Robots are good at a number of automated tasks, but deboning meat isn’t one of them. This work has traditionally required human workers who are able to discern and work around bone placement and variations in size and shape of the meat. An easy task for humans, but not so for a robot.

That said, the HAMDAS-R robot, manufactured by Japanese company Mayekawa Electric, represents a major step forward in how robots can be used to automate working on irregularly shaped objects. This automatic deboning system for ham is capable of achieving a higher yield than humans. As a result, with a HAMDAS-R installed, the work that would normally take a team of 20 humans now only requires ten.

In addition to increasing productivity and efficiency in the processing plant, HAMDAS-R also minimizes the number of humans touching meat, which provides a more sanitary environment.

(Via Neatorama)

The Japanese Ministry of Defense recently unveiled this new flying surveillance drone, which it says will be deployed to disaster areas such as volcanic eruptions and landslides.

While my Japanese is shaky (and by that, I mean non-existent), judging from the translation of the caption at YouTube, it looks like operators can program this robot with a pre-determined altitude and route via GPS where it can operate for up to 30 minutes, transmitting images back to a computer all the while.

(Via Crave)

iRobot, a company perhaps best known for their line of Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, also produces several military robots that are used for activities ranging from simple surveillance to bomb disposal.

The biggest and baddest military bot, the 710 Warrior, is not only rugged and strong (capable of carrying up to 150 pounds), but also shows a remarkable degree of mobility.

In the above video, iRobot crew is able to easily coax the machine up a steep 60-degree flight of stairs, down what looks to be about a one-foot drop, and then back up. It looks like the operator’s ability to cleverly shift its payload and change its center of balance is crucial to the Warrior’s ability to get around.

(Via @BotJunkie)

While physicians have been using robotics to assist with surgery for years, a Canadian man is the first in the world to undergo successful surgery in which the entire procedure was performed by robots – from administering anesthesia via a robot nicknamed “McSleepy” to operating with a DaVinci surgical robot:

Specialists at the McGill University Health Centre at the hospital said the all-robotic surgery could deliver the most modern and accurate patient care.

Dr A Aprikian from MUHC, said: ‘The DaVinci allows us to work from a workstation operating surgical instruments with delicate movements of our fingers with a precision that cannot be provided by humans alone.’

He and his team of surgeons operated the robotic arms that can rotate 360 degrees from a dedicated workstation via video control with 3D high definition image quality.

They removed part of the patient’s prostate gland, which sits at the neck of the urethra and produces the fluid part of semen.

(Via Engadget)

Why the Singularity isn’t going to happen (10/16/10) – “That is how Singularity-level technologies work in real life. They solve dire problems, sure. They save lives. But they also create problems we’d never imagined – problems that might have been inconceivable before that Singularity tech was invented.” (io9)

Artificial intelligence has a feel for laboratory science (10/14/10) - “‘The artificial experimenter will provide a tool for scientists, which will not only allow them to reduce experimentation costs, but will also allow them to redirect their time from monotonous characterisation experiments, to analysing the results, building theories and determining uses for those results,’ say the researchers in their paper.” (The Engineer)

In New Study, Babies Think A Silvery Robot Is Human, As Long As It Acts Friendly (10/14/10) – “At 18 months old, babies have begun to make conscious delineations between sentient beings and inanimate objects. But as robots get more and more advanced, those decisions may become harder to make. What causes a baby to decide a robot is more than bits of metal? As it turns out, it takes more than humanoid looks–babies rely on social interaction to make that call.” (PopSci)

Scary Smart: The Next Trillion-Dollar Industry (10/12/10) – “I’m convinced the next trillion-dollar industry will be built around all the stuff that makes us smarter. This would include things that go into our bodies–performance-enhancing supplements and drugs, chip implants and the like–and such traditional tools as smartphones, Web search and databases.” (Forbes.com)

Two Days Among The Immortals (10/11/10) - “Exercise, eat healthy and not too much, sleep well, don’t stress out… and you may well live long enough to live forever.” (h+ Magazine)

Taken to its logical extreme, this creates a dichotomy where people possess either very high-skilled and high paying jobs that require a great deal of schooling, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and so forth, and then very low-skilled, low paying jobs where it either isn’t practical or cost effective to employ robots. A generation ago one could go into a number of “moderate skilled” positions (for lack of a better term) that paid good wages, ranging from “blue collar” jobs like assembly line workers to “white collar” jobs like bank tellers or travel agents. Technology is increasingly leading to jobs like these drying up.

