Chrome to Phone

Chrome to Phone isn't a new product - we've been using it since May, in fact - but Google's second mobile announcement today (behind Voice Actions) is that its continuous client app is now "official" and available to all users (with Android 2.2 Froyo) via Android Market. As it was before, websites can be pushed from the Chrome browser to your Android device, with certain apps (Maps, YouTube) taking over for the browser when contextually appropriate. Additionally, the code is open, which we're hoping means this Chrome extension will find its way to other browsers. The team is "looking into" bringing the capabilities to other mobile OSs.

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Robonaut 2: by NASA and General Motors

NASA and GM are working with engineers from Oceaneering Space Systems of Houston to create what they're calling the "Robonaut". In near future, instead of sending a regular astronaut to make a dangerous spacewalk outside the International Space Station or to send humans to Mars or Moon, NASA might be able to send a robotic astronauts. NASA and General Motors announced that they are working together to develop and build humanoid robots that can work side-by-side with humans. The idea, according to NASA, is to build robots that can help astronauts during dangerous mission and help GM build cars and automotive plants. According to NASA, the original Robonaut which also was a humanoid machine designed for space travel, was built 10 years ago by the software, robotics and simulation division at the Johnson Space Center. The Robonaut 2, which also is known as R2, is designed to be a faster, more dexterous and more technologically advanced robot.

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Humanoid Robot with Embedded Artificial Skin

Skin has been one of the big missing technologies for humanoid robots and would be essential to making them socially acceptable. A team at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa have now come up with the first pieces of touch sensing skin designed for their humanoid robot, the iCub. The skin IIT and its partners have developed contains flexible pressure sensors that aim to put robots in touch with the world. Criteria that the skin has to meet are too many, It must be resilient, able to cover a large surface area and be able to detect even light touches anywhere on that surface. The skin is made up of triangular, flexible printed circuit boards which act as sensors, and it covers much of iCub's body. Each bendy triangle is 3 centimetres to a side and contains 12 capacitive copper contacts. A layer of silicone rubber acts as a spacer between those boards and an outer layer of Lycra that carries a metal contact above each copper contact. The Lycra layer and flexible circuits constitute the two sides of the skin's pressure-sensing capacitors. This arrangement allows 12 "tactile pixels"(or taxels) to be sensed per triangle. This taxel resolution is enough to recognise patterns such as a hand grasping the robot's arm. The skin can detect a touch as light as 1 gram across each taxel. It is also peppered with semiconductor based temperature sensors.
[More on this @ Robocub website]

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iCub robot learns like a child

iCub, a new humanoid robot that will learn very much like a child does. It isn't like other robots where they are programmed to do certain task. The iCub has more enhanced sensors and better motor skills than any other humanoid robot available for research. iCub is about 1 meter (3.2 feet) high, with an articulated trunk, arms and legs made up of intricate electronic circuits. It has a white face with the hint of a nose and big round eyes that can see and follow moving objects. The robot has been thought to perform basic motor skills like reaching, grabbing, listening and moving its head and eyes. Researchers are now focusing on teaching the robot to juggle, to walk, talk, and create memories. Also, they are now hoping that it will learn how to adapt its behavior to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. There are 53 motors, allowing the robot to have almost the same amount of movement and flexibility as a child. The head has seven of these motors, allowing it to move its head around to see. Six versions of iCub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child.

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Robot that develops emotions with humans

The first prototype of a Nao robot that can develop emotions as it interacts with a human caregiver has been completed. A team across Europe was led by Dr. Lola Cañamero of the University of Herefordshire in the UK to develop the bot, which differs in several significant ways from those that came before it. These robots develop over time in much the way that a child does, learning to interact with and respond to the human beings around them. Modeled after human and chimpanzee childhood development paths, they are programmed to be highly adaptable to the people around them, and to become attached to whatever person is most suited to its needs and 'personality' profile. Over time, the more they interact, the more they learn and bond to the human being. These little ones, moreover, are capable of expressing a wide range of emotions, including anger, frustration, fear and happiness. The next steps are to research the bots' emotional and non-linguistic behavior, and to move toward combining linguistic and non-linguistic communication to become further attached and adapted to them.

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