“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 largest-ever artificial intelligence project. In 2007 it was spun out into a separate business; Apple quietly acquired it in 2010, and incorporated it into its new phone. CALO was an artificial intelligence project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under its Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL) program. Its five-year contract brought together 300+ researchers from 25 of the top university and commercial research institutions…”

No wonder Siri is so impressive, it had DARPA resources behind it. Siri seems to be revolutionizing the AI scene, causing the public at large to want this type of intelligent listening from all their devices, and hackers re-purposing it to control their lights, thermostats, security systems, etc.

I also did not realize that the iPhone is not doing the heavy lifting - it sends out the voice command to a bank of huge servers which process the information and send back the relevant data.

“When you ask or instruct Siri to do something, it first sends a little audio file of what you said over the air to some Apple servers, which use a voice recognition system from a company called Nuance to turn the speech – in a number of languages and dialects – into text. A huge set of Siri servers then processes that to try to work out what your words actually mean. That’s the crucial NLU part, which nobody else yet does on a phone.”

I wonder if Apple, or this Nuance company keep all of those voice files. Voice files are certainly able to be matched to an individual.  If all those voice files are kept in a database, some privacy concerns will probably emerge sooner or later… perhaps after the database is hacked.

More at [nextbigfuture]

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 environments and for police/SWAT teams. There are no actual plans to put “Biometrics-at-a-distance” sensors on robots, and it will probably never happen. At least for a month or so.

More at [Gizmodo]

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, and becomes more efficient every year. The magnets and servos are also being made to be more efficient, and stronger, lighter materials are being developed, so that what power is generated can do more work.

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

“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 out the target’s GPS coordinates. Meanwhile, the planes continue to circle overhead, gathering updated information about the target and its surroundings. In less than half an hour after the planes take to the sky, the SUV has zeroed in on its quarry. Mission accomplished.”

So reminisces Lora G. Weiss about one of the activities at the U.S. Army’s 2010 Robotics Rodeo.  Lora is a scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Read her article entitled “Autonomous Robots in the Fog of War” at [spectrum.ieee.org]

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 more at [Gizmodo]

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]

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 for assisting the physically disabled.

“Still, if the idea of a robot commandeering your limbs sounds a bit, uh, scary, you’re not alone. The audience at the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), where the researchers presented their results in September, let out a nervous gasp upon seeing the video of the experiment.”

More at [spectrum.ieee.org]

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 3-d printing process which is cheap and fast.

“We can use SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) to produce one or even several legs in a single operation; this minimizes assembly effort, saves materials and reduces the time it takes to build a robot. With the modular approach, individual parts can be quickly swapped as well. Our robot is so cheap to produce that it can be discarded after being used just once – like a disposable rubber glove,“ according to Dipl.-Ing. FH Ralf Becker at Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA.

[Fraunhofer.de] via [Gizmodo]

P.S. No, there is no video of the spider in motion, I already checked. :/

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 do most of that. From their website:

Key Features and Benefits:

Advanced radar simultaneously measures speeds and positions of all oncoming and outgoing targets in control area. It provides a strict correspondence between measured speed and the vehicle marked on multi-target image.

•     Speed sensor provides a control area including up to 4 traffic lanes.
      Automatic detection of reserved bus (or taxi) lane violations with advanced license plate recognition system
•     Automatic detection of driving on the wrong side of the road.
•     Automatic saving of violation data on SD memory card installed in speed sensor.
•     Night time operation using integrated IR spotlights.
      On-board GPS/GLONASS navigation unit downloads the GPS/GLONASS coordinates to the violation record.
•     Data encryption and protection of software and output file prevents tampering with data and compromising of evidence.
•     User-friendly touch-screen display for easy initial setup and deployment of the unit.
•     Option to continuously stream captured traffic violation data to a centralized database using wired or wireless communication channels (VPN channel over 3G, WiMAX, Wi-Fi).  This minimizes back office processing effort and eliminates the possibility of lost or damaged physical media.
•     Optional wireless diagnostic channel for remote servicing of speed sensor.