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Why This Might Be the Model T of Workplace Robots
A mobile, one-armed robot that costs $35,000 is headed for research labs and maybe even some workplaces.
According to Melonee Wise, the manual laborer of the future has only one arm and stands just three feet, two inches tall. Such are the vital statistics of UBR1, a $35,000 mobile robot unveiled today by Wise’s startup company Unbounded Robotics.
Wise, the company’s CEO and cofounder, says her business will at first sell the robot to researchers in academia and industry, who currently must either pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get hold of a similar robot or build one themselves. But the UBR1 has also been designed to be capable and safe enough to help out in real workplaces such as warehouses and factories.
Unbounded will start shipping the first UBR1s next summer. Within the next two years, Wise expects to see businesses start putting them to work at tasks such as bin picking or stocking shelves in warehouses. “We’re in the business of getting robots out of the lab and making them a platform for businesses to use,” she says. “This is the Model T of robots.”
Though robots have long been a part of manufacturing, they have traditionally worked in isolation. But in recent years, thanks to advances in hardware and software, new kinds of robot have begun to appear among human workers in factories and warehouses. A company called Kiva Systems, acquired by Amazon in 2012, makes robots that can haul items around (see “In Warehouses, Kiva’s Robots Do the Heavy Lifting”), while startup Rethink Robotics’ flagship two-armed robot can work alongside humans on a production line (see “Baxter: The Blue-Collar Robot”).
These systems have limitations, though. Kiva’s robots require dedicated support infrastructure to be installed, and although the $22,000 Baxter is capable of two-handed manipulation, it cannot move around. Mobile robots capable of manipulation could function more like real human workers, Wise says, but so far they have remained in the research lab.
Before the UBR1 can start work in the real world, Unbounded will have to significantly improve the software available for the robot, which is today essentially a blank slate that requires a buyer to program in the desired capabilities. By contrast, Baxter is configured to be able to learn some manipulation tasks out of the box. Wise says her company will develop modular software packages that UBR1 owners can download to give their robots practical abilities. “We see ourselves developing basic capabilities that people will download and use on their robots, such as ‘open a door’ and ‘pick up a cup,’” she says.
UBR1 has a vaguely anthropomorphic head and a 75.75-centimeter (29.75-inch) arm, with four joints and a pincer grip, that neatly folds against its body when not in use. The robot moves around on a circular base with hidden wheels and can go anywhere in a building suitable for wheelchairs. The robot’s torso can be extended so that its head is anywhere between 96.5 centimeters (three feet, two inches) and 132 centimeters (four feet, four inches) from the ground. UBR1’s “eyes” actually hide the three lenses of a depth camera made by PrimeSense, a company that also supplies the hardware for Microsoft’s Kinect Xbox.
The robot also has design features that make it safe for work around people. For example, if it has accidentally shoved a person or invaded someone’s space, its jointed arm can be pushed aside.
Unbounded Robotics was spun out of the for-profit research lab Willow Garage this January by Wise and three fellow robotics engineers. Officials decline to talk about how the company is funded. The UBR1 makes use of the open-source Robot Operating System originally developed at Willow (see “TR35: Morgan Quigley”) and can be described as a simpler version of Willow’s flagship PR2, a large mobile robot with two arms that sold to research labs for $400,000. Although the PR2 became the basis for projects that pushed the boundaries of robot autonomy (see “Robots That Learn From People” and “TR35: Leila Takayama”), the high price meant that only a handful were sold. Wise says that just 43 PR2s exist in labs around the world today.
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520456/why-this-might-be-the-model-t-of-workplace-robots/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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