Sharp updates the Cocorobo line of intelligent robot vacuum cleaners.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jes�s.

Sharp updates the Cocorobo line of  intelligent robot vacuum cleaners.

Sharp have updated their Cocorobo line of intelligent robot vacuum cleaners, with a new smaller model, as well as a Cocorobo Navi function, which allows the robot to be controlled when the user is outside the home.

Cocorobo Navi can be used to visually map out your house creating a floor plan, letting the robot know where objects are placed, so you can directly specify where the robot should go.

Sharp also unveiled a controller, which connects to the Cocorobo via it's USB port, and can be used to control a range of household devices. Currently, Sharp TVs, air conditioning systems, LED lights and their Slim Ion Fan can all be controlled via the smartphone app, with support for competing companies products to be rolled out in future updates.

The new, smaller Cocorobo, the RX-V60, is 29.9cm in diameter, 4.7cm less than the current model, but with similar performance.

It features the power vacuum system, which can suck up dust from the gaps in wood floors, and due to it's reduced size, can comfortably maneuver around small spaces such as in between the legs of dining room chairs.

It will go on sale in Japan on the 13th of December for approximately 75,000 yen (US$900) and Sharp will manufacture 8,000 units per month. 

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Meet Baxter: A Robot with common sense.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jes�s.

Meet Baxter: A Robot with common sense.

Meet Baxter, a revolutionary new category of Robot from Rethink Robotics that is capable of applying common sense behavior to manufacturing environments. Affordably priced, versatile and safe enough to work shoulder-to-shoulder with people, Baxter robots redefine how small, mid-size and large domestic manufacturers use automation to compete with manufacturers in low-cost regions of the world.

�We roll up to a factory, and 45 minutes after we arrive, 
                                            the robot is on the floor doing useful work.�
                                                                  �Rodney Brooks, Rethink Robotics.

Target segment

The target segment for Baxter are small-scale manufacturers, of which there are 300,000 in the U.S., Brooks said.

�We are trying to put robots into places that would normally have robots, so we�re aiming after small customers,� he said. �But it turns out large companies are coming to us � they�ve heard rumors and shown up.�

The introduction of the new robot comes as labor costs in China continue to rise, which has served as an encouragement to U.S. manufacturers to keep � or return � production operations to the states.

Brooks said he hasn�t viewed China as a stable place to do manufacturing over the long term. �I realized the labor costs were going to go up in China � that was part of the pitch to the VCs when I started the company and first raised money,� he said.

�The $22,000 robot that Rethink will begin selling in October, reports Markoff,  �is the clearest evidence yet that robotics is more than a laboratory curiosity or a tool only for large companies with vast amounts of capital.

�The company is betting it can broaden the market for robots by selling an inexpensive machine that can collaborate with human workers, the way the computer industry took off in the 1980s when the prices of PCs fell sharply and people without programming experience could start using them right out of the box.

��It feels like a true Macintosh moment for the robot world,� said Tony Fadell, the former Apple executive who oversaw the development of the iPod and the iPhone.

Baxter will come equipped with a library of simple tasks, or behaviors � for example, a �common sense� capability to recognize it must have an object in its hand before it can move and release it.�

Brooks said the robot will only be certified for sale in the U.S. and Canada at first, and that the market is �so big that we can have explosive growth for years before we have to go elsewhere.�

The hope, he noted, is that Baxter will lead to a net increase in American jobs by allowing operations to stay in or return to the U.S. �The robot doesn�t do the whole task � it does the dull repetitive ones, and lets the person do the higher-value stuff,� Brooks said.

One analogy, he said, is around the PC and its impact on the job of the office worker. �The PC didn�t replace the office worker. The PC was used by office workers but changed the tasks they did and moved them up the value chain,� he said.

roboticsbusinessreview

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Swumanoid swimming android robot will help athletes swim faster. Video

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Swumanoid swimming android robot will help athletes swim faster.

Swumanoid, developed by the Nakashima Group at Tokyo Institute of Technology, is a humanoid robot that replicates the motion of a swimmer. In the future, this robot is expected to help researchers analyze how people can swim faster, and develop speed enhancing swimming apparel.

"In research on swimming, one problem is, it's hard to know how much propulsive force the hands create during a stroke. There have been attempts to measure such things using actual swimmers, but it's hard to attach sensors to the hands of an actual swimmer. Also, a person can't repeat exactly the same movement many times."

For Swumanoid, a 3D body scanner was used to measure the body of a competitive swimmer, and reproduce it at half-scale. The complex swimming motions of a person are reproduced using 20 computer-controlled waterproof motors.

"When a swimmer moves, the motion of the shoulders is quite large. Ordinary humanoid robots aren't designed for such large motions, so to replicate the big movements in a crawl stroke, we've installed special joints in the shoulders of Swumanoid."

The robot overall has a special-purpose drive using four struts, and the force the robot receives from the water can be measured. Because the robot is currently at the prototype stage, its swimming speed, corrected for size, is 0.64 m/s or approximately three times slower than the current world record for the 100m freestyle. From now on, the researchers are planning improvements to make it faster.

"Swumanoid can already do the butterfly and backstroke. The breaststroke involves a different leg motion, so it can't be done with the robot's current legs. But we are developing legs to enable Swumanoid to do the breaststroke."

"Currently, the robot doesn't always swim as it's instructed. So we'd like to enable it to swim freely. Humanoid robots can already walk and run, but if we have a robot that truly swims, it could be used not just for sports research, but also for rescuing people in the water."

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Meet Toybots Shimi robots. Videos

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Meet Toybots Shimi robots. Videos.

Tovbot's Shimi made its first public appearance  at Google I/O 2012 last week, where not just one but three Shimis performed in perfect coordination. 

Tovbot was formed earlier this year by a group of robot researchers and entrepreneurs hailing from Georgia Tech, IDC in Israel, and MIT Media Lab.

 Their goal is to foster a new paradigm of personal robots - robots that don't just clean your floors or your pool, but also interact with you on a personal, almost human level. According to a news item on Georgia Tech's website,Shimi, a musical companion developed by Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology, recommends songs, dances to the beat and keeps the music pumping based on listener feedback. 

Spectrum

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Articial Intelligence: Googles�s self-driving car.

The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.


The Google research program using artificial intelligence to revolutionize the automobile is proof that the company�s ambitions reach beyond the search engine business. The program is also a departure from the mainstream of innovation in Silicon Valley, which has veered toward social networks and Hollywood-style digital media.


During a half-hour drive beginning on Google�s campus 35 miles south of San Francisco last Wednesday, a Prius equipped with a variety of sensors and following a route programmed into the GPS navigation system nimbly accelerated in the entrance lane and merged into fast-moving traffic on Highway 101, the freeway through Silicon Valley.

Related articles

• Robots at wheel driving Google cars (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Google brain drives cars in quest for next auto revolution (newsinfo.inquirer.net)

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BW: Google Uses AI to Make Search Smarter

Imagine a future in which smartphones are always on�automatically translating conversations, hunting data, even talking back. At Google, speech recognition and visual search are just the start. 

About 10 years ago, Peter Norvig helped develop software that temporarily operated NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft as it functioned without human help, more than 60 million miles from earth.

Norvig's current job as director of research at search giant Google (GOOG) keeps him focused on matters much closer to home. Norvig often shows up for work at the Mountain View (Calif.)-based company's headquarters known as Googleplex, wearing Hawaiian shirts and spending his days creating computer systems that help people search for answers to questions that aren't clearly defined. These can be as mundane as locating the best nearby pizza joint.

"It sounds not as dangerous as computers that take over the world, but it's something that helps with complexity and uncertainty," Norvig, 53, says in an interview.

The results of his work may be no less far-reaching than the exploration of Mars. It touches on how billions of people already use search, browse the Web, circulate e-mail, and translate documents and speech on personal computers and mobile devices.

In years to come, artificial intelligence (AI) systems might remind us of our appointments, drive our cars, and connect us with friends. "Imagine a very near future when you don't forget anything because the computer remembers," Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said at a Sept. 7 conference in Berlin. "You are never lost. You are never lonely."

