March of the humanoid robots

by ZDNet Author  |  March 6, 2012 1:00pm PST  |  Image 1 of 8

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Actroid F
The Human-Robotics Interaction 2012 conference takes place this week, offering a meeting ground for computer scientists and robot engineers to compare notes. As always, the challenge remains how to move their creations out of the labs and into the marketplace. After years to false starts, we may not be too far away from the day when these inventions truly become mainstream as advances in the craft have paved the way for a new generation of increasingly humanoid-like robots.

In the accompanying image, Actroid F from Tokyo entertainment firm Kokoro can move its eyes, mouth, head, and back. Cameras and face-tracking software follow a remote operator so facial expressions and head movements are reproduced in the robot in a master-slave relationship via Internet link.

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star trek
business owner 22nd Mar
I think you're referring to the star trek episode "what are little girls made of?"
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I've only got two things to say....
delphi9_1971@... 7th Mar
A: The ones that they make that try to look like actual humans are creepy!

B: Call me back when you have one that I can buy and program to get me a beer on command!
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The Next Pygmalion is from Japan
d_baron@... 7th Mar
Think about it. I think I remember a Star Trek episode along these lines or I'd start writing it right now!
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star trek
business owner 22nd Mar
I think you're referring to the star trek episode "what are little girls made of?"
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extinct
hackerdemon2000@... 7th Mar
The day they become just like us and do what we must to live and survive, is the day we become Extinct in our world of jobs, More Humoniods, Less jobs in the future, or I might be wrong, it could be a total different meaning to our lifes. The question remains, what will these robots be capable of in the near future to come.
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I hope they include a way to destroy them when they get out of hand. Remember, Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation) had an evil "brother". Otherwise, I can see where they may someday perform surgeries, repair and build highways, stock groceries, pick strawberries, perform house chores, etc. Heck, this will put the illegal emigrants out of work.
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We Are Almost There
windozefreak 7th Mar
Back in economic classes we discussed the quest for cheap labor and America becoming a service oriented country. We imagined the day was close when humanoids would take over, and we would progress to a welfare country. Twenty years later it seems we are even closer than thought. Maybe I'm getting too old!!
Watch the new version of Battlestar Galactica's mostly unaired prequel series Caprica. The only tech that is not in general use today other than the interplanetary stuff is the cybernetic link headbands, and a quick internet search shows we are working on developing this as we speak...

http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/52435-neural-cybernetic-implants-could-arrive-within-a-decade

http://io9.com/391064/where-are-my-cybernetic-implants
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Robotics is a bit niche nowadays
SiO2 Updated - 8th Mar
compared to the world I remember being promised as a child.

Growing up in the UK, the likes of Tomorrows World on TV filled my head with images of robots working in fields outside domed cities while electric vehicles whizzed by on stilted roadways. Of course THAT never happened, even though we now have pretty much all of the technology to do it.
Beaurocracy and rampant capitalism have instead given us pretty much the same thing as the 70s, but we now have a layer of almost-invisible technology that allows us all to do pretty much anything... Chainsaws that work like scissors, for idiots to call themselves lumberjacks, tin-openers that open tins by themselves, computers that program themselves to best interact with the user, and Rock Band, for the average talentless fool to convince themselves they are musicians. (And even borrow my guitar to prove themselves wrong. Priceless...)

Robotics has vanished into cybernetics, which is machines merging with humans and ultimately where we are heading. I'm not worried by all the talk of robot overlords, because it isnt going to happen - decades of paranoid media has guaranteed that, and good entertainment it continues to be - while machines quietly adjunct our every waking moment and run half our lives, help us talk to one another, move us around and entertain us.
They're just not human shaped, which remains unfashionable for some reason.

Peace

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