Week 11: Looking for a Voight-Kampff machine?

http://weburbanist.com/2008/11/18/10-of-the-worlds-weirdest-craziest-and-most-useful-robots/

Jeopardy Clew: These 4 images.

Jeopardy Question: What are robots?

This week I listened to an eloquent speech on the benefits of music education.  The presentation led me to speculate as to whether any of the robots cited in last week’s blog could play music and if it would be something that can distinguish them from humans; a Voight-Kampff machine. 

Initially my researches over the internet led me to a technical document where a robot plays a Theremin, http://eecs.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/CIS/pubs/FSR99-musicRobot.pdf.  It was all technical with few images for posting to a blog.  Upon further researching I came up with a second article with images of a robot playing a Theremin Player; http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5354473.  The Theremin is actually the early precursor to modern RFID technology. 

While the Theremin was popular in the early 1900’s could a robot play an instrument commonly in use today?  Looking further I found a robot with lungs and lips, capable of playing the “Flight of the Bumble Bee” on a flute.  http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=136 .  Not only does the website have pictures but a video of how the robot works; a point worthy to place in a blog.  This robot is said to be able to teach a beginning music student on how to play the instrument.  Then I came upon the Web Urbanist – 10 of the Most Innovative Modern Robot Designs, as pictured above with the link.  Not only is Big Dog featured but there is a robot which resembles a person. 

It appears the technology will soon exist for the building of robots that will strongly resemble people with the capability to play musical instruments.   But will science be able to create mechanical beings with the ability to compose music?  While there is a certain amount of mathematics involved, can science replicate the human experience?  And translate it into song and verse?  I return to the music group Pink Floyd: http://pinkfloyd.com/music/albums.php.  Could a robot make an album like “Pink Floyd The Wall?”  And if so, would it be considered artistic?  This ability may differentiate future robots from humans until bio-technology and as yet to be discovered technologies blur the line. 

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
by Alexander Pope

I wonder what Pope would have written about robots?

Quaestionem Semper, – CDamian (11-22-11)

Week 10: Bread & Circuses

www.BostonDynamics.com/dist/BigDog.wmv

Recently I’ve been interested in getting a dog.  Not just any dog or breed but a specific one which my family, even before we went to purchase him, came to name as Jack.  While we discussed owning a puppy someone else felt like wise about Jack and when we returned to see him he was gone.  We have looked at other dogs but none have the same characteristics or personality of Jack.  So as I researched new technologies this semester I kept coming across numerous advances in robotics.  While there are some significant developments in the medical field where humans can control and feel with artificial robotic limbs this week’s blog will focus on other potential uses of robots. 

For starters, Boston Dynamics’ “Big Dog” caught my eye.  I highly recommend watching the video clip by clicking on the link below the picture.  Here is a low maintenance dog, capable of walking on ice, could carry & pull things, is able to dance and provide numerous hours of entertainment.  It could go for walks or jogs, carry a radio or TV, even carry me if I got tired; the ultimate companion.   Except for bringing it into the house; here Boston Dynamics has created “Little Dog.”

http://www.bostondynamics.com/dist/LittleDog.wmv

As I continued to ponder the concept of a robotic dog, Little Dog just didn’t seem as interesting as Big Dog.  And neither seems to have the personality of Jack.  Will Boston Dynamics add bio-technology to their robotic creations to give them life like characteristics?  It remains to be seen; the majority of their efforts are currently toward supporting the military versus making household pets.

In comparison, others are making robots to compete in such events as Hawaii’s Ironman-Triathlon.  http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/robots/pint-sized-bots-with-human-foibles-take-on-hawaiis-ironman-triathlon

Tomotaka Takahashi’s athletic robots are designed with extra motion features to give them human like characteristics.  “’It’s irrational, but it looks more natural,’ Takahashi says.”  As I continued to look into robots with human characteristics I came across a convention sponsored by the Society of Robots - http://www.societyofrobots.com/ - that occurred in Washington D.C. in 2008.  Here, the MANOI Robot demonstration is displaying human characteristics.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6uB-ggxF8g&feature=related

Researching these robots led me to the following hobbyist web site: http://botmag.com/articles/manoi_1.shtml .

