/ News
300-pound robot is new breed of crime-fighting machine
A Silicon Valley company has introduced what may prove the next generation in night watchmen – a 5-foot-tall, 300-pound crime-fighting robot designed to stand sentry in the wee hours of the night.
The K5 Autonomous Data Machine is intended “to augment private security services on corporate campuses and in large, vacant buildings and warehouses," according to its developer, Knightscope, which added, "Tedious and monotonous monitoring should be handled by the K5, leaving ‘hands-on’ activities to security personnel.”
“We founded Knightscope after what happened at Sandy Hook,” the company’s co-founder William Santana Li told the New York Times. “You are never going to have an armed officer in every school.”
But while Li hailed the robot as a breakthrough to be widely deployed in “schools, shopping centers, hotels, auto dealerships, stadiums, casinos, law enforcement agencies, seaports, and airports,” throughout the country, some are more uncertain over the tangential effects of turning over the reins to a robot.
“This is like R2-D2’s evil twin,” Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, a privacy rights consortium located in Washington, D.C., explained to The Times.
“Once you enter public space and collect images and sound recordings, you have entered another realm. This is the kind of pervasive surveillance that has put people on edge.”
Knightscope says the K5 “utilizes a combination of autonomous robots and predictive analytics to provide a commanding but friendly physical presence while gathering important real-time on-site data with numerous sensors.
“Data collected through these sensors,” the company adds, “is processed through our predictive analytics engine, combined with existing business, government and crowd-sourced social data sets, and subsequently assigned an alert level that determines when the community and the authorities should be notified of a concern.”
A Youtube video of the K5 in action shows something that looks like a remote-control vacuum cleaner sizing up the license plate numbers of vehicles parked in an unidentified parking lot.
The Times writes the robot – whose sticker price has not been revealed -- will employ a video camera, thermal imaging sensors, a laser range finder, radar, air quality sensors, as well as a microphone.
Knightscope adds the robot will also utilize GPS, a night-vision camera, and biological, chemical and radiation detection systems.
Predictably, Knightscope is effusive about the robot’s potential upside, calling its introduction, “The Birth of a New Hometown Hero.”
“Imagine a friend that can see, hear, feel and smell that would tirelessly watch over your neighborhood, keep your loved ones safe and put a smile on anyone walking by your business,” the company crows about the K5. “Imagine if we could utilize technology to make our communities stronger and safer . . . together.”
“We don’t want to think about ‘RoboCop’ or ‘Terminator,’” Li told The Times. “We prefer to think of a mashup ‘Batman,’ ‘Minority Report’ and R2-D2 . . . We want to give the humans the ability to do the strategic work”
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/12/01/300-pound-robot-is-new-breed-crime-fighting-machine/
/ About us
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”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru