“Siri grew out of a huge project inside the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), those people who previously gave you the internet and, more recently, a scheme to encourage people to develop driverless cars. Siri’s parent project, called Calo (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes) had $200m of funding and was the US’s [...]
Archive for November, 2011
Siri was a DARPA project
Posted by Eric on November 26th, 2011
Posted in AI, available for purchase, DARPA, domestic, pop culture 
Tags: AI, apple, calo, DARPA, iphone, siri 
No Comments »Robots will detect your human heartbeat through walls, doors, floors, concrete
Posted by Eric on November 26th, 2011
DARPA is developing a program called “Biometrics-at-a-distance” which will enable sensors to pick up a heartbeat using electrocardiography. It will be able to track up to 10 humans at once, at a distance of over 10 meters, even through walls, doors, floors, or concrete. This will be an incredibly useful tool for soldiers in urban [...]
Posted in DARPA, defense, featured, future, government, military / law enforcement, research Tags: biometrics, DARPA, heartbeat, sensors 1 Comment »Robot dog powered by sunlight.. and cuteness (Video)
Posted by Eric on November 26th, 2011
This quadruped was clearly designed with the intent to show that robots are way too cute to pose a threat to humanity. In all likelihood, most robots will probably have sources of backup power, such as photovoltaic cells. Solar power technology, fueled by the fears of global climate change, has made huge advances in recent years, [...]
Another incredible flying robot from Festo (Video)
Posted by Eric on November 26th, 2011
Festo has created yet another spectacular biomimetic machine, called Smartbird. (To skip to the flight part of the first video, go to 2:04) https://www.youtube.com/user/FestoHQ
Land- and ground-based robots communicate to track down targets
Posted by Eric on November 26th, 2011
“Two small planes fly low over a village, methodically scanning the streets below. Within minutes, they spot their target near the edge of town. With no way to navigate through the streets, they radio for help. Soon after, a metallic blue SUV begins moving cautiously but purposefully along the dirt roads leading to town, seeking [...]
Posted in AI, autonomous, DARPA, defense, ethics, featured, flying, military / law enforcement No Comments »Homemade armored gunbot finds targets ultrasonically, aims gun accordingly
Posted by Eric on November 25th, 2011
This is the Mechatronic Security Robot by Beatty Robotics. Weighing 45 pounds, it is armored, can move in any direction, can hone in on targets using 8 ultrasonic sensors, and can fire 1,000 projectiles per minute. AND put on a light show while doing it. See for yourself: Mechatron Robot from Robert Beatty on Vimeo. Read [...]
Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN
Posted by Eric on November 15th, 2011
Boston Dynamics, creators of BigDog, LittleDog, and AlphaDog, have a new video of their impressive biped PETMAN: There is something familiar about it, I just can’t place my finger on it… PETMAN stayin alive: [BostonDynamics] via [Engadget]
Posted in biomimetic, biped, DARPA, defense, government, military / law enforcement, video Tags: biped, boston dynamics, petman No Comments »Robot takes over control of human’s arm
Posted by Eric on November 15th, 2011
In this experiment, a robot uses electrodes to control a blindfolded person’s arm and hand, guiding the arm so that they move the ball into position and drop the ball when it is over the net. This process of controlling the muscles via electrodes is called functional electrical stimulation (FES) and has many potential applications [...]
We all knew these were coming – agile, articulate robot spiders
Posted by Eric on November 15th, 2011
If the Worm-Bot can’t slither its way to you in time when you are trapped in a cave-in, perhaps this robot spider could get to you more quickly. (And who doesn’t want to see something like that coming at them when they are already scared and confused?) This spider body prototype is created using a [...]
Posted in biomimetic, domestic, featured, research Tags: 3d printing, biomimetic, Fraunhofer, rescue, robot, sls, spider No Comments »Slow down, CORDON can see us!
Posted by Eric on November 3rd, 2011
The new CORDON system from Peak Gain Systems Inc, can track up to 32 vehicles in up to 4 lanes of traffic, coming and going, monitoring and recording speed, GPS, whether you are driving on the wrong side of the road or in an unauthorized lane, and what you are thinking about. Well it can [...]
