A filmmaking robot
This robot makes short films based on its visual experience. Its eyes travel about the city on buses while the body sits in a gallery. The eyes collect snippets of video, and transmit them to the body when their buses come within range of a Cafenet wireless internet node. The robot body [...]

Looking at a Boing Boing post from last week that features a bunch of kids in robot costumes, it occured to me that we have no word for robots in early stages of development, because there isn’t any use for such a word, at least right now. Then it occured to me that there is [...]

So I’ve got a this webhost with tons of space and lots of bandwidth, why not use it? I just found a pretty snazzy song that you should download. Post in the comments to tell me your download speeds. All files are mp3s.
Prokofiev: Sonata No. 7 in B flat major
Performed by Maurizio Pollini
1. Allegro inquieto [...]

Uh huh.

With the help of German microchip company Infineon, NACHIP placed 16,384 transistors and hundreds of capacitors on a chip just 1mm squared in size. The group had to find appropriate materials and refine the topology of the chip to make the connection with neurons possible.
Biologically NACHIP uses special proteins found in the brain to [...]

its cold outside
there’s no kind of atmosphere
I’m all alone, more or less
let me fly far away from here
fun fun fun
in the sun sun sun
I want to lie
shipwrecked and comatose
drinking fresh mango juice
goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes
fun fun fun
in the sun sun sun

because boy do I need it.
From The Economist: Computing the future
This week, a group of computer scientists claimed that developments in their subject will trigger a scientific revolution of similar proportions in the next 15 years…
They have concluded, in a report called “Towards 2020 Science”, that computing no longer merely helps scientists with their work. [...]

The robot developed here is named RI-MAN. RI-MAN exhibits the skill and ability to realize human care and welfare tasks. RI-MAN will become an invaluable partner robot. |link|
See RI-MAN in action.  (.mpg)

Watch this.

Speech to text converters are coming into their own. But speech isn’t just words and sentences.
The use of emotion recognition might prove challenging as well, he added. Despite the claims that it improves love connections and speeds job interviews, consumers might bristle at the thought of being handled gingerly by a machine because they happen [...]

my bioass.
From the Heidegger-would-not-approve department:
The moral imperative to extend human life for as long as conceivably possible, and to improve its quality by artificial means, is no different from the responsibility to save lives in danger of ending prematurely, Professor Harris will say. Any technology that can achieve this should be actively pursued. |link|
A long [...]