DARPA’s James Cameron Mashup: Unsurprising, but Existentially Bananas

 AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Cybernetics, DARPA, Exoskeleton, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Military Robotics, NBI, Neurology, Prosthetics, Robot, Technology, Transhuman, Transhumanism, WarBots  Comments Off
Feb 212012
 

Remote-Controlled Humanoid WarBots
So DARPA got some so-called Avatar robot money in next year’s budget. This is interesting news that slips neatly into anthrobotic.com’s WarBot thread, but for those who follow the WarBot-machine-drone-non-directly-human-remote-watching/killing/delivering field of technology, it’s hardly a revelation. Becasue Predator, Reaper, Global Hawk, K-MAX, Sentinel, Packbot.
And more:
Drone aircraft and other remotely controlled vehicles in our unmanned arsenal already function as primitive avatars, so obviously this is a logical next step. But, as with most things DARPA, it begins an interesting discussion.

First, a question I haven’t quite figured out is:
Where’s the line between robot and R/C car or plane or whatever? Some consider our various military drones to be robots, but we wouldn’t really consider this here to be a robot:
Other than size and munitions and relocating to Nevada in order to play with it, isn’t a Predator drone essentially the same thing? Which is a robot and why? I don’t know, man!

What about an automated parking garage? Aren’t those kind of like building-sized robots lugging cars up and down and to and fro? Shouldn’t a gigantic semi-autonomous robot have geeks like me all kindsa dorktastically excited?
They don’t. Well, maybe me a little bit.

The thing is, there’s a kind of animal vanity at work here. I think in order for us to call something a robot, we want it to be at least vaguely modeled after something that is actually living. Or has lived. Because I’ve seen a robot T-Rex before, and it was unquestionably a robot.

Red = Pissed Off.

Continue reading »

Japanese Technology from the Future Friday! (NEW SECTION AT ANTHROBOTIC.COM)

 Anthrobotic Originals, CareBots, Energy Technology, Exoskeleton, Future Already Very Pending, Japanese Technology from the Future Friday, Prosthetics, Robot, Technology, Technology & Labor  Comments Off
Feb 172012
 

Announcing a New anthrobotic.com section:
Japanese Technology from the Future Friday!
See, the thing is this – it’s already Friday already here in Japan – we’re 17 hours ahead of the western U.S., which means I totally live in the future. And because it’s already Friday already, I’m left with little time to provide something original or worthwhile before the weekend hits. So I aggregate!

Why Japan and J-Technology?
Well, I live here.
So I’m uniquely positioned to tell you about the future, because I’m in the future.
In Japan. And Japan has some of the best technology. See?

Your Source for One-Upping Other People Who Care About Technology
So, Japanese Technology from the Future Friday will be become a conduit of specifically Japanese technological news that’s a day ahead of half the world – which will make my readers super-informed well before the other dorks.

Real-World Example Conversation:
A: “Tokyo Electron is probably going to drop
production by the end of next week.”
B: “Billy, they’re totally not – they’re
actually going to give it a bump.”
A: “Whatever to your face. How would
you even know that, Walter?”
B: “There is a man who lives in Japan, in the
future, and the J-Tech is strong with him.”
A: “What? Are you serious? How can that possibly work?!”
B: “See, Japan IS in the future, man.
It’s already tomorrow there already.”
A: “Oh my god.”
B: “Just read anthrobotic.com’s special section:
Japanese Technology from the Future Friday.”
A: “Wow, that sounds amazing. I should
go read that and click on ads, too!”
B: “Goddamn right you should.”

Later that day…
A: “Wow. You’re right.
The J-Tech IS strong with that one.
The WordPress, not so much.”
B: “Billy, shut your mouth.”

___________________________________________________

Okay, here’s how it’s going to look:
::Japanese Technology from the Future Friday – February 17, 2012::
High Tech Japanese Robot Puppet Avatar Thingy
[PAKISTAN TIMES]

Sony Developing Pay-As-You-Go Electrical Outlets
[SMART PLANET]

Japanese Gaming Industry Relies Heavily on External Tech
[VG24/7]

Japanese Electronics Companies are Losing a Ton of Money
[WALL STREET JOURNAL]

On future installments I’ll of course have something to say about each story, and there will normally be 4-5, sometimes more. We’ll see how goes the news! Thanks for reading – and hey, perhaps someday I’ll do some actual reporting here in Japan!

Live from the future, that is all!

Yes, Yes My Lower Jaw is 3D Laser-Printed Titanium. No, I’m Not From the Future.

 Cybernetics, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Medical Technology, Multimedia, Prosthetics, Technology, Transhuman, Transhumanism, We're Already Cyborgs Already  Comments Off
Feb 072012
 

Wow.
Low on time here, so gotta forgo my standard verbosity and just sit back and be impressed by this technology – it’s truly amazing across so many disciplines.

If you dig on such things, have a look at my last post – I went on at great (painful) length about emergent cyborg culture/developments, etc.