AI in action: Google Instant

For Google, which spent $2.84 billion last year on research and development, artificial intelligence is a big focus. "We think of that as something that permeates everything we do," Norvig says.

"Google's probably gotten the most number of people doing this," says James Allen, associate director at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a nonprofit research firm affiliated with several universities. Google doesn't disclose the number of its staff working on AI-related projects, nor does it break out AI spending.

Artificial intelligence innovation could directly affect Google's revenue, which rose to $23.7 billion last year. Take Google Instant, a new search tool launched in early September that uses AI to guess what a person is searching for as they type keywords into the search box. Instant can save a user two to five seconds per search, according to the company.

The time savings should encourage people to turn to Google more frequently, ultimately lifting its advertising revenue, Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marianne Wolk wrote in a Sept. 9 note. Search engine advertising contributes almost 97 percent of Google's revenue, according to Bloomberg data. "This innovation in user experience could improve Google's market share lead and at a minimum, force competitors to play catch-up," Wolk wrote. In August, Google completed almost 72 percent of all Web searches in the U.S., according to consulting firm Experian Hitwise. Rivals Yahoo! (YHOO) and Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing followed with 14.3 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

Artificial intelligence is pushing the use of Google on mobile devices, where it also dominates search. Google Instant, when it becomes available on mobile phones later this year, should increase the company's appeal to consumers on the go, driving up mobile ad prices, Wolk wrote.

Source BW: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2010/tc20100920_708019.htm

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Artificial Intelligence: In our time.

Artificial Intelligence: More Real Than Ever

There was a time when the phrase "artificial intelligence" evoked images of supercomputers taking over the world, � la Skynet, the villainous computer network of The Terminator film series. Now the technology is part of everyday life. Consumers armed with smartphones and Web-connected PCs are tapping into AI software to dictate e-mail, book restaurant reservations, and find the best way to drive home. And researchers are exploring the potential for harnessing it for more important tasks and in surprising ways: One computer is playing Jeopardy! against former champions, as one step in developing computers that humans can talk to and talk with as naturally as they do each other. Here's a tour of some of the up-and-coming AI technologies.

Google Goggles

Want to know more about a book on display at the store? A movie advertised on a poster? How about the fat content of the bag of chips you just ate? Take a picture of it with your smartphone and get Google (GOOG) on the case. The Google Goggles smartphone app�as yet available only for phones running Android, although an iPhone version is expected this year�breaks pictures into searchable bits of information. That text from the movie poster, or the brand name on the bag of chips, is uploaded over a wireless network to Google, whose AI software identifies the image and retrieves related information from the Web.

Nuance Dragon Dictation 2.0

Converting the always-varying human voice into text on a computer screen is a classic task that once pushed the boundaries of computing power and artificial intelligence. We have reached the point that smartphone users can now harness the computing horsepower of the Web to eliminate the tedium of typing longish e-mails on a smartphone. Nuance�s (NUAN) Dragon Dictation for the iPhone can turn what you say on your iPhone into text you can send in an e-mail, text message, Facebook update, or Tweet. The software uploads your spoken words to servers in the Internet "cloud" and returns them to the phone as text.

Inrix Traffic Pro

What�s the drive home going to be like? If you leave now, it might take 40 minutes�but if you wait a bit, there�s a good chance the traffic will let up and cut your drive time to 20 minutes. How do you know that? Inrix Traffic Pro, a smartphone app for the iPhone and Android phones, harnesses historic and real-time data and information on such occasional things as sporting events and road-construction schedules. It uses those to predict what traffic conditions will be like. Inrix, in Kirkland, Wash., gathers 4 billion data points per month from road sensors and 3 million cars and trucks on the road using Inrix-enabled phones and navigation systems to forecast traffic on 1 million miles of road in North America.

Siri

Want to book a table for two at your favorite Italian restaurant? Tell Siri what you want�a table at a specific restaurant, or maybe a similar one in a new city�and like a trusted personal assistant, it takes care of the details. Using AI voice-recognition engines in the Internet cloud, Siri interprets what you say and gathers information accordingly. Over time it learns what you like, using details such as your location, the time of day, and your history to figure out exactly what you�re trying to say. Siri was acquired by iPhone maker Apple (AAPL) earlier this year.

