Re: Robots That Sense Before They Touch

Latest Robot in Japan.  --  Asimo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgXEkzMq7A This is a commercial only. Check Youtube for more detailed videos. -- Regards, Rajesh Prabhu. R "There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job." - George Crane "A busy man has time for everything and a lazy man has time for nothing." On 9/18/07, Prakash < p.gnanaprakash@gmail.com> wrote: Intel researchers have developed a sensor for robotic arms that allows the robot to sense an object before actually touching it. For example, a robotic arm is capable of telling the difference between an empty bottle and a bottle filled with water without touching either one. The technology, known as pre-touch, is intended to "improve the ability of robots to grasp objects in unstructured human environments," says Intel research scientist Josh Smith. Pre-touch's electric-field (EF) proximity sensors are electrodes made of copper and aluminum foil. A current is sent to one of the electrodes, which creates a magnetic field and induces a current in the other electrodes. When the robotic hand gets near metal or anything with water in it, the object reduces the induced current, which is detected by the sensors. Special algorithms process the information and instruct the robotic hand to move around the object accordingly. Smith developed similar EF sensors while he was a student at MIT. Those sensors were used to help determine the position of people in a car, information that was used to determine how to deploy airbags during an accident. Smith says his current EF research will now involve developing algorithms capable of handling the complex data that EF sensors produce, particularly when the object or the robot is in motion.   From ACM Technews

Robots That Sense Before They Touch

Intel researchers have developed a sensor for robotic arms that allows the robot to sense an object before actually touching it. For example, a robotic arm is capable of telling the difference between an empty bottle and a bottle filled with water without touching either one. The technology, known as pre-touch, is intended to "improve the ability of robots to grasp objects in unstructured human environments," says Intel research scientist Josh Smith. Pre-touch's electric-field (EF) proximity sensors are electrodes made of copper and aluminum foil. A current is sent to one of the electrodes, which creates a magnetic field and induces a current in the other electrodes. When the robotic hand gets near metal or anything with water in it, the object reduces the induced current, which is detected by the sensors. Special algorithms process the information and instruct the robotic hand to move around the object accordingly. Smith developed similar EF sensors while he was a student at MIT. Those sensors were used to help determine the position of people in a car, information that was used to determine how to deploy airbags during an accident. Smith says his current EF research will now involve developing algorithms capable of handling the complex data that EF sensors produce, particularly when the object or the robot is in motion.   From ACM Technews

Indian team flies remote controlled aircraft with cellphone

A Mechanical Engineering research team based in Punjab has tweaked out a remote control plane to use what is ironically verboten during flight as its means of control. Using a programmable chip on the plane, the team was able to successfully take off and land the aircraft with a cellphone -- no brand mentioned -- and are now busying themselves with "perfecting the art of speed, height and direction of the plane." We wish them good luck with that, as those are the key elements to not having to cough up money for a new plane for every run.   Source From: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/09/11/indian-team-flies-remote-controlled-aircraft-with-cellphone/

Robots Surf the Web to Learn About the World

Robots and computer programs are learning to associate words with objects by going online and Googling the words, using the retrieved images to make the connection. "If you give a robot visual capabilities, it could pretty much do anything," argues the University of Maryland in College Park's Alap Karapurkar. Carnegie Mellon University researcher Paul Rybski goes a step further. He says, "You could tell a robot, 'car,' and it could learn what a car looks like, that they're used for driving, then it could download a driver's manual, hop in the car and drive away." Rybski and colleague Alexei Efros put together the first Semantic Robot Vision Challenge at the annual American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference to test the theory. The competition involved instructing robots to search the Internet for images relevant to 20 object words, and then look for the objects in a 6-meter-square area. Robots were entered in the contest by five teams. The first step for the robots was converting the hundreds of images resulting from queries into descriptions that could be used to identify objects in the real world, and this was achieved through the use of software that analyzes the shading patterns in all of the resulting images to outline telltale characteristics and organize them into a sort of fingerprint. Several robots were equipped with stereo cameras to search for objects, which took snapshots for comparison to the fingerprint index. The robot that scored the highest--seven out of 20 found objects--was built by a team of University of British Columbia researchers. The software the robots run on could be applied to the significant improvement of Web image searches.   From ACM Technews

