DARPA Robotics Challenge - live now

ItDonnedOnMe

ItDonnedOnMe

Just thought some of you guy might be interested in the event I'm working on this weekend, the DARPA Robotics Challenge trials - it's a competition with humanoid robots attempting to perform a series of disaster recovery-related tasks based on Fukashimi recovery efforts.

It's streaming live on youtube today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o4B2R5kzw4

and here's yesterday's stream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWm3HaDbnQ

Some very cool, forward looking stuff going on here. The robots are a little underwhelming at this point - one stared at a door it was supposed to open for about ten minutes before keeling over and hitting the door with it's head - but you can see the potential. This year's trials will narrow down the teams that will compete next year in a more complex scenario that combines multiple tasks into an obstacle course they need to complete.
 
science-vs-fiction-robot-cop-elysium-130808-670x440.jpg

Alpha testing:D
 
Yah, was just reading up on the Big Dog purchase. Google's all over the place, right now. Might as well change their name to Cyberdyne, now, in advance of the inevitable. :lol:

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Zensteve said:
Yah, was just reading up on the Big Dog purchase. Google's all over the place, right now. Might as well change their name to Cyberdyne, now, in advance of the inevitable. :lol:

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One of the founders of google, peter norvig, wrote the book for my AI class when I was in college. Definitely right up their alley
 
Google also apparently bought Schaft, a japanese company who's robot pretty much blew away everyone else in the competition - they were the only one that successfully completed almost all of the tasks at the challenge. I think seven of the other teams used the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics, so at this point Google seems to be pretty much wrapping up all the leading robotics tech.

It'll be interesting to see what their long term plans for all this technology are (beyond the obvious application to their self-driving cars for mapping/street view purposes). Will we someday be telling tales of the Great Retail Delivery War of the early 21st century, in which Amazon's unmanned delivery drones fought it out with Google's ground-based fleet of humanoid delivery bots in a winner-take-all land battle for the right to drop boxes of junk on your doorstep?
 
Technology is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.
This theme has been reflected in the movies since motion pictures began. Well, actually it started with early writers like Jules Verne, moved into radio (remember the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast that caused panic among listeners) and then advanced into visual arts.
The truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
 
Watched the bonus features for 'Robot & Frank' the other day and appreciated the writer's approach of NOT making technology "the bad guy", a fun but bordering on strenuous cliché.

I was wondering if you guys could recommend some other films where advanced technology is NOT "the bad guy", a la 'Demon Seed', 'Terminator', 'I Am Legend', 'Planet of the Apes', and the upcoming 'Transcendence' et al.

TIA :)
 
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