But can these little guys or gals – I’m uncertain how else to call them - be a useful technology?  I return to Boston Dynamics which has created “Petman.”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclbVTIYG8E&feature=player_embedded

While it looks like Petman can serve the military, a true sign of success is being able to market new technology to the general public.  So what are the possibilities?  Entering Petman in the Iron-man competition is one.  Then I wouldn’t have to think about competing or feeling guilty for not entering; why try if one is bound to lose to a robot?  My other thought was of Woody Allen in the movie “Sleeper,” where he plays a comical robotic servant.  Another notion was of the television series “Battle Star Galactica,” where the Cylon robots attempt to exterminate the human race.  Then, over the weekend while watching Sunday night football it came to me.  A new innovative use for this technology would be to create robotic football players and have these teams play each other. 

As I explored this concept the more sense it seemed to make.  Instead of having human athletes getting seriously hurt, i.e. concussions, robots could play and it wouldn’t matter whether they were damaged or not, so long as they didn’t consist of bio-technology which would raise many legal, social & ethical questions.    

Football could even evolve into a more violent version with fewer rules since the players would be machines.  There would be no salary negotiations, unions, negative off the field publicity and player strikes.  Maybe even the price of tickets would go down?  The ROI surely would be good?   The concept could even be expanded to robotic cheerleaders, maintenance and concession stand staff.  The possibilities are limitless.  And as humans we could all sit back and watch the show.  “Panem et circenses.”

But then the thought of what else human kind would do if robots did everything occurred to me?  I couldn’t think of much.  What I did think of, was what else robots could do; “Deus ex machina.”   They may fight, entertain, serve, build, cook and even become like us.  Robots like the Cylons might find us a nuisance and try to destroy us.  Or, returning to “Star Trek”, in particular the “Next Generation” series, robots like Data may even envy our humanness and strive to be like us.  And all I wanted was a black & white dog named Jack.

Lorem ipsum – CDamian (11-15-11)

Week 9: Science Fiction becomes Science (“’Tractor Beams’ a reality” at NASA)

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111103030817.htm

This week’s major technical find is on NASA’s development of a tractor beam a concept portrayed in Star Trek.

As the last class on IT&I approaches this week a summary re-examining some of the ideas & concepts strung throughout this weekly blog series that I’ve touched upon will be reflected on, i.e. Star Trek, Google TV, YouTube & other media; exploring the similarities of art & science. 

1-      Ethics has been a major part of IT&I and references to Star Trek as a positive use of technology versus the doom & gloom of typical B Sci-Fi movies led me to Captain James McKay’s book reviewof the, “The Ethics of Star Trek?” Captain McKay wrote his book review while serving in the Canadian Army’s Directorate of Army Training.  http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_05/iss_2/CAJ_vol5.2_17_e.pdf

2-      While I am still getting aclamated to my Sony Google TV & the many features it provides, advances in technology are leading toward future upgrades.  See the following link for further details: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27305/ .

3-      Use of YouTube in blogs is becoming a very popular methodology for sharing information with minimum text.  I’ve come to consider this to be a result of the many small hand held technical devices widely in use.  A new example of this can be found at the following website which I came across while researching new IT&I: http://www.thoughtware.tv/ .

4-      It appears, science and art/life have gone hand in hand in other media formats such as last week’s discovery on an innovative use of QR Code technology after reading a comic strip.  And is directly reflected in the links previously provided.  While I started out solely using technical websites for my blogs increasingly I began to incorporate other media sources & areas of research. One not yet mentioned, http://www.whyhospitalsshouldfly.com/index.html is a title of a book by the same name.  See the following for the video version versus text - http://www.whyhospitalsshouldfly.com/johnnancevideo.html .

My experiences in writing a weekly blog have had 2 effects.  First, I learned a lot about various technologies, their social uses and just how innovative people are on the “cutting edge of technology.”  Secondly, I learned how to share what I learned and like the tractor beam in Star Trek, supposedly how to draw people’s attention in to reading my weekly blog posts.  A review of this blog’s statistics indicates 126 page views since Week 1, with 1 comment have occurred.  I would like to thank everyone for reading & providing comments.  Whether I will continue remains to be determined.  Sincerely – CDamian (11-07-2011)

Addendum: It appears my absent mindedness & multiple calendars led me to write what I thought would be my final blog entry for the class.  In reviewing my records there will be at least one more.  Till next week – CDamian (11-08-11)

Week 8: Is dedicated to Ms. Evelyn E. Craft & her Living Headstone Memorial

I would like to start this week’s blog by first offering my condolences to the Craft family.  This week is a continuation on social media and some innovative uses of Quick Response Code (QR Code) technology.