Software Via the Internet: Microsoft in 'Cloud' Computing

Microsoft recently announced plans to provide free software that connects its Windows operating system to software services hosted on the Internet, a technique known as "cloud" computing. Microsoft hopes its new online applications will be competitive against similar online services offered by Google and other online software providers that already offer software applications online and have a significant head start. The Microsoft Windows Live software suite will include an updated electronic mail program, photo-sharing applications, and a writing tool designed for bloggers. Microsoft wants the Windows Live package to make the company the digital curator of all of a user's information, whether it's on a PC, mobile device, or the Internet. Millions of Internet users already use Web applications either to create or store data. For example, Google offers several cloud computing applications, including email, photo sharing, and a word document and spreadsheet application. Microsoft is counting on its large user base to make Windows Live a success, and plans to provide some applications for free, such as photo-sharing and disk storage, while charging for others, including computer security and a variety of business-oriented services for small and medium businesses. Microsoft's competitors are upset because four years ago Microsoft argued against adding compression features that would allow Web applications to perform better, but now Microsoft has developed its own compression standards that could make Windows Live perform better than its competitors. Click Here to View Full Article

EU Project Builds Artificial Brain for Robots

Scientists in Spain have designed microchips that make use of a full neuronal system to serve as an artificial brain for a robot that would interact with humans. The development of the man-made cerebellum by researchers at the University of Granada is part of Sensopac (SENSOrimotor structuring of perception and action for emerging cognition), a four-year project of the EU to build a robot with more human-like movements and interactions. Within the next two years, the project will work to integrate the artificial brain into a robot designed by the German Aerospace Center. Physicists, neuroscientists, and electronic engineers from Europe's top universities are involved in the project. "Although robots are increasingly more important to our society and have more advanced technology, they can not yet do certain tasks like those carried out by mammals," says Eduardo Ros Vidal, a professor at Granada who coordinates its contribution to the project. Sensopac also has plans to develop an artificial skin, make the robot look more like a human, and make it information-sensitive.   Click Here to View Full Article

Transparent Toaster

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/03/transparent-toaster-gives-you-clear-view-of-breads-crispiness/

Daily Word - Head-up display (HUD)

A head-up display, or HUD, also erroneously known as a heads-up display, is any transparent display that presents data without obstructing the user's view. Although they were initially developed for military aviation, HUDs are now used in commercial aircraft, automobiles, and other applications. ---- Microsoft's UI Ambitions Not Limited to Tables: A New Windshield HUD Patent Ars Technica (08/27/07) Haselton, Todd Microsoft has filed a patent for an "adaptive heads-up user interface for automobiles" that could make driving a car more like flying a fighter jet. The automobile heads-up display (HUD) would replace the windshield and display navigational information, car speed, weather information, information on the driver's health, what music is playing, and possibly where the nearest parking space is. The display could also be used to control various functions in the car such as climate control, a communication system, and a general input device. The HUD display could be viewed and controlled similar to items on a computer monitor, with a hidden state, a collapsed state, a preview, and a full screen view. Microsoft says HUD is intended to improve the driver's awareness of his or her surroundings by alerting the driver to information on road conditions or accidents. The driver would be able to prepare and monitor road and vehicle conditions without having to look down from the windshield. HUD would also be able to display information about the driver, like heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature, and would be able to diffuse potentially dangerous situations caused by the driver, for example, by playing soothing music to calm road rage or sounding alarms to wake a sleepy driver. Source From ACM Technews 29'Aug'07