IBM's Jeopardy! Challenge

In 1997 an IBM (IBM) computer named Deep Blue defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess match, proving that computers could beat experienced players at that game. But what about the TV game show Jeopardy? The game-show host�s questions, always phrased as answers with puns and in-jokes that are easy for a human to understand, are trickier for computers. IBM has built a supercomputer it calls Watson that can compete with human champions from the TV show at a Jeopardy-like set IBM created in Hawthorne, N.Y. Eventually IBM hopes the work will lead to computers that can respond to complex questions from humans asked in everyday speech and give the right answers.

Soccer-Playing Robots

First chess, then Jeopardy. How about the most popular sport in the world? Claude Sammut, a professor of computer science and engineering at Australia�s University of New South Wales, predicts in a paper published in the academic journal Cognitive Science that a team of robots will have both the physical and reasoning abilities to best a team of human soccer players by the year 2050. It�s no small task, Sammut writes: "To achieve this, or come even close, the robots will have to be able to sense and act in completely unstructured environments. This will require major advances in perception, decision making, learning, and cooperative behaviors." Researchers have been conducting the RoboCup�a international robotic soccer competition�since 1997, and the current generation of players are midget-size Aldebaran Nao robots. As yet there�s no threat to humanity�s control of the World Cup.

Expertmaker

Expertmaker, a Swedish startup, demonstrated a set of tools it says will make it easy for non-programmers to harness artificial intelligence to build subject-specific Web search engines that can be used in business or by consumers. It demonstrated one tool geared to helping players choose from a range of new video games based on the games' intensity, complexity, and how well they are reviewed. The technology is also behind a smartphone app called Pasta Explorer that helps consumers discover pasta recipes based on personal preferences. The company plans to license its technology to companies that will use it to underpin apps and services that deliver tailored search results.

Memristor

Here's something humans can do that computers can�t: remember. Turn a computer off, and it forgets everything it was doing only seconds before. (Of course, it has memory storage devices to help �.) A memristor�a mashup of "memory" and "resistor"�is an electronic circuit that remembers its state after the power goes off. This is similar to the way a synapse works in the human brain. First theorized in 1971, researchers at the University of Michigan are now using memristors to build a computer that mimics the brain of a cat. Professor Wei Lu says the simulators now require 140,000 CPU chips, and even with that computing power a cat can still do simple cognitive tasks, such as face recognition, 83 times faster. Still, Lu says memristors will in time make possible a computerized cat brain that�s no bigger than a two-liter soda bottle.

Context-Aware Computing

Today computers are great at retrieving information that may�or may not�suit your needs quickly. (That's why Google is as popular as it is.) But what if they could make suggestions as if they were a good friend or relative who knows you well? Chipmaker Intel (INTC) is working on what it calls context-aware computing, whose devices know what restaurants you like and don�t like. They suggest relevant choices based not only on your current location but also on your historical tendencies, your schedule, the weather outside, and scores of other factors. In theory they�ll eventually anticipate your needs and give helpful, unsolicited advice. For example, knowing you have an important business meeting today, your smartphone may suggest you leave a littler earlier than usual because traffic on the way is tied up.

Brain-Controlled Wheelchair

What if the human brain and artificial intelligence were to team up? For starters, they might allow a person in a wheelchair to get around more easily. Researchers at Switzerland�s �cole Polytechnique F�d�rale de Lausanne have developed a thought-control system for navigating in a wheelchair. Think of moving left, and the chair moves left. Think forward, it moves forward. AI is used to make it easier for the controller. Two cameras connected to image-processing software help navigate around obstacles. In the future, the system will learn how to tell the difference between obstacles and objects the user may want to approach. For instance, it might recognize a checkout counter in a store and know to pull closer.

Intel's "Mental Typewriter"

Researchers at Intel are developing technology that could one day be built into a hat that would determine what word you�re thinking of at any given moment. The point: Why type a search query when you can just think it? A room-size prototype can already determine when a test subject is thinking about such things as celery and airplanes. Tinfoil hats, anyone?

