Pink Tentacle covers the International Robot Exhibition

[jolshefsky]

Here's Pink Tentacle's photo-blog of the International Robot Exhibition 2009. There are three of interest to us: Kokoro's "Actroid", Kobayashi Laboratory's "Saya" receptionist, and NT Research's "RAMeX" chrome-plated humanoid upper-body.

[keraptis]

I vote for the third one. The Actroid stuff is pure Uncanny Valley for me.

[Kuro]

Very nice. I'm into robotics of all forms, so I was following this event from the start, but hadn't found as high-quality photos. Thanks!

[Svengli]

Actually,

I think the shot of the Actroid is amazing, one of the realistic fembot shots I've seen.

Clearly, a lot of progress is being made if you combine existing robot companies improving their products and new companies entering with newer technologies.

[PsychoKirby]

Is that version of the Actroid new? I don't remember seeing her before. Very nice, though!

[Kuro]

Actually,

I think the shot of the Actroid is amazing, one of the realistic fembot shots I've seen.

Clearly, a lot of progress is being made if you combine existing robot companies improving their products and new companies entering with newer technologies.

I do love the Actroid. Someday I hope they'll add walking capabilities. It would be hard to get the necessary parts inside the shape and size of a human leg, but it would be worth it.

[andoroido]

Actually,

I think the shot of the Actroid is amazing, one of the realistic fembot shots I've seen.

Clearly, a lot of progress is being made if you combine existing robot companies improving their products and new companies entering with newer technologies.

I do love the Actroid. Someday I hope they'll add walking capabilities. It would be hard to get the necessary parts inside the shape and size of a human leg, but it would be worth it.

Aleady done.

http://www.fembotcentral.com/viewtopic.php?t=7522

[Keizo]

Pink Tentacles says, "The Actroid is Awesome!"

[Svengli]

Walking is coming through Boston Dynamics, Asimo and others (walking is hard one).
Gestures and human appearance through Actroid, Aiko and others.
Sexual response through the company the produces Andy and others.
Facial Expression through Hanson robotics and others.
Hand movement through "High Speed Hand" being produced at Tokyo University, also the continuous progress of prosthetics is going to drive a lot of the creation of body parts and the US Dept of Defense is putting serious money into this.

So we may find all these capacities available soon.

Further challenges will be making the skin feel right, the body the right temperature, and the device sturdy enough.

Also, once you have a body which more or less can move and look like a human, the huge challenge will be creating software that integrates movement, gestures, and voice into something ... well desirable.

The continuous, accelerating increase in information processing abilities will certainly allow this kind of integration to happen more quickly than we'd imagine. Progress in materials-science and genetic engineering will drive a lot of skin-flesh aspects. There's a company that is producing artificial skin in affordable levels (4"x4"/$40) for cosmetics testing.

Ray Kurzweil's arguments can used to argue that all this and more will happen within twenty or at most thirty years. Well, I can hope for fifteen...

This change is happening far under most people's radar and the future will be even more shocking than the present....