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Evolution, of course, is complete non-sense:
251 - The World According to Darwin / Total Onslaught Mini Series - Walter Veith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leeS3I_jNGo
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Robot Film "Construct" Could Change Everything You Know About CGI
By Beckett Mufson — Apr 22 2014
When filmmaker Kevin Margo isn’t stuck at his day job as a leading visual effects supervisor for everything from Hollywood films to video games, he spends his days and nights inventing a revolutionary new process that, he believes, will change the way people think about computer graphics in cinema.
Since his short film, Grounded, debuted to critical acclaim, the gears in Margo’s mind have been moving. Absorbing the world of visual effects and tackling the problems presented by grossly inefficient, industry-standard CGI practices, he’s out to prove his solutions with his forthcoming short film, Construct.
video and more here:
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/robot-film-construct-may-change-everything-you-know-about-cgi
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Obama finds Japanese robots ‘a little scary’
By Juliet Eilperin | April 24 at 4:05 am
TOKYO -- President Obama played soccer Thursday with a Japanese robot -- and came away a bit scared.
Obama's visit to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, or Mirikan, aimed to highlight both Japan's technological prowess and the renewal of a 10-year scientific collaboration agreement between the two countries. While the event had plenty of examples of how the two countries are working together -- including a pre-recorded message from the International Space Station's Japanese commander and two American flight engineers serving alongside him -- the real stars of the show were a couple of robots.
Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO, which was dressed in an astronaut suit and is about the height of a 10 year-old child, went through a series of exercises for the president.
"It's nice to meet you," it said in a metallic voice, before approaching a soccer ball and telling Obama, "I can kick a soccer ball too."
"Okay, come on," the president replied.
The robot then took a couple of steps back and then then ran up to the ball to deliver a hefty punt.
The president trapped the ball with his foot, later telling an audience of roughly 30 students he was slightly intimidated by ASIMO and the other robot he observed at the museum.
"I have to say that the robots were a little scary, they were too lifelike," Obama declared. "They were amazing."
video and more, here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/04/24/obama-finds-japanese-robots-a-little-scary/
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10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014
Introduction
Technology news is full of incremental developments, but few of them are true milestones. Here we’re citing 10 that are. These advances from the past year all solve thorny problems or create powerful new ways of using technology. They are breakthroughs that will matter for years to come.
more here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2014/
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Robots are people too: Google algorithm passes 'human' test
April 21, 2014 | Mahesh Sharma
Google researchers have developed technology that nearly perfectly deciphers the distorted combinations of numbers and letters commonly used on the internet to test whether or not someone is human.
Ian J. Goodfellow, Yaroslav Bulatov, Julian Ibarz, Sacha Arnoud, and Vinay Shet, set out to develop a more accurate method to identify numbers in images taken for Google Street View. Their model identified, with better than 90 per cent accuracy, tens of millions of numbers contained in Street View images taken in a dozen countries.
Using the model in conjunction with Google's infrastructure, it takes less than an hour to transcribe all the views of street numbers in France.
The technology was also pitted against the hardest category of the character-blurring forms known as CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). It is based on the concept of the Turing test, which is a standard way to assess whether a human can identify, via verbal exchanges, whether a respondent is human or a computer.
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Tested against reCAPTCHA, Google's own variation, Mr Goodfellow and his team achieved near perfect results.
"Today, distorted text in reCAPTCHA serves increasingly as a medium to capture user engagements rather than a reverse Turing in and of itself," the researchers wrote. "These results do, however, indicate that the utility of distorted text as a reverse Turing test by itself is significantly diminished."
Google's technology uses a system called DistBelief, which leverages a scientific concept called convolutional neural networks. Inspired by biology, these neuron structures mimic the complex arrangement of cells within the part of the brain that interprets images.
The researchers layered these networks on top of each other to identify the numbers and characters in Street View images and CAPTCHA.
While Google's technology can read between the blurred lines, CAPTCHA still stupefies some humans.
more here:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/robots-are-people-too-google-algorithm-passes-human-test-20140421-zqwg4.html
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Robots are so much smarter than they used to be
Denise Deveau | April 22, 2014 8:00 AM ET
Photo courtesy of D&D Automation Inc.The VERA™ (Vision Enabled Robotic Assembly) system from D&D Automation Inc. is an adaptive technology that combines vision systems and programming that is currently being used in automotive welding and assembly tasks.
Anyone immersed in robotic technologies will tell you that contrary to popular belief, robots in production environments are about as unintelligent as they get – unless you take the time to add some smarts into the equation.
