A week away

So, I underestimated the amount of work leading up to my prelim defense, and going to start my little break now-ish. It isn't the prelim work as much as the other stuff, like my little Thunderbird on a USB stick took forever to configure perfectly, and was then corrupted by an old version of TrueCrypt hiding on one of my computers. *poof* All that work disappeared. Ugh. Not sure how to handle that now, but might have to think up a little hack to make it work properly.

In the meantime, here are a few stories...

Serious:
60 Minutes covered DEKA on Sunday. Thank you to the 20-ish people that let me know about it, including my parents. They're silly. They still live in a world where missing a TV show means you have to wait for the rerun. Video clip is up on the 60 Minutes site.

This best computer interfaces story is a trip down memory lane.

Pravda has a very vague and almost not worth reading article on a Russian BCI group.

The Boston Globe discusses some of the hurdles of setting up an implantable BCI project, and chronicles the situation over at the now defunct Cyberkinetics. I don't want to say anything about the project that could anger one of the 14,000 government institutions regulating aspects of it (kidding on the number btw), so I will point to here (yes, the page is in a very very early alpha state).

And some sort of licensing setup for ECoG algorithms has been setup with a company called Neurolutions. (Really? Neurolutions? Have we gotten to the point where all the good brain related names are taken? Even DNI, which was a 3am, caffeine-induced hyper-mania induced naming beats the snot out of that.)

Seriously?:
I could bring myself to watch this clip, but here's the title:
"Robotic baby seal has healing powers" - CNN (also known as, "We fired out entire science department, but what could go wrong?" News)
Video clip. Be sure to get the tshirt, too.

Honda: Our in-house research can't read

Apparently, Honda has decided that they are the first to use a BCI (NIRS and EEG combo in this case) to control a robot (video here-and, oh, is it worth it). Not the first to use this technique, but the first to do it, ever. Okay, let's pretend that the Fetz 1969 experiments drove a 'device' instead of a robot (I'm not even sure how far back a device driven by surface electrode input might have been), but this is massively misleading. Sure this is just a stupid company statement, but Google "first robot controlled by a BCI" in two days and this crap will be the #1 result. *facepalm* I'm sure I can't really have an impact on such a large corporation's ridiculous press statement, so instead enjoy this video of ASIMO falling down stairs:



Thanks Katie for the heads up.

Do want

Robot arm + Utility that I can justify = Awesome

(Robot Arm used to show time - aka RoboArmClockThingy from DVice)

Weekend fun

Relax and enjoy this ditty from Flight of the Conchords.

Wrap me in technica

The logical step between models of virtual appendages and implanted muscle stimulators and FES systems is an exoskeleton. No surgery, easily removed, easily upgradeable, and more suited for non-paralyzed persons. Well, here are the goods on what systems have been making the news in the past few months.

The Honda "assist walking device" is the most recent newsworthy device. This lower limb exoskeleton is essentially an ASIMO robot without an upper half. That is both good and bad.

Far cooler is the anime inspired HAL by Cyberdyne, which can be rented for $1000/hour. I want to rent one just so I can wear it as I carry a car across campus for no reason.


The Exos, which basically looks like a more capable and "Americanized" full body exoskeleton is being targeted at soldiers for heavy lifting. I say Americanized because it looks like the inspiration is more sheer power and militaristic over aesthetics and compactness, like the HAL. I don't know what the difference is between lifting power, and I doubt they have a consistent way of measuring that between device makers, but rather than show a semi-androgynous wavy haired guy posing, they show a guy sitting strait up lifting a massive weight effortlessly. There's also the below YouTube clip.

The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has their own suit that is aimed at aging farmers and general manual labor workers, with an emphasis on cost and durability. $2000 - to own.

One big problem with exoskeletons in general is that in order to provide power, you need, well, power, and that usually comes in the form of heavy batteries tied to heavy, noisy motors. An alternative is to use pneumatics for the tough stuff, guided by electronic cut off valves. That's the idea behind the University of Michigan exoskeleton. That's some smart thinkin, though it limits the use, since sitting in a coffee shop to recharge your EXOs would work better than find a scuba trainer and loading up your compressed air canister.

Rewalk is another sexy exoskeleton that only exists in CAD form, but looks like a serious attempt at another mass market exoskeleton. Argo Networks is specifically targeting paraplegics and looks to introduce their first version in 2009. I have to say that it seems strange that we're working on exoskeletons to carry heavy packs into war, and then other exoskeletons for those soldiers that become paraplegic because of war int he first place (I'm not a hippie, just noting the irony.) It would be strange to imagine going into battle with one exo, and needing a different one when you get home. I'm sure the psychological impact of getting into the suit would make it tougher to, say, recover for PTSD.

