Willow Garage TurtleBot, an open source programmable robot with a 3D vision system, is available to preorder, starting at $500.
Finishing off the week on a fun note, we see that robotic firm Willow Garage — of special interest to Foresight due to their emphasis on open source — has achieved an important milestone in robotics: namely, the ability for a robot to fetch a beer from the fridge and deliver it. It’s worth seeing… Continue reading Willow Garage reaches robotic milestone involving beer (video)
Finally, the first step has been made toward the longed-for goal of a robot which can do laundry: http://singularityhub.com/2010/03/31/berkeley-gets-willow-garage-robot-to-fold-towels-simply-stunning-video/ Of course, this also gives us some idea of other formerly human-only tasks that robots are likely to take over in the next decade or two. Thanks to SingularityHub.com for bringing this to our attention. —Chris… Continue reading Berkeley gets Willow Garage robot to fold towels: video
After hearing an excellent talk by Willow Garage president Steven Cousins at PARC last Thursday, I wangled a visit to the company Monday and talked to a few more people. Willow Garage is a research robotics company in Silicon Valley which has a unique mission for a start-up. They are oriented to making an impact… Continue reading Willow Garage Robotics
Saturday, November 19, 2016. San Francisco The future is not what it used to be We’re all seeing impressive developments. But the future is not determined. The ink isn’t dry. What should humanity’s path look like? Foresight is bringing together leading minds to fight it out. When Saturday, November 19, 20161-7 PM: Core event with debates… Continue reading The Great Debates of Our Time
Saturday, November 19, 2016. San Francisco The future is not what it used to be We’re all seeing impressive developments. But the future is not determined. The ink isn’t dry. What should humanity’s path look like? Foresight is bringing together leading minds to fight it out in exciting interactive debates covering critical topics from longevity… Continue reading The Great Debates of Our Time
In the terminology I introduced in Beyond AI, all the AI we have right now is distinctly hypohuman: The overall question we are considering, is AI possible, can be summed up essentially as “is diahuman AI possible?” The range of things humans can do, done as flexibly as humans can do them, and learned the… Continue reading AI: how close are we?
Dexter Johnson writes, “What Should We Call the (Nano)technology in Your Stain-resistant Pants?” … the competition for ownership of the term “nanotechnology” that seems to persist between the adherents to MNT, as exemplified by the Foresight Institute, and those who use the term to acknowledge developments in manipulating and exploiting structures that have at least… Continue reading Nanopants, redux
One thing I was at some pains during my recent visit to Willow Garage was the likely impact of Moore’s Law on the course of robotics development in the next few years. This is of great interest to a futurist because if computation is a bottleneck, it will be loosened in a well-understood way over… Continue reading Moore's Law and Robotics