Daily Word - Carputer

A Carputer, or 'CarPC', is a general purpose computing platform installed in a vehicle.   காரில் போய் கொண்டிருக்கின்றீர்கள். யாரோ மொபைல்போனில் அழைத்து hypervisor பற்றி கேட்கின்றார்கள். ஒன்றும் புரியவில்லை.கூகிள் செய்தால் நன்றாயிருக்கும் போல் தோன்றுகின்றது.கணிணிக்கு எங்கே போக.கையறு நிலை. அப்படியே உங்கள் பிளாக்பெரியை தீண்டாமல் மெயில் செக்செய்யவும் வசதியிருந்தால் எப்படியிருக்கும். அதற்கு உதவுகின்றது இந்த கார் பி.ஸி.(Car PC or Auto PC).இக்கணிணி உங்கள் காரின் டேஷ்போர்டின் ஒர் அங்கமாகிவிடும். கூடவே வயர்லெஸ் இணைப்பு வசதியும் இருப்பதால் இணையத்தோடு அதை இணைத்துவிடலாம்.இதை Carputer கார்பியூட்டர் என்கின்றார்கள்.இக்னீசியன் கொடுக்கும் போதே அது பூட்டாக தொடங்கிவிடுமாம். டச் ஸ்கிரீனுடன் மொத்த கணிணிவசதியோடு கூடவே ஆடியோ,வீடியோ,ஜிபிஎஸ்,காரை சோதிக்கும் மென்பொருள்கள்,சேட்டலைட் ரேடியோ இன்னும் பிற ஜிகினாக்களோடு இது வருவதால் பார்க்க நன்றாயிருக்கின்றது. சீக்கிரத்தில் இதுவும் Builtin ஆக வாகனங்களில் வரலாம்.வந்திருக்கலாம். கூடவே நாம் தினமும் செய்யும் சில கணிணி சார் செயல்களை மின்னஞ்சல் பார்த்தல்,காலெண்டர் பார்த்தல்,சிஎன்என் போகுதல் போன்றவற்றை ஸ்டடி செய்து அதை தானாகவே தினமும் செய்யும் மென்பொருள் ஒன்று இருந்தால் நன்றாயிருக்கும்.அவாள் எல்லா மவுஸ் நகர்தலையும்,கிளிக்குகளையும் செய்ய நாம் திரையை பார்த்து கொண்டே இருக்கலாமே. அப்படியே கூகிள் மெயில் போவென குரலால் கட்டளை கொடுத்தால் அது தானாவே கூகிள் மெயில் போய் மெயில் செக்பண்ணிணால் Carcomputing-க்கு இன்னும் சவுகரியம். எது வேண்டுமானாலும் நடக்கலாம் இவ்வுலகில்.   Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer http://www.gnetcanada.com/vehiclepc-carpc-overview.asp http://pkp.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-post_17.html