And finally we have the UC Berkeley exoskeleton, BLEEX. This is older news, but the link provided goes straight to the media page so you can check out the videos and other media.

And here is a quick link to past stories on DNI regarding exoskeletons.

Scary flaming robot legs

Another great catch by Natalia. Behold the Scary Walking Robot Legs of Doooooom! Info here.

Evolve

Continuing with the purging of links to interesting stories, file these under "Evolution" or "Rockin Darwin's Doodle".


Awesome, awesome, awesome article on the complexity of evolution at Wired. What I love about it is that it completely axes the idiocy of sticking to a strict Darwinian perspective. We all know it doesn't work that way exactly, but that getting the knuckle draggers to understand that much has been an effort spanning decades. This article is refreshing, thought provoking, and a must read. If anyone knows of more like this, complete with some conceptual inter-meshing of self-emergence, multi-level selection, and complex system rules, please post in the comments.

An interesting little (Darwinian) evolution demonstration technique has made its way around the net recently, too. An interesting little classroom oriented setup emulates/performs 'evolution' using a controlled microenvironment and RNA + enzymes. Tweak a variable in the substrate, watch the concentrations of 'adaptive' [my words] RNA increase, isolate the 'adapted enzymes', stress them similarly, wash, rinse, repeat. Medgadget has a nice graphic and rundown, and I saw the story first on Science Daily.


Coming via Mind Hacks, Scientific American has an article about a report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (link to FREE special issue on Evolutionary Dynamics of Wild Populations) postulating that schizophrenia is evolutionarily beneficial.


As a side thought, if bacterial evolution is any sign, the increasingly effective treatments for disorders in general make them less important in determining the fitness of an organism. So, as the environment forces us to evolve, the forces that once kept our survival in check (disease, 'bad genes', weak resistance to +5 fire damage, etc) impact us less. So, the medical hurdles ahead of us are even more difficult to solve and simultaneously the population will require more care. An interesting thing to just consider is identifying the line where we stop pursuing A because the advances made are just too small. Example? The common cold or strep throat. We seem to say, "Meh, good enough. Let's move on to cancer." If we could stop the growth of malignant tumors with 100% assuredness, would we say, "Meh, good enough. Let's move on to AIDS." We all know that the medical industry doesn't make money on actually curing a problem compared to maintaining an acceptable level of homeostasis, so the next time you're opening up to say Ahhh, think about the Good Enough Line. Now, throw schizophrenia back in there, or any cognitive disorder. How will we know the Good Enough Line?

By the way, WTF is up with legitimate sites not linking to the primary literature when they report on a finding. Obnoxious. Instead you have to look up the journal, hope "this month" means the issue in press and not the ahead of press articles, or end up searching for the author, etc.


The Daily Galaxy asks if robot evolution is mirroring the evolution of life. The questions is interesting. If it is, does that mean science is conceding that life has a "designer"? If we say no, aren't we ignoring the impact of our environment on the design of robots? And if we say that they are one in the same, aren't we just dirty, granola eating, sandal wearing hippies? Seriously, though, it might speak to appearance of ordered evolution from many chaotic variables.

Two papers to point out: RNA editing, DNA recoding and the evolution of human cognition in Trends in Neuroscience, and Parallel evolution of cortical areas involved in skilled hand use in J Neuroscience.


And a few fun ones.
- Darwin "Photoshop tennis" on Flickr.
- If you are in New York, the Museum of Modern Art has a special exhibit on technology and science called Design and the Elastic Mind the runs through May 12, 2008 (if you read this after that date, you can find it in the "Past" link on the left).
- Fun tshirt.
- Expose gravity for the scientific conspiracy it is!
- Darwin plush doll. Awwww...


Enjoy, and keep on evolving! You have no choice!

(Update: Just saw that Philadelphia is declaring this The Year of Evolution. Rock on!)
(Update 2: Darwin's papers have been digitized to posted to the web for the first time. Enjoy!)
(Oh, and I would like to add: Fuck Ben Stein for lacking a 1st grader's understanding of science.)

