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These Robots Rock: Gotta-See Video

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What do you get when you combine the latest advancements in robot technology with a mohawk and musical instruments? The band Compressorhead.

This is pretty epic. Note the glowing red eyes of the bassist and the headbanging of the drummer -- who, by the way, has four arms. I can't wait for these robots to go on tour. My only question is: would you cheer for them? It's not like they can hear you. via YouTube 

Want to recommend a video? Tweet it to @Discovery_News with the hashtag #GottaSeeVideos.

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A Robocall Blocking Contest? You're On!

The Federal Trade Commission, overwhelmed by complaints about robocalls, is getting desperate. Come up with a winning solution and you could walk away with big prize money. No, it's not a scam.

If you've ever picked up the phone and heard an automated message you never agreed to get, that's a robocall. And it's illegal. The FTC fields more than 200,000 complaints about these calls every month -- many of which are scams, according to NPR's Lauren Silverman. In the fight to stop more than a billion robocalls, the FTC is asking citizens for solutions.

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The contest, called the FTC Robocall Challenge, will be accepting submissions until 5 pm EST January 17. According to the rules, the person or team that the judges think has the best overall solution gets $50,000 and a travel for up to two representatives to Washington, D.C. The winning solution will be announced on April 15.

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Robocallers can use Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP from offshore locations to stay just beyond the FTC's grasp. That makes the challenge even harder. So far, hundreds of individuals and teams have submitted ideas for solutions. Some are high-tech, while others are fairly straightforward.

One submission by Ron Prosky highlighted on CNN Money proposes phone service providers offer a robocall filter called Robo Nono that asks inbound callers to enter a three-digit code in order to leave a voicemail message.

The Verge's Adrianne Jeffries pointed out that an app submitted to the contest, the Robocall Lookup Tool, allows robocall recipients to automatically submit the call details to a database and is currently free on iTunes. Another submission suggested simply turning your phone off and changing the outgoing voicemail message to say "Due to the number of robocalls I'm receiving, I've turned off my phone so that it won't ring," Silverman reported.

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Robocalls are basically phone spam, and they're awful to receive. To me, they're even worse than the early days of email spam because they tie up your phone line. That feels more personal somehow. Here's hoping someone out there has a solution that makes persistent robocalls a thing of the past.

Credit: Solarbotics

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Robots Fight Superbugs in Hospitals

One of the biggest worries about American's obsession with antibacterial soaps is the possibility that viruses and bacteria will develop into "superbugs." At Johns Hopkins Hospital a new method is being tested to prevent the rise of superbugs by using robot-like devices that spray hydrogen peroxide.

These bots are about the size of a washing machine and weigh nearly 60 pounds each. Two bots are placed in a sealed room that has had its vents covered. One device sprays a light bleaching agent into the air to kill and prevent the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. A thin layer of the hydrogen peroxide agent, about 2 to 6 microns thick, coats all of the surfaces in the room, including equipment, tables and chairs. A second vaporizer breaks down the bleaching agent into its water and oxygen components, making it non-toxic to humans. The entire process takes about an hour and a half to complete.

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The vaporizers were first developed in Singapore in 2002 to combat the spread of SARS and were stocked in U.S. government agencies in case of an anthrax outbreak.

The team at Johns Hopkins found the rate of patients contaminated with drug-resistant diseases dropped by 64 percent. The vapor also proved effective against bacteria like Staphylococcus, which causes staph infection, and its super cousin MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is resistant to antibiotics and causes flesh-eating disease.

The study's senior investigator Trish Perl said in a press release that, "Our goal is to improve all hospital infection control practices, including cleaning and disinfection, as well as behavioral and environmental practices, to the point where preventing the spread of these multiple-drug-resistant organisms also minimizes the chances of patients becoming infected and improves their chances of recovery."

The positive results of the study has lead the hospital to purchasing two decontaminating units to be used in rooms that have a high-risk of drug-resistant bacteria. Further testing will be done to see if the bots are useful for decontaminating the outside packaging of unused but potentially exposed hospital equipment.

Credit: BioQuell 

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Rent a Drone to Stop Intruders

A small, helicopter-like drone could be the best defense against an intruder.

Japanese security company Secom has announced that they'll be renting out camera-equipped drones capable detecting intruders, following them and taking their pictures. The drones, which are 24 inches wide and weigh only 3.5 pounds, can accomplish this task automatically or via a dispatcher.

The idea is to let managers of large buildings like factories monitor areas that aren't covered well by conventional security cameras. And even in areas that are covered, a drone can get closer to the action and provide more details.

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Each drone, the company says, is programmed to remain a constant distance from whatever it's following, either a person or a car, for safety reasons. If communications with the drone are interrupted, it automatically lands in a safe place to avoid damaging itself.