கிலோ கணக்கில் சேட்டலைட்கள்

நானோ டெக்னாலஜியின் உபயத்தால் பெரிது பெரிதாய் அரக்கத்தனமாய் இருந்தவையெல்லாம் இப்போது பொடியன்களாய் மாறி வருகின்றன.சேட்டிலைட்களெல்லாம் முன்பு டன் கணக்கில் பேசப்பட்டன.இப்போது கிலோ கிராம் கணக்கில் சேட்டிலைட்கள் தயாரிக்கப்படுகின்றன. சமீபத்தில் இஸ்ரேல் ஏவிய மினி உளவு சேட்டிலைட்டின் (Ofeq 7) எடை முன்னூறு கிலோ கிராம்களே.மினி சாட்டிலைட்டை அடுத்து இந்த வரிசையில் மைக்ரோ சாட்டிலைட்கள்,நானோ சாட்டிலைட்கள் என சீக்கிரத்தில் தயாரிக்கப்படலாம். இஸ்ரேல் நாடு இருக்கும் இடம் லாகவமாய் இல்லாத காரணத்தால் அந்நாட்டின் அடுத்த உளவு சாட்டிலைட்டான, 260 கிலோகிராம் எடைகளே கொண்ட TechSar இந்தியாவின் ஸ்ரிகரிகோட்டாவிலிருந்து செப்டம்பர் மாதத்தில் ஏவப்படுமாம். இஸ்ரேலின் Shavit எனப்படும் ராக்கெட் கடந்த 2004-ல் மத்திய தரைக்கடலில் விழுந்து தோல்வியில் முடிந்தது.இந்தியாவின் அடுத்தடுத்த வெற்றியாலும், இந்தியாவின் PSLV ராக்கெட் மேலுள்ள அதீத நம்பிக்கையாலும் அவர்கள் இந்தியாவின் உதவியை நாடியிருக்கிறார்களாம்.ஏதோ சில ராணுவ ஒப்பந்தங்கள் இருக்கலாம். இவ்வாறு சாட்டிலைட்களின் எடை சிறிதாகிக்கொண்டே வருவதால் சீக்கிரத்தில் Boeing 747 போன்ற சரக்கு விமானத்திலிருந்தோ அல்லது F-15 போன்ற போர் விமானத்தில் பறந்தவாறோ சேட்டிலைட்களை ஏவ முயன்று வருகின்றார்கள்.அது வெற்றிகரமாய் முடிந்தால் பெரிதாய் கவுண்டவுன்கள் எதுவும் இல்லாது சென்னையிலிருந்து டெல்லி போகும் வழியில் போகிற போக்கில் விமானத்தில் பறந்தவாறே நாலு சேட்டிலைட்கள் ஏவுவார்கள்.   Thanks:http://pkp.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-post_28.html

A new method to detect software theft

Developing software is expensive. This tempts some programmers to illegally include third-party software in their own programs. Researchers at Saarland University have developed a new method for detecting this kind of software theft. It analyzes the behavior of one program and looks for similarities in other programs.   Today, most software consists of independent components, which makes it easy to include parts of a software into another program. Yet, for a code owner such theft is difficult to prove in court. David Schuler, researcher at Saarland University, developed a tool called API BIRTHMARK that measures the degree of similarity between programs. A company that suspects code theft may use API BIRTHMARK to run both its own program and a foreign program. When this yields a high degree of similarity, code theft is likely and further investigations are warranted. The novelty of Schuler's method is that it compares the behavior of programs rather than their code. A program's code can easily be obfuscated without destroying it. Such obfuscation tools are freely available on the internet. On the other hand, a program's behavior is difficult to change without breaking the program, just like a birthmark. David Schuler and his co-authors Valentin Dallmeier and Christian Lindig have shown that birthmarks from Java programs are immune against the best obfuscation tools available. A paper on the birthmarking technique has been accepted at the Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2007) conference which will be held in Atlanta, USA. This year, only 37 submissions out of 312 got accepted to ASE 2007.   For more info: http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news222661

Yahoo release a web site evaluation tool called YSlow

YSlow is a new web tool published by Yahoo. It let you test a total of 13 rules against your web site to check if it is efficient.   YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they're slow based on Yahoo's rules for high performance web sites. YSlow gives you: * Performance report card * HTTP/HTML summary * List of components in the page * Tools including JSLint Thirteen Simple Rules for Speeding Up Your Web Site  High Performance Web Sites Use a Content Delivery Network Add an Expires Header Gzip Components Put CSS at the Top Move Scripts to the Bottom Avoid CSS Expressions Make JavaScript and CSS External Reduce DNS Lookups Minify JavaScript Avoid Redirects Remove Duplicate Scripts Configure ETags   More about YSlow: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5369 More about 13 Rules: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html Reference: http://weblogs.asp.net/lkempe/archive/2007/08/19/yahoo-release-a-web-site-evaluation-tool-called-yslow.aspx