Random Sunday Randomness

Remy Wahnoun sent in an article on a UCLA project of significant BCI implications. Self healing, power generating muscles. Cool on every level. As always, you can go to that ENgadget article and get the, "OMG that's so kewl I will be robo-1337 and pwn at video games" comments on Engadget, or get some more interesting feedback from the world at Slashdot. (Have I mentioned how I'm not a fan of Engadget?)

There was a nice rundown of how computers and brains differ - a topic taht the engineers tend to underestimate on oh so many levels. Oldy, but a goody.

Eye controlled surgery robot that maps the surface the surgeon is looking at in 3D and uses this map to stabilize the image and arms. Wicked awesome stuff.

And a robot riff-raff-chaser-away thingy that has been on the news and mentioned a few times by various net news outlets.

Aaaaand random fun brain stuff at Of Two Minds.

More on the inevitable robot uprising

Perhaps Houdini's historic struggle against our soon to be metal masters should be put in context. What if the great art works of our time reflected a world where man and machine lived side by side?

The time for wondering those thoughts is GONE! We must not be weak! We have already given them a taste of human blood as machines of battle and industry, even at our own insistence. Imagine death from above, as the our diminutive circuit board superpowers that be watch from the skies.

But, are we willing to give up our newly revitalized BattleBots TV shows (OMGOMGOMG YAY!) and Roombas (and their knock offs) in exchange for this? And what if they combine their consumer level powers to form monstrosities truly terrifying, like videoed below? Keep idolizing them, sharing them with our children, and reporting on science for 1 freaking minute out of 5 hours of news material, and I'm sure this day will sneak up on us, just as we taught them. Now get me another beer, beerBot!



Sources:
BoingBoing
Mind Hacks
DVice
Gizmodo
Switched
Robot Gossip (love it, but needs more updates!)
Etsy

4-Legged robotic menace

Wow. Just wow. The first 35 seconds or so are a little boring, but keep watching until at last 2/3 of the way through. You might want to mute it (the noise it makes is kinda annoying).

Chapin's robo-rats minus the rats

The interwebs have had chatter recently about the use of rat-type biomimetic technology for wiggling through caves and cave ins. Below is a video clip of something similar done at SUNY, where rats were influenced to traverse a terrain under the control of stimulating electrodes in the barrel cortex.

Brief aside: For those of you not in the know on the world wide fever know as rat whisker barrel cortex, the idea is pretty simple: rats, which are nocturnal, navigate be feeling the deflections in their whiskers. When examining the somatosensory cortex, very distinct topography exists, and the individual whiskers can be seen. This is a semi-old finding, but important because it shows a direct relationship between some type of externally sense phenomenon and cortical arrangement (here's the Wikipedia entry for a little more). At SUNY, they placed stimulating electrodes in these 'barrel', and basically fooled the rat into thinking that it was brushing up against an obstacle to steer it.



Well, a secondary thing that has come of this is what has made the news: active sensing. Scientists in Israel have decided to build robots based on this idea. Many tiny little fingers with several integrated sensors on each feel and ID objects as it burrows around. Nifty, and a reason to recap roborats.

Tips to: Medgadget, Physorg, IO9

And more on the inevitable robot uprising

Okay, coffee shop is getting a little boring, and I just finished another chapter in Machine Learning (suggested by a reader). So, before I go trudge through the snow that is falling like CRAZY, here's a fun post.

A robot heckled President Clinton at a recent speech before succumbing to the police is a hail of paper propaganda. What's worse, it seems to be using a human to host it's menacing opinions! Report, plus video here. (via Engadget)

Perhaps we should have listened to this editorial in 1932, that nineteen-thirty-frickin-two people! Yes, this is a real editorial. (via BoingBoing)

perhaps we could escape this lunacy by burrowing deep below the Earth's surface, you say? That would have been a good idea, IF THE WORLD WASN'T HOLLOW. Perhaps the ascended masters that live there will shield us from the death from above.

Microsoft's first robo-minions get legs with which to crush the life out of you!

The first fruits of Microsoft's Robotics Studio have made it into the marketplace.
What this nimble biped lacks in torso, it makes up for in ass-kicking soccer/football playing. The only clip I could find was the one below, and frankly, it kinda sucks. But, hopefully it's an early version.

BCI like gandpa used to use

Yes, a wooden robotic arm that you can build! Now, if I had any ability to work with wood, I would be set. I did make a 6 foot circumference hovercraft in junior high school (yes, it worked), but gramps helped me big time.

In da newz

Ah vacation. So nice. Here's what hit my radar the past few days...

