Stops," not least to contemplate how you'd manage if the Internet suddenly crashed. But it's also fascinating to realize that the first story of computer failure, 100 years ago, predated the first story of robot revolution, Karel Capek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by a dozen years. For some reason, you'd think that we'd have come up with computers turning against us first, and simple computer failure later.

"The Machine Stops" has been adapted into an episode of the British TV series Out Of The Unknown, a 2004 stage play (also broadcast on the radio a couple years ago), and apparently now a short film (see image, up top.)

Top image from the Freise Brothers, makers of a short film based on "The Machine Stops." [The Machine Stops at NCSA Web Archive]

Side Note: Apparently I need to point out that this is an edited version of the show, thought you could tell that from the cuts but now it's all out in the open, it's edited. But they still want to turn that kid into a robot.