But first I would like to share my journey on how I came upon this technology.  It began when I read the Doonesbury comic strip in the Sunday, October 16, 2011 Washington Post.  The comic caught my attention as I began to make plans to visit my father’s grave site for the 10th anniversary of his death.  The strip features Daisy B. Doonesbury’s headstone with the following website printed on it, http://www.daisyd.com./  Although the link isn’t active, Mr. Stanford, Duty Officer, Doonesbury Town Hall, shared with me that the comic strip temporarily hosted a unique website for the character Duke when he ran for President in 2000.  

I learned this by going to the Doonesbury website http://www.doonesbury.com/ where the thought of writing a blog on the transition of printed media to the internet came to mind; especially with the recent liquidation of Borders Book Stores.  The site led me to a contact page where I submitted a query inquiring about the technology identified in the story.  While there was no original example, the response provided the following YouTube site reflecting on the similarities between life and art and vise versa.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd2_FG06vnI&feature=autoplay&list=FLjCkN6Crvwly4i8vsnFu9kQ&lf=autoplay&playnext=3

My natural progression was to go to http://www.monuments.com/livingheadstone next; however before doing so I digressed to learn more about the 1^st “Animated Tattoo” in order to determine whether to include it in any future commentaries.  Since it deals with QR Code technology and is inexplicably mesmerizing I am including the link here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3qv2dSXQXk&feature=related. 

Ultimately I returned to the Living Head Stone website www.monuments.com.  I planned to expound on the company’s innovative use of QR Code technology but the following excerpt from the site says it best.

“Quiring has created a new type of headstone which connects people regardless of where they reside.   Our ‘Living Headstone’ memorial blends the timeless traditional value of granite headstones with the newest technology available, to provide an interactive ‘living’ memorial legacy for future generations.

 Similar to a personal Facebook page, a ‘Living Headstone’ archive site contains information you and friends can add about your loved one, such as: an obituary, family heritage and history, photos, comments by friends and relatives and even a map to locate the memorial in the cemetery.”  

The technology can be applied to existing as well as new grave sites.  Will additional advances in technology lead to further evolutions of grave sites as we know them?  Will subsequent generations be able to view more than a memorial stone?  I believe as long as technology continues forward and history doesn’t experience another “dark ages” where advances in current technology are lost, the concepts espoused should carry on.  Perhaps we may even see interactive holograms of our departed loved ones?

With Warm Sympathy – CDamian (11-03-2011)

Week 7: “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly” of Social Networking

http://www.cognitivemedia.co.uk/index.php/blog/2011/03/the-internet-in-society

Since posting the blog on Ethics & Technology for Week 6 I’ve been discussing the pros & cons of social networking.  This week’s blog isn’t on any specific technology as much as a video by Cognitive Media on “the internet in society.”  I hope you find it as thought provoking as I did.  Thoughtfully – CDamian (10-25-2011)

Week 6: Are Humanities’ Ethics in “Jeopardy?”

Examining innovative & emerging technologies, like Sherlock Holmes, led my inquiries to “Watson,” International Business Machine’s (IBM’s) computer capable of competing with humans on the game show Jeopardy.  See the following link for greater details: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DywO4zksfXw .

While there have been many Sci-Fi doom and gloom stories written over the past century of how computers will eventually take over the world, technology itself has been slow to advance to meet the vision.  With Watson being on Jeopardy and recent projections of scientific and technological advances occurring in the next 10 to 20 years, increased computing power may advance manmade robots into the realm of what was previously only fiction.  

As my Google queries on potentially new technologies continued beyond Watson a series of disturbing ones fitting not only into Sci-Fi but religious & philosophical moral issues kept emerging; like Chimeras.  Now into the 3^rd to final class of the course I’ve gone full circle and have found the materialization of innovative & emerging technologies to be coupled with ethics versus 2 distinct areas of study.

My research led me to the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET); see the following web site: http://ieet.org/ .  Here ethics is also establishing a technical presence on the internet to address advances in science.

Reading over the IEET website I happened to come across a question I first considered after having watched a documentary on Nazi experiments on human beings.  See the following link for the specifics.

http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/?cn=agus_watson-20100712&cm=k&csr=google&cr=emerging_technologies&ct=USJWK002&S_TACT=USJWK002&ck=emerging_technologies&cmp=00000&mkwid=slsIwbnl5_9199393053_432n0d3749

I am still in the crossroads on the subject of whether society should use information gained at the expense of others by inhumane means under the guise of science?  Prompting me to scrutinize the affects & effects new technologies such as Social Networking may have on humanity.   Does Watson represent the ensuing gloom & doom of science fiction and the end to civilization or the beginning of a new paradigm?  