The technique used by Dr Kuiken at Northwestern for control a robotic limb has been turned on its head, and used to supply touch sensation. Place some haptic sensors on the artificial arm, wire them up to various DRG afferents/efferents, and supply a little juice. (2nd report here.)

MIT, trying to map the whole damn brain. Pffft. Amateurs. Why don't they just stick to wearable motion capture systems?



Ah exoskeletons. How be-est the so rad? (Play the video above.)

DLR had their wares in the news a bit. Yay robots!

Random bits/bytes/boutons

* If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me where to get a gold brain mouse, I would have no money. But, if that day ever comes, I now have an answer: Here.

* Dr. Richard Wiseman's crazy strange psych studies are highlighted on PsyBlog. Really worth a read/giggle.

* Mind Hacks has a brief mention of Leary's Eight Circuits. Though of little practical use, these types of mental exercises might help you to think outside the box. Other Leary news? His Neurocomics are scanned and online. And... a very interesting debate between G. Gordon Liddy and Leary on "the future". Of particular interest might be this famous quote:

"Computers will be THE drug of the future."

And a mention of Neo-Paganism and technology. (Not that I'm a huge Leary fan, but his ideas are fun to think abut from time to time. He always has that twinkle in his eye that says, "I know know something you don't, but one day you'll figure it out." Either that or, "I'm tripping balls right now.")

* Mmmmm... Clown Brains...

* Many of life's problems could be solved by really considering the Monkeysphere. Yes, you must read this. It offers such gems as:

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We'll call him Slappy.

It gets better from there...

* And finally, whether they were killing us, or humping us, robots made for big news this last week.

Random robotics

Oh man, oodles of work, so here's a quick link dump on robotics...

It weighs 66 pounds (30 kilos), can lift 100 kilos as if it were 50, and is coming for your children. Have you seen THIS person/mech? Also at Gizmodo.

Another catch on Medgadget, the vocal joystick. Move I say! Actually, it uses four vowel sounds to control a manipulandum in each of four directions (the sounds have a continuity to them, see the full article). Clicking is done with two 'k' type sounds. Sound is sampled at 100Hz.

Have you every thought, "Hey, I love my cat, but I just can't provide him or her with the petting he or she needs?" Well, my friends, have I got a treat for you. And by treat, I mean a robotic arm that senses motion and sound, and will pet your cat(s) for you. And you thought crazy cat lady was crazy... imagine her with one of these for each of her 50 cats! Damn robots! Befriending our domesticated pals, to turn them against us. Don't be surprised when the Robot Uprising comes if Mr. Mewmew unlatches your bunker door for the robodeath squads! See below:


Hand Hacking For Cat - video powered by Metacafe

Speaking of angry robot overlords, here's a cute version you can print out and put on your cubicle desk. Come on! It may only be a cubicle, but it's YOUR cubicle!

Air powered, jumping robot legs form Japan. I've run out of wit to comment on them. Or perhaps you prefer good ole American legs from MIT running on moonbeams and dream. Okay, I don't know what they run on,but it sounded nice.


And just when you thought you would recognize your robotic dominators, they go and morph their faces. Tricky bastards.




At least Intel is giving them a better sense of fine touch. That way they can feel the life drained from our bodies as they crush our skulls.

I didn't intend this post to go this wacky, but I'm pretty glad it did. Hope you had as much fun reading it as I had posting it.

I got your robots riiight heeeere!

At Robodock 2007. I don't think it looks too amazing, but worth checking out this fusion of art and robotics. Artbotics? Pics, video link.

The arms race

Arms arms arms. So many arms. German company Festo has their muscle emulating arm, called Airic's_Arm. Click through for some fluidic muscle awesomeness. Note that there are a significant number of components in the torso piece, making this a little way off for use as a prosthetic.

Best Slashdot comment on the story:

Now the Japanese must develop the next version of their robot arm so it can beat this one.

The arms race begins!

via Slashdot.

Recycling robotics

One thing about BCI I've come to realize over the last year: The same news is rehashed over and over in the media. Many time there is no major advancement tied to the announcements, but companies and funding agencies love to see their work in the limelight. One positive aspect of this is that the labs show off more interesting material, as the basics have been previously covered.

Case in point, the Vanderbilt/Rocket powered/Goldfarb/DARPA/liquid nitrogen (or was it hydrogen) arm. Still cool as Hell, but now we get to see the funky video above. At some point I'm going to sit down and list out all the big players and their aliases (the Dean Kamen are is also a 'DARPA arm').
Covered here, here, here, and here.