Dr. Marvin Minksy, artificial Intelligence pioneer and inspiration for both the personal computer and Internet, passed away on January 24th, 2016. He was 88 years old. The cause of death is reported to have been a cerebral hemorrhage.
Category: News
Dec 29 2015
BigDog Has Been Put Down
At 70 robot dog years-old – that’s 10 in human years – BigDog should’ve had a few more years of happily serving his masters ahead of him. Instead, the US Marines have pulled an Old Yeller on the unsuspecting robocanine, sending him to an early grave, or junkyard as the case may be. Created in 2005, BigDog was the result …
Jun 30 2015
Toshiba’s Scorpion Robot to Lend a Tail at Fukushima
I admit it. I’ve spent the last 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get a “Rock You Like a Hurricane” reference into the title of the post. As you can see I have failed. Regardless, it’s still worth writing about today’s AP report regarding the ongoing clean up efforts at the Fukushima Nuclear Power …
Jun 23 2015
Clandestine Drone Racing
Hackday had a post today referencing an article about the state of drone racing in Australia originally published on DroneWatchDogs.com earlier this month. With so much of the news about drones dedicated to their darker uses: law enforcement, military action, surveillance, etc., it’s pretty easy to forget that majority of the UAVs in the air today are piloted …
Jun 20 2015
Shouldn’t Robot Pets Live Forever?
Announced as a prototype in 1998 and made available to the general public in May of 1999, Sony’s AIBO line of “entertainment robots” were called “the most sophisticated product ever offered in the consumer robot marketplace,” at their induction into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2006. While many people associate the AIBO name with …
Mar 29 2006
TomCat, a Robot Cat Sans Head
Still looking to fill the void left since Sony surreptitiously put down their robot dog Aibo, I am always excited to read about any new robotic animals under development. The Raw Feed is reporting today that Illinois-based robotic research group Iguana Robotics Inc. has created TomCat, a headless robot cat whose lack of visual aesthetics …
Mar 27 2006
European Researchers Create Neuro-Chip
Both LiveScience.com and New Scientist are reporting today that a team of Italian and German neuroscientists working in conjunction with mobile chip maker Infineon have created a “neuro-chip,” a hybrid microchip that interfaces living neurons with traditional silicon circuitry. In addition to providing new insights into the brain’s inner workings, the groundbreaking work could one …
Mar 23 2006
CMU to Build Robot City
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is reporting today that Carnegie Mellon University is planning to build a hi-tech robot research and development facility called Robot City on the site of a former steelworks plant. With the stated mission of moving “robots from laboratory to life,” Robot City will be populated by robots built to handle relatively mundane …
Mar 23 2006
NASA Launches Evolutionary Satellites
Just after six yesterday morning a Pegasus rocket launched from the belly of a Lockheed L-1011 jet flying 7 miles above the Earth carried a historic payload into space. On board the rocket were three ST5 micro-satellites destined to study the Earth’s magnetic fields from their extraterrestrial orbits. Built as part of NASA’s New Millennium …