Tag: images

State of Robotics

At the moment, no single robot can do very much. The competencies have been cobbled together: 1 robot is able to grab a soup can when you tell it to put it on a shelf; another will look you in the eye and make babbling noises in keeping with the inflection of your voice. One robot might be able to learn some new words; another can take the perspective of a human collaborator; still another can recognize itself in a mirror. Taken together, each small accomplishment brings the field closer to a time when a robot with true intelligence — and with perhaps other human qualities, too, like emotions and autonomy — is at least a theoretical possibility. If that possibility comes to pass, what then? Will these new robots be capable of what we recognize as learning? Of what we recognize as consciousness? Will it know that it is a robot and that you are not?

2009-03-05: Robot overview

Robotic systems continue to evolve, slowly penetrating many areas of our lives, from manufacturing, medicine and remote exploration to entertainment, security and personal assistance. Developers in Japan are currently building robots to assist the elderly, while NASA develops the next generation of space explorers, and artists are exploring new avenues of entertainment. Collected here are a handful of images of our recent robotic past, and perhaps a glimpse into the near future.


Compare with similar galleries from the last few years:

Robots at work and play
Robots part 3
More robots
Robots

(all put together by Alan Taylor). The progress is palpable.
2016-02-24: Don’t be fooled by the goofiness: This is amazing progress.

2023-08-31: World Robotics Conference

Bionic butterflies and performing humanoids: Beijing’s World Robot Conference – in pictures

Amateur Mapmaking

On the Web, anyone can be a mapmaker. With the help of simple tools introduced by Internet companies recently, millions of people are trying their hand at cartography, drawing on digital maps and annotating them with text, images, sound and videos. In the process, they are reshaping the world of mapmaking and collectively creating a new kind of atlas that is likely to be both richer and messier than any other.

mymaps represents. front page, bitchez

Chemical Radiance

what the film does – and it does this very successfully, in my opinion – is set up an increasingly melancholy sense of psychological isolation as an international crew of scientists, aboard a ship called the Icarus 2, flies toward the Sun. The Sun, we learn, is dying – and so it needs to be restarted with a “stellar bomb” the size of Manhattan. In fact, we learn, the bomb is so big that it contains literally all of the Earth’s fissile material.

stunning. must see?

Photo Measurement

VisualSize will be launching shortly with a service that will give accurate 3D measurements of things inside of 2D photos. To measure things accurately they need 2 photos of the same thing, but from different angles. The VisualSize algorithm automatically detects feature points in the 2 pictures and finds the matching pairs. It then uses the matching pairs to calculate coordinates of the 2 camera positions (x, y, z axes and origin in a 3D coordinate frame), and uses triangulation from the image to plane to the 3D coordinate frame to reconstruct the 3D scene. VisualSize can then measure length, angle, area and volume with a high degree of accuracy.

cool that this is becoming more mainstream. it is, of course, a mainstay for topographic maps.

Mars Dust Storm

For nearly a month, a series of severe Martian summer dust storms has affected the rover Opportunity and, to a lesser extent, its twin, Spirit. The dust in the Martian atmosphere over Opportunity has blocked 99% of direct sunlight to the rover, leaving only the limited diffuse sky light to power it. Scientists fear the storms might continue for several days, if not weeks.

i was just wondering how long those rover tracks would last.