People don’t understand that a typical robot is designed to do the exact same thing over and over, explains Michael McCourt, president of Stratford, ON-based D&D Automation Inc. “Give it a slightly different part or orientation and it can’t handle that.”
That basic repetitive functionality — like pumping out millions of circuit boards or bottle — might be enough when used in a high-speed, high-volume environment where one task is all that’s needed. When variability comes into play — such as welding several bolts onto a car fender — the option would be put more people on the task or invest in multiple robots.
New signs of intelligence for production drones are coming to the forefront with technologies that help robots think and react to production changes on the fly. D&D for one has just launched VERA™ (Vision Enabled Robotic Assembly), an adaptive technology that combines vision systems and programming that is currently being used in automotive welding and assembly tasks.
“It can look at what part is in front of it and its orientation, pick it out and perform the function required,” Mr. McCourt explains. “Historically plants would have to have dedicated machines for each function, and the runs would never cross.”
Not only can operations save considerably by making production changes quickly without having to pay for retooling costs, adaptive robotics can also improve quality, accuracy and worker safety. In some cases, jobs that were offshored could even be repatriated because adaptive robotics make things more affordable, Mr. McCourt contends.
It’s the integration of complementary technologies that makes the difference, DiBattista notes. “That’s really the key. Whether it’s welding or food handling, it’s the tooling and development of that system that makes it adaptive.”
While adaptive technologies may not fit ultra-high-speed applications where error-free repetition is paramount; the value for short-run, mid-market production environments and other applications in time is significant. For a welding operation, for example, a single VERA system could ultimately do a job that would take up to 20 different machines, Mr. McCourt claims.
“The real estate part of adaptive robotics is huge,” DiBattista says. “A vision system talking to a controller in a [nut welding cell] for example will know how to pick the right nut for the right part. You could reduce your footprint for that cell considerably.”
here:
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/04/22/robots-are-so-much-smarter-than-they-used-to-be/?__lsa=046e-b063
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This Law School Professor Believes Robots May Lead To An Increase In Prostitution
Dylan Love
Apr. 21, 2014, 11:42 AM
John Danaher, a Keele University law school lecturer with an interest in the ways human life may be enhanced by robots and the ethics problems that stem from that, published a paper that examines whether sex work might one day be dominated by robots rather than human sex workers.
He also offers this easily understood summary of it for the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies.
The paper lays out two contrasting hypotheses: one in which robots dominate the sex industry; and another in which robot use actually leads to an increase in human sex work.
In both scenarios, Danaher argues, a "basic income" policy would be helpful — either to fund newly unemployed prostitutes or to provide an alternative to people who have lost their jobs to robots so they don't end up as prostitutes. "Basic income" is an idea that economists have toyed with for years. It's the notion that the majority of government welfare payments ought to be abolished in favor of a single, unconditional cash payment that everyone gets regardless of their employment status.
So, yes, he's literally arguing that in the future, sex robots may finally make the case for a basic income scheme:
The displacement hypothesis says sex robots will eventually push human sex workers out of a job.
The resiliency hypothesis represents the other side of this coin, arguing that human prostitutes are here to stay, regardless of the existence of sex robots.
the details, here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/will-sex-robots-replace-prostitutes-2014-4
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The Rapture of the Nerds
Jessica Roy/Melbourne Beach @JessicaKRoy
April 17, 2014
A new religion has set out to store memories for centuries and deliver its believers into a world where our souls can outlive our selves
In the backyard of a cottage here overlooking the water, two poles with metal slats shaped like ribcages jut out from the ground. They look indistinguishable from heat lamps or fancy light fixtures.
These are satellite dishes, but they aren’t for TV. They’re meant for dispatching “mindfiles,” the memories, thoughts and feelings of people who wish to create digital copies of themselves and fling them into space with the belief that they’ll eventually reach some benevolent alien species.
Welcome to the future. Hope you don’t mind E.T. leafing through your diary.
The beach house and the backyard and the memory satellites are managed by 31-year-old Gabriel Rothblatt, a pastor of Terasem, a new sort of religion seeking answers to very old kinds of questions, all with an abiding faith in the transformative power of technology.
Beneath the cottage is a basement office where the mindfile operation is headquartered. Next door is an ashram, an airy glass building with walls that slide away to reveal a backyard home to a telescope for stargazing and a space to practice yoga. Tucked behind a shroud of greenery, most neighbors don’t even know this house of worship exists.
