Video: The Gentle Touch of a Cold Robot Hand

Robots are mainstays in predictable environments like factories and manufacturing plants. But if you want a robot to help grandma out of a chair, it needs to have a soft touch that can adjust to the human form.

One way of making a more adabptable robot hand is to use a technology called pre-touch, an approach developed by Josh Smith, senior researcher at Intel. Mechanical fingers with pre-touch sensors can detect an object, about an inch away, and adjust accordingly. (For a more in-depth story about pre-touch that I wrote last September, click here.)

Now Smith has added additional pressure sensors to the fingers so they can "feel" when an object is slipping and when it is secure. Once the object is positioned well, using pre-touch, the mechanical fingers close around it, squeezing only hard enough to keep the object from falling. Below is a video, taken at a recent Intel Research event, of the gentle grabber in action.

:D

Revamped Graphic Equalizer from Marcelo Costa on Vimeo.
I have watched this several times and I can't stop. It makes me smile everytime. What song is this? Thanks to Laughing Squid via Kate. And apologies for being such a lazy blogger for the past week.

Robot Crush

This is Keepon, my new crush. He was developed by Hideki Kozima who's also kind of cute. Although most people just want to take Keepon home to play, he/she/it/this alien-like life form actually has a purpose. Supposedly he helps autistic kids learn to engage socially. I'm a little torn on this one. He's incredibly engaging -- I must've hung out with him for a total of 40 minutes on and off. I spoke to his maker for a while. I just stood and stared for a long time. I danced with him. But I'm not sure if all of that adds up to anything more meaningful than a cute distraction. My understanding is that autistic kids will fixate on certain objects for long periods of time. That's an intense kind of engagement in itself so in that sense I'm sure Keepon would be a bot of interest. But there's nothing about this cutie that makes me think there's potential for social learning. I'd be more convinced if there were some kind of scaffolding process where the child learns a form of turn taking and incrementally builds on acquired skill sets. But that aside, if they can figure out a way to keep Keepon affordable (and they're working on it), I bet they'd sell millions.

On a slightly different note, check out this video of Keepon that Wired Magazine produced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPdP1jBfxzo&feature=related

hand drawn, to the extreme

a wall-painted animation by Blu

To follow up on my previous post about my love and appreciation of hand drawn illustrations and cartoons, I give you this video. I'm still in amazement. I can not imagine how long it took these guys to make this. Painting and repainting, over and over and over. Instead of 3000 sheets of paper and a few pencils, they probably used 50 gallons of paint, 20 miles of wall, and 250 brushes.

Commodity fetishism! Yum!!

It appears to be video week here on the Wind-Up Blog.  In that spirit, here's a commercial break.

I just saw this Quizno's commercial, in which a woman eats a five dollar bill instead of a sandwich. This is shocking and funny because it's a play on what Marx calls commodity fetishism. A $5 bill is just a piece of paper, but thanks to the labor that it hides, it's endowed with a magical power that can turn it into lunch (which supposedly has more meat on it than similarly priced sandwiches from competing chains). I had a great laugh reading a communist newspaper in Harvard Square a couple weeks ago that advocated overthrowing the capitalist system, and quoted Lenin (really?? in 2008?!?). However, the original is still well worth reading. I know you heard this in college, but Marx himself, the original, is such a good writer on capitalism. He would see this commercial, and go, "EXACTLY!"

I can dance better than Prince

Flairs-Better than Prince

Flairs, a French electro-pop guy, makes some pretty bold statements in his song. Eat more stuff than Prince? Really?

The video was directed by Jonas & Francois, the guys that brought you the fun Justice "D.A.N.C.E." video with those animated t-shirts. They also codirected Kanye's "Good Life" and a Madonna video. I love all the bright animation with the black and white video. Working on a computer all day makes me really appreciate anything hand-drawn (or at least anything giving the appearance of being done by hand). For the Flairs video the animators used over 3000 sheets of paper, multiple black pencils, and a scanner. Well done.