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All items in category Robotics & AI
Finally. The Robot Wars Are Coming
July 8, 2015 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Finally. The Robot Wars Are Coming

A year from now, on a battleground yet to be determined, giant robots will fight each other. Last week the Americans challenged Japan to a robot duel   This week the Japanese answered Image: Kuratas by Suidobashi Heavy Industry
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Whether Robots Will Take Our Jobs Is Up to Us
July 3, 2015 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Whether Robots Will Take Our Jobs Is Up to Us

The current discussion surrounding the question 'Will robots take our jobs?' has led to a variety of predictions about the future ranging from positively dystopian to well, nothing ever changes really. But technology is not a blind force that determines our future while we stand idly by and watch. When it comes to shaping society, humans are still in the loop. In the article The Future of Employment, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne calculate that 47% of US employment is at risk of being replaced...
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Killer Robots: The Tech Moves Faster Than The Debate
June 4, 2015 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Killer Robots: The Tech Moves Faster Than The Debate

Lethal autonomous weapon systems become feasible in a matter of years not decades. As technological development steamrolls on, an international treaty to regulate such killer drones is still wanting, says computer science professor Stuart Russell. Last week I attended the HITB Haxpo in Amsterdam, the expo arm of the Hack In The Box security conference where hackerspaces, makers and companies showcase their latest inventions and hacks. One of the hackerspaces had brought a toy gun hooked up to a...
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How To Prevent The Algorithms From Taking Over
April 17, 2015 by Tessel Renzenbrink

How To Prevent The Algorithms From Taking Over

The fourth Global Conference on Cyberspace is currently taking place in The Netherlands. Hosted by a different government each year the conference aims to promote international collaboration on all things internet. One of the issues on the agenda, the emergence of algorithms, was extensively explored during the panel discussion The Ethics of Algorithms [working paper PDF]. Awareness about the power of algorithms reached a wider audience last summer when researchers published a study about the...
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PLEN2: The DIY Skateboarding Robot Returns
March 19, 2015 by Tessel Renzenbrink

PLEN2: The DIY Skateboarding Robot Returns

PLEN2 is a highly versatile robot that comes as a DIY kit. Its predecessor PLEN became a Youtube star showing off its skateboarding skills in 2006. Enhanced with Arduino compatibility and 3D printable components, PLEN2 aims for scoring points on hackability. Back in 2006 - Youtube was only a year old - the adorable remotely controlled PLEN robot drew a lot of attention with its agile skating and skateboarding abilities. You'd think the exposure would result in a commercial hit but it wasn't t...
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A Worm Brain Powering a LEGO Robot
December 19, 2014 by Tessel Renzenbrink

A Worm Brain Powering a LEGO Robot

Researchers with the OpenWorm project have uploaded the digital copy of a worm brain to a wheeled LEGObot. Without additional programming or learning the bot displays the behavior of a C elegans roundworm. The OpenWorm project aims to create the first digital organism using the Caenorhabditis elegans roundworm as a model. The tiny 1.5 mm creature is the only life form to date who's connectome – a wiring diagram of neural connections in the brain – is entirely mapped out. A task that took scien...
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Do We Need New Laws to Govern the Age of Robots?
December 5, 2014 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Do We Need New Laws to Govern the Age of Robots?

Transformative technologies raise new questions for age-old institutions like the legal system. As robots move out of the confines of factories and into our homes and public places, do we need to revisit our laws? With the rise of robotics we are presented with a entirely new class of technology. Robots combine the torrent of data coursing through our information networks with the ability to perform actions in the physical world, they're set to become the arms and legs of the Internet. As the d...
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Open Source All-terrain Robot Chassis
November 20, 2014 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Open Source All-terrain Robot Chassis

Transcend Robotics has created a mobility platform that can negotiate stairs and obstacles. Makers can build their own robotic project on top of the chassis. Creating a robot chassis that can climb stairs is difficult and not everybody who is in to building robots wants to focus on the mobility aspect. The folks at Transcend Robotics (TR) have developed a robust mobility platform that can move around in a rough unknown environment. The platform is aimed at both hobbyists and roboticists to int...
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Printed Self-assembling Robots Offer a Peek into the Future of Manufacturing
August 14, 2014 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Printed Self-assembling Robots Offer a Peek into the Future of Manufacturing

A team of engineers and computer scientists have created a robot that transforms itself from a sheet of paper with embedded electronics into a machine that functions without human intervention. The robot is a step on the road toward self-manufacturing electronic systems. The robot assembles itself in under four minutes and crawls away once it has reached its final state. The system is made from paper coated with polystyrene, and about $80 in electronic components. The robot is a project of Ro...
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Is Energy Cost The Limiting Factor To Creating Artificial Intelligence?
August 7, 2014 by Tessel Renzenbrink

Is Energy Cost The Limiting Factor To Creating Artificial Intelligence?

One of the roads currently being explored to create human-equivalent AI is to mimic biology and evolve it. Artificial evolution is a source of optimism for AI researchers who hope to one day be witness to technological singularity. But if human evolution which has required a colossal amount of energy is any indication, argues electronic engineering professor Alan F.T. Winfield, than energy cost may thwart those aspirations. In his paper Estimating the Energy Cost of (Artificial) Evolution, prof...
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