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BW: Artificial Intelligence Goes Mobile: to run on smartphones and tablets.

Some of technology's biggest companies are developing AI-related hardware, software, and components to run on smartphones and tablets. Might a wireless device rebalance your investment portfolio? 

Artificial intelligence is going mobile. The technology that can help machines behave more intelligently, popularized by such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, is finding its way onto tablet-style computers and other handheld devices.

Researchers at International Business Machines (IBM) have created a machine called Watson that can sift through a terabyte of data and crank out answers to complicated questions in three to five seconds. A version of the software that runs Watson could reside on a doctor's tablet computer in three to five years, analyzing test results to proffer a diagnosis, says Dave Ferrucci, a senior manager at IBM. Or it might analyze real-time market data and recommend ways to rebalance an investment portfolio�from a smartphone, he explains.

"We are right at the dawn of a new age of the capabilities of machines," says Geordie Rose, founder of D-Wave Systems, which develops chips for computers that run artificial intelligence applications.

Other companies working on artificial intelligence-related software, components, or hardware include Intel (INTC), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), AT&T (T), and Sprint Nextel (S).

mightier processors, faster networks

At stake is a large and quickly growing market. Global revenue from mobile speech recognition�one of myriad artificial intelligence applications�may rise to $780.5 million in 2015, from $160.3 million this year, according to ABI Research in Oyster Bay, N.Y.

Artificial intelligence is currently used in such areas as defense, gaming, and finance. Soldiers can use it to interpret what is seen by remotely controlled robots. AI software can interact with human players to make video game play more challenging. And banks have long used it to detect transactions that fall outside the norm�for instance, to identify fraud.

The technology is headed for mobile devices as smartphones become more prevalent and capable of handling complex tasks. More than half of Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2011, according to market researcher the Nielsen Co. Phones and mobile tablets sport more powerful processors that let users run complex artificial intelligence apps on them. Faster wireless networks also help deliver AI applications to mobile devices.

"We are trying to reach that Star Trek dream," says Mazin Gilbert, executive director of technical research at AT&T Labs. "We spent decades investing in this technology. If you can put AI with mobility, it really�significantly�expands the number of applications and services" you can provide, he says.

Intel's wireless mind-reading hat

AT&T has devoted more than 1 million research hours to develop AI technology that can convert speech to text, engage in dialogue, and conduct searches in response to spoken questions. This year, AT&T will let developers create mobile apps that tap into its artificial intelligence engine.

AT&T is also exploring ways to let people use voice commands to get directions while driving and control appliances such as television sets. "We have 50 to 60 cool things [in the lab] no one's seen yet," Gilbert says.

Some advanced applications of AI will take time. Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, is developing a technology that could be built into a wireless hat and work as a "mental typewriter." By scanning brain waves, it can guess what a person is thinking and predict search queries. A prototype of the software can recognize about 60 words, such as "airplane" and "celery," says Dan Pomerleau, a researcher at Intel Labs in Pittsburgh, Pa. It could take more than 10 years for its vocabulary and accuracy to improve enough for real-life uses, he says.

Other challenges abound. AI software still struggles to identify objects visually. Recognizing a cat, for example, can be difficult. The animal can stretch or curl up and its various shapes and sizes can confuse a machine.

HP aims for the cloud

To give its machine more brainpower, Hewlett-Packard is developing an analog computer that replicates the workings of a human brain and can crunch data many times faster than current machines.
"We want to supply the major part of hardware for the cloud and cloud services," says Stan Williams, founding director of a lab at HP Labs.

AI technology can be particularly useful in sorting through the ever-rising tide of digital data. In just six years, social site Facebook has gained more than 500 million active users, many of whom post photos and comments daily. Google answers more than 1 billion search queries a day. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to Google's YouTube.com.

Nuance Communications (NUAN) is working on software that mines people's interests, likes, and dislikes, as reported on Facebook and microblogging site Twitter, to provide more relevant results to search queries. Says Gary Clayton, Nuance's chief creative officer: "It's all about having all this data and being able to predict the needs and wants of an individual."

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