EPOS Technologies' digital pen records your writing

Have you ever been sitting around and suddenly thought of the cure for cancer, or figured out how to build the world's largest hamburger, but you didn't have any way to get your idea down? Sure, you could write it on a piece of paper, but what if that paper got ripped, or blown away by a strong gust of wind? Well luckily, EPOS Technologies thought about all of this and came up with a solution: a digital pen which records your movements on a piece of paper, and then saves them to a USB flash drive for later use. The two-part combo utilizes the company's proprietary system of transmission which employs ultrasonic acoustic waves to help measure the distance and position of the pen, so apparently all you have to do is clip the flash drive to a notepad or related writing surface, and off you go. The whole wacky set-up is available for the bargain-basement price of $79, and should be available by the end of the year.

Air Force Software will Take Over Aircraft Flight Controls to Prevent Crashes

Auto-GCAS software will take over flight controls from pilot to prevent controlled flight into ground According to the United States Air Force, the current manual "warning only" collision systems don't prevent many of the controlled-flight-into-terrain accidents. This is partly due to the fact that warning lights or tones don't offer any help if the pilot has lost consciousness or has lost their situational awareness. To help reduce these accidents, the Air Force recently announced that it will begin implementing a new piece of software into some of their advanced fighter jets including the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 Lightning II. The new software application is called Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System, or Auto-GCAS. Auto-GCAS takes into account data from a number of factors including the aircraft weight, performance, positional information and digital terrain elevation data to calculate the aircraft's relative position to the earth. It then calculates the maneuvers required to prevent a collision with the ground. Rather than simply telling the pilot what to do to avoid the collision, Auto-GCAS actually takes over control of the aircraft and performs the maneuvers autonomously when the software finds that the aircraft is within 1.5 seconds of the point of no return for collision with the ground and no action has been taken by the pilot.   source from http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8335

Electric Fields Kill Tumors

An Israeli company is conducting human tests for a device that uses weak electric fields to kill cancer cells but has no effect on normal cells. The device is in late-stage clinical trials in the United States and Europe for glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer. It is also being tested in Europe for its effectiveness against breast cancer. In the lab and in animal testing, treatment with electric fields has killed cancer cells of every type tested. The electric-field therapy was developed by Yoram Palti, a physiologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, who founded the company NovoCure to commercialize the treatment. Palti's electric fields cause dividing cancer cells to explode while having no significant impact on normal tissues. The range of electric fields generated by the device harms only dividing cells. And since normal cells divide at a much slower rate than cancer cells, the electric fields target cancer cells. "An Achilles' heel of cancer cells is that they have to divide," says Herbert Engelhard, chief of neuro-oncology in the department of neurosurgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago.   For More Info: http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=19195

A 3-D View of the Brain

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, in Philadelphia, have developed software that integrates data from multiple imaging technologies to create an interactive 3-D map of the brain. The enhanced visualization gives neurosurgeons a much clearer picture of the spatial relationship of a patient's brain structures than is possible with any single imaging methods. In doing so, it could serve as an advanced guide for surgical procedures, such as brain-tumor removal and epilepsy surgery. The new imaging software collates data from different types of brain-imaging methods, including conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI (fMRI), and diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI). The MRI gives details on the anatomy, fMRI provides information on the activated areas of the brain, and DTI provides images of the network of nerve fibers connecting different brain areas. The fusion of these different images produces a 3-D display that surgeons can manipulate: they can navigate through the images at different orientations, virtually slice the brain in different sections, and zoom in on specific sections. for more information about this news: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19140/page1/

Robotic fly

Traditional robots are slow, heavy, fragile. What nature builds is light, fast, robust. Inspired by the elegant aerodynamics of flying insects, UC Berkeley engineers, working with the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), have created a tiny wing that flaps and generates lift. Their goal: a flying robot weighing less than a paper clip — one that could be used in search, rescue, monitoring, and reconnaissance. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/06/fearing/home.html