As a certified National Rifle Association (NRA) instructor, education on the proper and safe use of firearms is stressed.  One would not give or encourage someone who isn’t properly trained to handle a gun.  Plenty of incidents can be found where a youth has come by a handgun only to cause harm to themselves or someone else.

In kind, there are examples of youth or the uninitiated (see the Darwin Awards site - http://www.darwinawards.com/), to miss use technology with negative consequences.  An example shared by a classmate can be observed at the following link which shows a Boy Scout finding the means to create a nuclear reactor with potentially harmful radiation to the surrounding community in his back yard; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwRt74nzRmY .

Is technology good or bad?  Computers have been depicted as being as smart, good or evil as the individuals creating them.  A here-to-for unmentioned but very well known science fiction story series is Star Trek.  It isn’t the advances in technology which make the show so appealing to audiences as the positive factors of the people exhibiting their humanity.  The crew of the Star Ship Enterprise are aided by technology very much like Sherlock Holms receiving assistance from Dr. Watson.

IBM’s Watson represents a potential for computers to posses the capability to learn.  Can computers learn to comprehend the best that humanity has to offer in the future?  Will advances in robotics sustain the better part of humanities’ ethics long after mankind is extinct?  Benevolently – CDamian (10-17-2011)

Week 5: Bug Semantics

Webster’s II New College Dictionary defines “Bug” as: “…2.An insect,… 4.b. Computer Sci. A defect in the code or performance of a program,…[&] 6. A small hidden device…used for eavesdropping.”  The semantics of what is a bug is the subject for this week’s blog.

In reading over various New Technology Research & Development (NTRD) reports I came across the CLASH, not the music group but a robot that can climb up cloth like a bug.   See the following link for details: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/no-couch-is-safe-from-clash-clothclimbing-robot.  The concept of the GWU course is to merge various technologies together.  Earlier this year I did some research on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and the thought of merging it with micro-bugs & computers came to mind.  However, upon further reading the CLASH was larger than anticipated but led me to the Robotic Autonomous Crawling Hexapod (RoACH).  See the link http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/Ambulation/Roach.html .  The RoACH is similar in size to a quarter and in line with the following concept I would like to propose.

As mentioned earlier I previously conducted research on RFID technology.  There are two versions of the early history of RFID technology.  Both stem from a common background; developed by the Allied forces during World War II.  (ORG 2005-2009)  The first version by some sources indicate the Allies – primarily the English & Americans – developed a technology called “Identify Friend or Foe (IFF)” to differentiate aircraft in order to determine whether to respond to a threat or not. (CENTER 1997)  The second version begins in the 1920’s with a Russian musician, Leon Theremin who performed with his invention the “Theremin” in many well established concert halls in the United States until his disappearance in 1938.  (McIntyre 2005, 9-11)  After the fall of the “Iron Curtain” Mr. Theremin was interviewed in Russia where his involvement in the development of “The Thing” was brought to light.  The device was called “The Thing” after its discovery by U.S. State Department security in 1952.  “The Thing” was embedded in a seal of the United States (U.S.).  The seal was presented to U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman in the mid 1940’s by Russian school children & placed in the Embassy Residence until its discovery. (Murray 1996-2011)

To build upon existing technologies by incorporating newer technical developments & merging them with improved business processes the capability exists to merge printable electronics with a printable battery power source and Central Processing Unit (CPU) onto a micro bug.  Unlike “The Thing” an immobile device, a mobile bug or roach would pose greater challenges in being detected and improve the capability of those using such a device.  (Bonsor 2011) & (McIntyre 2005, 18)  This would renew the use of the acronym IFF; people will now look at an annoying bug crawling or flying around and ask what kind of bug is it?  Contemplatively – CDamian (10-10-2011)

Works Cited

Bonsor, Kevin. HowStuffWorks. 2011. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/printing-computer1.htm (accessed June 14, 2011).

CENTER, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL. http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/avchr5.htm. June 30, 1997. (accessed June 13, 2011).

McIntyre, Katherine Albrecht & Liz. Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. Nashsville: Nelson Communication, Inc., 2005.

Murray, Compiled by Kevin D. http://www.spybusters.com/Great_Seal_Bug.html. 1996-2011. (accessed June 13, 2011).

ORG, RFIDENT. http://www.rfident.org/. 2005-2009. (accessed June 13, 2011).