The name Terasem comes from the Greek word for “Earthseed,” which is also the name for the futuristic religion found in the Octavia Butler sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower that helped inspire Gabriel’s parents, Bina and Martine Rothblatt, to start their new faith. Martine founded the successful satellite radio company Sirius XM in 1990. (Martine was originally known as Martin. She had sex reassignment surgery 20 years ago.)
Organized around four core tenets—“life is purposeful, death is optional, God is technological and love is essential”–Terasem is a “transreligion,” meaning that you don’t have to give up being Christian or Jewish or Muslim to join. In fact, many believers embrace traditional positions held by mainstream religions—including the omnipotence of God and the existence of an afterlife—but say these are made possible by increasing advancements in science and technology.
“Einstein said science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind,” Martine Rothblatt tells TIME. “Bina and I were inspired to find a way for people to believe in God consistent with science and technology so people would have faith in the future.”
Sure, it’s easy to dismiss people who think they can somehow cheat death with a laptop. But Terasem is a potent symbol of a modern way of life where the digital world and the emotional one have become increasingly entwined. It is also a sign, if one from the fringe, of the always evolving relationship between technology and faith. Survey after survey has shown the number of Americans calling themselves “religious” has declined despite the fact that many still identify as “spiritual.” People are searching, and no longer do they look to technology to provide mere order for their lives. They also want meaning. Maybe, it’s time to hack our souls.
more here:
http://time.com/66536/terasem-trascendence-religion-technology/
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Americans Aren’t Ready for the Future Google and Amazon Want to Build
By Issie Lapowsky 04.18.14 | 6:30 am
A kidney structure being printed by the 3-D printer at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Image: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Americans are hopeful about the future of technology. But don’t release the drones just yet. And forget meat grown in a petri dish.
That’s the takeaway from a new study released by the Pew Research Center looking at how U.S. residents felt about possible high-tech advances looming in the not-too-distant future. Overall, a decisive majority of those surveyed believed new tech would make the future better. At the same time, the public doesn’t seem quite ready for many of the advances companies like Google and Amazon are pushing hard to make real.
If the stigma surrounding Google Glass (or, perhaps more specifically, “Glassholes”) has taught us anything, it’s that no matter how revolutionary technology may be, ultimately its success or failure ride on public perception. Many promising technological developments have died because they were ahead of their times. During a cultural moment when the alleged arrogance of some tech companies is creating a serious image problem, the risk of pushing new tech on a public that isn’t ready could have real bottom-line consequences.
Lab-Grown Organs: Yes
In the Pew study, researchers asked 1,000 respondents to predict how soon certain major technological advancements, from space colonies to teleportation, would occur. They were also asked to say whether they believed more near-term advancements such as wearable technology were good or bad for society.
Overall, the results show that people are realistic when it comes to predicting the future. The majority of respondents, for instance, were doubtful that sci-fi tropes like teleportation, space colonization, time travel, and the ability to control the weather would be possible in the next 50 years.
But when it came to technology that’s already being developed, they were much more confident. About 80 percent of people, for instance, said they believed lab-grown organs would be available for transplant within 50 years. That’s a promising sign for the biotech companies and researchers currently working on regenerative medicine. Meanwhile, 51 percent of people believed that computers will soon be able to create art that’s indistinguishable from art created by humans. That’s also good news for the machine learning industry.
Lab-Grown Meat: No
Yet when the subjects were asked to decide whether certain new technologies would be good or bad for the future, they were decidedly more hesitant. More than 60 percent, for instance, said it would be a change for the worse if the U.S. were to open its skies to personal drones. If they’re that opposed to unmanned aerial vehicles in the skies, it’s not hard to imagine the resistance multi-billion dollar companies like Amazon and Google will face as they attempt to launch drones themselves.
The wearable technology industry is also likely to see resistance — a little more than half of those surveyed said it would be a change for the worse if most people wore implants or other devices that constantly feed them information. And while there are several research institutions across the country currently developing robots to care for the elderly, this idea was widely rejected by respondents, with nearly two-thirds saying such automated care would be bad for the future.
Driverless cars, technology that Google has also been spearheading, but that Elon Musk recently said is a goal for Tesla, were slightly more popular, with nearly half of respondents saying they’d be willing to try one out. That’s compared to the mere 20 percent of people who said they’d eat meat grown in a lab.