That’s the double-edged sword of technology, but humans will adapt and find ways to produce in a new robot-driven economy. After all, Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press eliminated jobs for scribes. Refrigerators eliminated milkmen. Computers and robots will continue to shake things up in ways we can and cannot foresee.

Over at Big Think, physicist  Michio Kaku appears in a video where he talks about the progression of Moore’s Law, the evolution of AI, and how to prevent robots from doing us harm:

Right now our machines are as smart as insects.  Eventually they’ll be smart as mice.  After that they’ll be smart as dogs and cats.  Probably by the end of the century, who knows, they’ll be as smart as monkeys.  At that point they could become potentially dangerous because monkeys can formulate their own plans.  They don’t have to listen to you.  They can formulate their own strategies, their own goals and I would say therefore at that point let’s put a chip in their brain to shut them off if they get murderous thoughts.  Isaac Asimov advocated something like that with his “Three Laws.”  I say hey, put a chip in their brain to shut them off if they start to get murderous.

Of course, we can avoid this scenario altogether by developing AI with benevolent motivations.

Recently, tech and business luminary Peter Thiel publicly lamented the lack of innovation in Silicon Valley:

“We need to ask ourselves more: How are we actually doing things to make the country and the world a better place in the next few decades?” he said.

Thiel urged entrepreneurs to solve hard technology problems by embracing science fiction goals from the heyday of the original “Star Trek” series, such as permanent lunar bases.

“We need to spend a lot more time focusing on breakthrough technologies that take our civilization to the next level,” Thiel said.

One of those technologies will undoubtedly be robotics. Countries around the world are devoting significant resources to robotics research and development, but nowhere on Earth is this commitment as evident as it is in Japan, which is experiencing a rapidly aging population and low birth rates.

Not only will robots help care for the elderly in that country, but will also serve to stave off the inevitable labor shortage and help Japan maintain its position as a world leader in manufacturing.

While Japan is pursuing robotics development with the zeal of desperation, the United States is also home to world-leading robotics companies and innovative start-ups clamoring to get a piece of what will be a $100 billion pie in the next two decades.

Robotics development in the States may spur economic recovery in suffering “Rust Belt” areas like Michigan, which possess  existing infrastructure, engineering talent and skilled labor that could be applied to building and servicing robots for a world that will be increasingly relying on machines to compete economically. This growth will be driven by countries such as China, Brazil, India, Russia and the Middle East, which will soon be new and large “markets for automation.”

World leaders in robotics will also find themselves poised to take advantage of emerging technologies. Much like the advent and popularization of personal computers, robotics will drive new developments and innovation in other areas, including defense, health care and nanotechnology.

Yesterday defense contractor Raytheon released the above video for the latest iteration of their XOS 2 exoskeleton, which coincides with the home release of Iron Man 2. The XOS 2 is designed to help military personnel personnel by lightening their loads and assisting with lifting heavy objects, like armaments.

A Raytheon spokesman said he expects to deploy the non-tethered XOS 2, which is powered by an internal combustion engine, in the field in the next “3 – 5 years.”

In the meantime, let’s get working on the rocket boots and repulsor blasters so we can get them online in time for the unveiling of the XOS 3, hmm?

(Via Engadget)

This video of humanoid robot iCub learning to accurately shoot a bow and arrow is interesting – the robot is evaluating each missed shot, and then making adjustments to improve its aim. It takes it eight tries to finally hit the target.

The learning algorithm, called ARCHER (Augmented Reward Chained Regression) algorithm, was developed and optimized specifically for problems like the archery training, which have a smooth solution space and prior knowledge about the goal to be achieved. In the case of archery, we know that hitting the center corresponds to the maximum reward we can get. Using this prior information about the task, we can view the position of the arrow’s tip as an augmented reward. ARCHER uses a chained local regression process that iteratively estimates new policy parameters which have a greater probability of leading to the achievement of the goal of the task, based on the experience so far. An advantage of ARCHER over other learning algorithms is that it makes use of richer feedback information about the result of a rollout.

While we’re talking robot archery, here’s a neat little video of toy humanoid robot i-SOBOT shooting a mini bow and arrow. There’s no calculation going on here to figure out where it should aim, but hey – robots with tiny weapons are still cool.

(iCub story via BotJunkie)