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Showing posts from April, 2015

Handle Me Gently - Scuplture by Olga Cironis

Giraffe like Sculpture, detail 'Handle Me Gently' by Olga Cironis. On a recent visit to the Fiona Stanley Hospital , Murdoch, Perth, Western Australia (as a visitor not a patient) I came across these contemporary sculptures by artist, Olga Cironis . Collectively the animal like structures are titled 'Handle Me Gently' and are captioned "We don't bite: but we do get hot". Everything about them invites you to walk up and touch them and, specifically, I think, children to climb on them (though despite the shade cloth people are warned that the structures do get hot).

Should we let Robots kill - do we really get a say?

Ultron Prime may not be such a far fetched idea. Recently Mashable published an article titled Should we let robots kill on their own? Highlighting the second multilateral meeting on lethal autonomous weapons , the article discussed some of the issues and ethics of allowing robots to decide on their own on whether to kill a human. Presently, we are at a point where it is possible to create weapons that could identify, target and kill a human, all without human intervention on that final decision to pull the trigger. If you think we're not then look at this technology for a photonic fence that allows an autonomous system to identify and kill mosquitoes with laser fire. We're talking about targets you can barely see being identified and killed with precision accuracy. This tech can even distinguish between male and female mosquitoes, how hard could it be to identify a human?

Big Hero 6, Baymax and Real Inflatable Robotics

Baymax - a fictional example of a 'Soft' robot. Baymax , the inflatable robot from the animated Disney movie, Big Hero 6 is probably the most famous 'soft' robot in the world of fictional robots today. I didn't really give it much thought when I saw the film but it's not too surprising that Baymax is inspired by real research into the potential of soft robots. I realize I'm a bit late to the party as Mashable wrote about this very subject in their post  'Big Hero 6' star Baymax was inspired by a real robot back in November of 2014 (which is where I first discovered real world soft robotics). However, since I'm somewhat obsessed with the almost certain robot uprising of the not too distant future, I thought it best to bring soft robotics to your attention.

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