The system might be a better sell in the United States rather than Japan, since crime of any sort in Japan -- includng break-ins -- is relatively rare. Japanese companies can rent the drone as part of Secom's online security system for around 5,000 yen ($58) a month some time after April 2014, though a company spokesperson said Secom wants to expand that to other countries eventually.

via AFP, Secom (in Japanese)

Credit: Secom

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'Goosinator' Robot Scares Away Pooping Geese

Canada geese are lingering in parks around the country, and anyone wanting to take a stroll there gets a nasty surprise. Meet the Goosinator, a bright orange robot being tested as a way to keep geese moving along.

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Geese here in Denver seem to find the location as appealing as I do. Instead of moving south, they're hanging around, gorging on grass in open areas, and pooping all over city parks. One goose drops at least a pound of poop daily, Bruce Finley wrote in the Denver Post. Multiply that by flock after flock and we've got a gross, expensive problem.

Usually, parks in the area have turned to dogs to discourage the geese, but they can cost $500 a day to employ and they're limited as to how fast they can move and where they can go. The Goosinator is a remote-controlled, battery-powered robot made from orange foam painted to resemble a devilish, grinning beast. It can move up to 25 miles per hour.

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A video made by its creators shows the robot continuously scaring geese away by moving along grass, snow, concrete and icy water. It also emits a loud motorized sound. Colorado-based Goosinator designer Randy Claussen told the Denver Post his challenge was to come up with a craft that could move along all kinds of different surfaces and be intimidating to geese.

"We humanely are returning wildlife back to the wild, at your fingertips," Claussen told the Post (video). Denver parks officials recently bought two Goosinators, costing about $3,000 each, and plan to have college interns operate them. It sounds expensive but just cleaning up after the geese can cost up to $1,000 a week.

So far the robots have been deployed in urban parks in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and New York. Residents in Westchester, N.Y., are trying it as an alternative to rounding up geese and killing them, which is what happened last summer, according to the Journal News.

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Goosinators do have their detractors. One lady in Denver told Finley she wonders where the geese will go if they all get driven from city parks. I doubt they'll come hang out in my neighborhood for a leisurely snack, though. Almost everyone here has a dog.

Photo: The Goosinator takes to the water. Credit: Randy Claussen via LoHud.com

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Military's Robot Mule Carries on Despite Fall

By Jeremy Hsu, TechNewsDaily

The four-legged LS3 robot follows soliders around, and can carry 400 pounds of equipment. Credit: Boston Dynamics

A four-legged U.S. military robot carrying 400 pounds of equipment has shown how it can play "follow the leader" in a manner similar to a trained mule or horse. Like an animal, it can also regain its feet after an accidental tumble in the woods.

The Legged Squad Support System (LS3) robot has evolved into a quieter beast compared to earlier four-legged "BigDog" or "AlphaDog" robots that sounded like runaway lawnmowers or chainsaw-armed Terminators. The latest LS3 version represents the U.S. military's best hope for a robotic helper that can carry combat loads across rough terrain for soldiers or Marines.

A new video by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency demonstrates how the robot obeys a verbal command by a human researcher: "LS3 follow tight."

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Several camera shots show the LS3 robot ambling after its human leader like an overlarge, clumsy puppy trying to keep up with an owner. At one point the robot takes a tumble and rolls almost comically down a slope before regaining its feet.

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The video also shows the robot, made by Boston Dynamics, trotting along more briskly in a manner vaguely reminiscent of high-stepping horse. The robot succeeded in navigating ditches, streams, wooded slopes and mock-urban environments during the field testing by DARPA and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.

U.S. Marines have already spent months working with robotic helicopters capable of delivering supplies to outposts or frontline troops. A robotic mule could serve different, if equally useful, purposes for squads on patrol.

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DARPA envisions the robot acting like a mobile recharging station for U.S. troops to recharge pounds of batteries used in radios and handheld mobile devices. The Marines have already experimented with  using renewable energy sources such as portable solar panels to replace some of the batteries they carry.

But the LS3 robot's greatest potential use comes from carrying some of the combat equipment that soldiers might normally have to carry themselves. The heavy burden of combat loads averaging close to 100 pounds per soldier has already taken a serious health toll on both active troops and returning veterans.

You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.

• Military’s ‘BigDog’ Robot Learns to Follow | Video
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Copyright 2012 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Pet Parrot Learns to Control Robot

By Jeremy Hsu, TechNewsDaily

The "BirdBuggy" robot allows this pet parrot to steer its way around the yard. Credit: Andrew Grey

An African grey parrot has learned to steer its own robot as it roams around its owner's house.

The robotic BirdBuggy came from the mind of Andrew Grey, an engineering student at the University of Florida, according to The Alligator. BirdBuggy has a joystick that allows Pepper the parrot to control its motion in four directions, as well as front bump sensors that cue the robot to automatically back away from objects.

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Whenever Pepper's playtime is over, the robot can dock itself at a base charging station by using an onboard webcam to steer itself to the right spot.

Grey created BirdBuggy as a possible solution to stop Pepper from screeching whenever it was left alone. The parrot's clipped primary feathers prevent it from flying around to follow its human owners. (The birds can eventually grow back their clipped feathers and regain the ability to fly.)