These findings, of course, can’t be taken as a sign that these industries are outright doomed. After all, if someone had told people 50 years ago that we’d all have tiny glass-and-metal boxes in our pockets that could take pictures, pinpoint our exact location anywhere in the world, and hold the contents of thousands of books all at the same time, it would have seemed impossible, if not downright scary. But the findings show that tech companies still have a lot of work to do to educate a public hardly willing to put blind trust in tech giants. Innovation can be a powerful force for positive change, but it goes down easier when the people whose lives will be affected feel like they have a say.
here:
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/future-of-tech/
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Study indicates Robots could replace 80% of Jobs
Posted on April 16, 2014 by Colin Lewis
PerezIn a few decades, twenty or thirty years — or sooner – robots and their associated technology will be as ubiquitous as mobile phones are today, at least that is the prediction of Bill Gates; and we would be hard-pressed to find a roboticist, automation expert or economist who could present a strong case against this. The Robotics Revolution promises a host of benefits that are compelling (especially in health care) and imaginative, but it may also come at a significant price.
The Pareto Principle of Prediction
We find ourselves faced with an intractable paradox: On the one hand technology advances increase productivity and wellbeing, and on the other hand it often reinforces inequalities.
A new study due to be published in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Skills and Training by Stuart Elliot visiting analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), who incidentally is on leave from the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council, indicates that technology could replace ‘workers for 80 percent of current jobs.’
In his study Elliot relies on advances in speech, reasoning capabilities and movement capabilities to illustrate how robots and technology can replace jobs. I am in agreement with the general thoughts of the study, although I believe speech recognition is now far more advanced than Elliot states. This element alone will lead to a reduction in many jobs, such as translation over the next five years.
Elliot is not the first to claim that robotics and technology will have such a profound impact on employment or inequality. Michael Hammer, a former MIT professor and prime mover in the restructuring of the workplace in the 1990’s estimated that up to 80 percent of those engaged in middle management tasks were susceptible to elimination due to automation.
In the book Average is Over Professor Tyler Cowen also predicts a hollowed-out labor market, devoid of middle-skill, middle-wage jobs, where 80% or more of our citizens will be unable to prosper. They will become a permanent underclass, unable to improve their lot.
This ‘underclass’ may be happening sooner than Cowen predicted. While there are ‘short term’ adjustments in the employment numbers, the majority are in the low-paying sectors, 73% of ‘new’ jobs are in the bottom of the wage pyramid and temporary employment positions rather than permanent.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that among the most rapidly growing occupational categories over the next ten years will be “healthcare support occupations” (nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants) and “food preparation and serving workers” – overwhelmingly low-wage jobs.
more here:
http://robotenomics.com/2014/04/16/study-indicates-robots-could-replace-80-of-jobs/
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Building a robot firefighter
Navy, colleges take up the challenge of creating robots for dangerous duty
By Hiawatha Bray | Globe Staff April 08, 2014
Before the year is out, the Navy will start a fire on one of its ships and send in a robot to put it out.
Designed at Virginia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania, the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot, or SAFFiR, is a two-legged machine built to climb stairs and open watertight hatches just like a human. But Dennis Hong, one of SAFFiR’s developers, said the robot is built to withstand flames and smoke that humans might not survive.
“This is almost science fiction, but it’s real,” Hong said.
Even as Boston mourns the loss of two firefighters trapped in a blaze in March, engineers in Massachusetts and around the world are working to develop robots that may one day take the place of humans in dangerous environments — from burning buildings to damaged nuclear power plants.
Search-and-rescue robots that roll on wheels or caterpillar treads were deployed during disasters such as the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Last year, a hose-wielding robot from South Korea tackled a major fire in Illinois. And in May, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used an unmanned drone to find an injured man who was lost in a remote area of Saskatchewan, in what may be the first case of a drone aircraft saving a life.
Now the US government and world-class universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute are developing humanoid rescue robots, two-legged machines designed to climb stairs, open doors, operate fire hoses, even drive emergency vehicles.
But do not expect to see such robots in action anytime soon.
Michael A. Gennert, the director of WPI’s robotics engineering program, said that teaching machines to perform even basic rescue tasks is a daunting challenge.
“There’s an awful lot of stuff to do,” Gennert said. “It’s not going to be easy or cheap.”
Gennert, his colleagues, and students are developing control software for Atlas, a six-foot-tall, 330-pound robot shaped like a man.
Atlas was engineered for use as a first-responder robot by Boston Dynamics, a Waltham company recently acquired by Google Inc.
video and more here:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/07/robots-rescue-one-step-time/Gr3K24oCgrmE4FhVlvdoKM/story.html
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