For now I’ll just extend congratulations and huge props to developers, surgeons, and the recipient.

[ARTICLE VIA 3DERS - AS IN, ...ERS - THOSE WHO DO STUFF]
[ANOTHER ARTICLE FROM FORBES - ALEX KNAPP]

Where the Human Ends & the Machine Begins: Getting Unclearer…

 Aging Society, AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Consciousness, Cybernetics, Exoskeleton, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Kurzweil, Medical Technology, Prosthetics, Technology, The Beginning is Near, Transhuman, Transhumanism, Transhumanism Test Pilots, We're Already Cyborgs Already  4 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

Cyborg Stuff
There’s an interesting piece over at NYT – The Dilemma of Being a Cyborg.
I’m not entirely sure what the dilemma is, but cyborg stuff is no small deal here at Anthrobotic, so it merits some consideration. Here are a few thoughts to roll the ball:

What are the Boundaries of my Physical Parts?
Okay, so I’ve got my guts, and my bones, and my connective tissues – like most people, that’s what I refer to as my physical “self,” the physical Me.

But… then I’ve got a few fillings and a few non-biological implants. Are those things any less Me? Are they just add-ons? What about the various bacteria and teeny-tiny bugs that at all times live in/on my body? Are those Me, too? As part of a whole bacterial culture, individual components pass and new are born – and at a molecular and sub-molecular level, nearly every cell in my body does essentially the same thing.

So my physical body, my Me, seems to be a bizarre combo platter of the co-dependent fauna, the implants (cyborg?), my body’s dead-cell accumulations of hair & finger/toenails, and transient molecules following a recursive pattern that results in my distinctly human biological structure, i.e., all my bones and squishy parts. In sum, these components make up my essential physicality, my manifestation, my both internalized and projected physical reference point for the world around me.

Well, I guess the thing is this: every living human is in a symbiotic relationship with the millions of other organisms contained by our bodies, and by definition many of us are already cyborgs (Dick Cheney, Stephen Hawking, Me). As such, what we routinely conceptualize as our discrete physical “self” isn’t nearly as cut and dried as we might think. Or quite necessarily, not think. Too much thinking about this would result in psychosis and/or a PhD in biological philosophy or losing one’s religion or something.

Technology’s helping us further explore and understand these ideas, but the catch is that it’s also totally complicating the issue.

Because What about the Boundaries of my Personhood?
Where is my Personality, or Soul, or Whatever? Continue reading »

Technology Will Eradicate Barbarians & Drum Circles and Fix Everything

 Consciousness, Cybernetics, Energy Technology, Future Already Very Pending, Genomics, Human Augmentation, Internet, Kurzweil, Medical Technology, Prosthetics, Pure Science, Robot, Space Technology, Super Computer, Technology, Technology & Art, Technology & Education, Technology & Labor, Technology & Politics, Technology & Travel, Technology & Work, Technology Law, The Beginning is Near, Transhumanism  Comments Off
Jan 262012
 

The Dumbest of the Species
The two most holistically primitive varieties of anti-technology people are:
#1. Hardcore Religious Zealots
and
#2. Hippies
Regarding technology’s fundamental role in human civilization’s, ummm… existence, these two groups are far and away the most confused and contradictory. If that sounds discriminatory and judgmental, well that’s because it’s meant to be. What other sets of humans have been more consistently incorrect and backward about nearly everything their philosophies project onto society?

While what hippies and religious zealots stand for is dumb as hell, and they’ve done exactly nothing positive for the world they live in, mentioning them does make for a fabulous segue into today’s Anthrobotic Book Recommendation! Continue reading »

The Disabled Wage War Against the Wheelchair and Begin Test-Piloting Transhumanism

 AI, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, CareBots, Cybernetics, Exoskeleton, Human Augmentation, Military Robotics, Neurology, Prosthetics, Robot, Technology, Technology & Disability, Transhuman, Transhumanism, Transhumanism Test Pilots, We're Already Cyborgs Already  Comments Off
Jan 102012
 

Burn it Down
This lovely young woman is doing her part to destroy the wheelchair industry. And she’s a hero. Practical, admirable, and necessary, movements such as ADA and other anti-discriminatory legislation were essential for their time, but we should all be happy when technology renders them irrelevant.

As I’ve said before, the technology that is the wheelchair has helped millions, but its time is finished – and the time of the wearable robot exoskeleton is approaching. Unless you build wheelchairs or access ramps or any other specialized wheelchair-centric equipment, you’ve gotta agree that a mobility revolution for the disabled is long overdue (and if you do build such equipment, it’s time to diversify, yo).

This post is really an update; this exact system came up here last May, then Berkeley Bionics (now renamed Ekso Bionics – a real lateral marketing move, I think) was just testing their prototype wheelchair killer. Now the device is moving through medical trials and appears to be fast-tracking to the market. These guys know what they’re doing – they’ve been at it since 2005, and their tech is also being used in Lockheed’s HULC exoskeleton.

The Physically Disabled as Transhuman Pioneers Continue reading »

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