In a sense, the bird represents a disabled creature using a technological aid similar to how a human might use a wheelchair or robotic exoskeleton.

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Still, Pepper could simply see the robot as an oversized toy rather than a vehicle with a purpose. But the parrot clearly likes having control over the robot -- it reportedly throws a fit whenever the robot goes into autonomous self-docking mode and doesn't respond to the tugs of its beak on the joystick.

Other animals have previously demonstrated the ability to control robots or robotic appendages with just their minds alone. Monkeys have shown that they can learn the thought patterns necessary to control robotic arms in the lab well enough to feed themselves.

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You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.

Robot Will Be Astronaut's Friend: DNews Nugget

Robot Will Be Astronaut's Friend: In space, no can hear your loneliness. If you're an astronaut on a long mission in cramped quarters with your only link to humanity being a headset, you can feel a little isolated. To alleviate this problem, Tokyo University researchers and robot creator Tomotaka Takahashi are developing a tiny humanoid robot that will serve as a companion for International Space Station commander Koichi Wakata, due to embark on a six-month mission. The 13-inch-tall Kibo Robot will live and work with Wakata and be able to recognize his face and communicate with him in Japanese. It will also take photos and send information to Earth-based scientists.

The Kibo Robot will launch in the summer of 2013 and although the robot hasn't been given a name yet,  researchers have asked the public to contribute. You can send your ideas by visiting the website and clicking on "Join Us." via iO9

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Squirrels, Birds Teach Robots To Deceive

Deception is something that people do all the time -- and it plays an important role in military strategy. Now some researchers are trying to figure out how to get robots to do it, by looking at the behavior of squirrels and birds.

At Georgia Tech, a team led by Ronald Arkin, a professor at the School of Interactive Computing, studied the literature on squirrels hiding their caches of acorns. Squirrels will hide their food in a certain place, but when they see other squirrels trying to steal from them, they attempt to fool the thieves by running to a false location.

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Ronald Arkin, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing, and his Ph.D. student Jaeeun Shim, used that as a model for robot behavior. They programmed the robot into tricking a "predator" machine by doing what a squirrel does: showing the adversary a false location for an important resource.

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The team also looked at how other animals -– in this case, a species of bird called an Arabian babbler –- drive off predators. Babblers will make an alarm call when they see a predator and other babblers will join the bird and make more calls. They then mob the predator, all the while flapping wings and making noise. The babblers don't ever actually fight the animal they want to drive off; they just make enough noise and flap around enough that attacking a babbler seems like it isn't worth it.

Arkin and and Ph.D. student Justin Davis found that the deception works when the group reaches a certain size -- essentially, when enough backup arrives to convince the adversary that it's best to back off. Davis modeled that behavior in software using a military scenario and found that it worked even if the group didn't have the firepower to confront the enemy directly.

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The military is interested in this because a robot that can fool an opponent is a valuable tool. It could lead an enemy down a false trail or make itself look more dangerous than it actually is.

The work is an extension of similar research Arkin started in 2009, developing a kind of 'ethical governor' for robots. In 2010 he worked with Alan Wagner to develop deception algorithms using a kind of hide-and-seek game.

If robots can fool other robots – or people – that does raise interesting ethical problems. When does fooling people become dangerous? How do you tell the robot when the right time to do that is? We won't be seeing anything like the Terminator anytime soon, but we already have drones, and the military has explored the use of autonomous supply vehicles. Human Rights Watch has expressed concern over robots that can make targeting decisions -- the ability to deceive would complicate that.

via Georgia Tech

Credit: Tetra Images/Corbis

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Crash-Proof Quadrotor Roves On Land and Air

When it comes to robot mobility, failure to navigate obstacles can often leave a robot looking like a turtle on its back.

Surely, this notion is not lost on researchers at the Robotics Lab at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) who recently created the HyTAQ quadrotor. Designed by Arash Kalantari and Matthew Spenko, the hybrid machine's ability to both fly and roll make it one of the most fluid moving robots I've ever seen. Best of all, its design makes it nearly impossible to crash.

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Here's how IIT's promo video describes it:

The robot is composed of a cylindrical cage connected to a quadrotor connected through two revolute joints. Thus, the cage can roll freely with respect to the quadrotor body. The flexible structure of the cage, fabricated out of polycarbonate and carbon fiber makes the robot crash resistant.

This simple, but arguably elegant design allows the robot to use the same actuators from both forms of locomotion. This keeps the system mass low since the robot does not need to carry the added mass of unused actuators and control electronics.

During terrestrial locomotion, the robot only needs to overcome rolling resistance, therefore it is much more energy efficient than an aerial-only quadrotor.

The researchers say this solves on of the most frustrating problems of quadrotors and rotorcraft -- their short operation time.

"Experimental results show that the HyTAQ can travel a distance four times greater and operate almost six times longer than an aerial only system," according to the team's website.

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The rearchers also tout the hybrid robot's ability to avoid obstacles.

"When an obstacle is encountered," they write, "the system simply flies over it."

via PhysOrg

credit: IIT

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