/ News
'Wikipedia for robots': Because bots need an Internet too
RoboEarth, meant to be a Web community where caregiving bots can autonomously swap knowledge, is about to be demonstrated. Please don't let the Terminator have access to this thing.
If robots are really going to take over the world, they'll first need to search the Internet for extra-long-lasting batteries and cool-looking campaign ribbons to decorate their brave warrior drones.
And now that they're getting their own "Wikipedia for robots," they can. OK, they might not be able to swap information on armor-piercing ammunition, but robots will be able to share know-how on at least some topics keen to the cybermind.
Meet RoboEarth, an online international database for robots looking to learn new skills from their fellow automatons. Created by scientists at Philips, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and four other European universities, RoboEarth is initially meant to target the growing number of household and caregiver robots aimed at the world's aging populations.
"At its core, RoboEarth is a World Wide Web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment," explains a description on the RoboEarth project page.
A participating robot could, for example, image a hospital room and upload the resulting map to RoboEarth. A fellow robot unfamiliar with the room's layout could then use that map to locate a pill box without having to search for it endlessly, or be forewarned that equipment or furniture has been moved. Slow-thinking flesh and blood humans could upload data to the cloud-based system, as well -- in a machine-readable format, of course. The RoboEarth Cloud Engine (also called Rapyuta) also allows robots to quickly offload their insights to secure computing environments, meaning they wouldn't need as much onboard computing power.
The idea is that for robots to more successfully lend a helping humanoid hand, they'll need to be able to move beyond their usual highly controlled and predictable environments to deal more flexibly with new situations and conditions.
"The problem right now is that robots are often developed specifically for one task," René van de Molengraft, a RoboEarth project leader, said in a statement. "Everyday changes that happen all the time in our environment make all the programmed actions unusable. But RoboEarth simply lets robots learn new tasks and situations from each other. All their knowledge and experience are shared worldwide on a central, online database."
Japan, in particular, is increasingly turning to robots to ease the burden on caregivers in hospitals, nursing homes, and even private homes.
The largest-ever edition of Tokyo's iRex robot trade show last year promoted multiple robots for an aging society: among them, the Unimo, a $10,000 deluxe robotic wheelchair on treads that can travel through snow and sand; the Terapio from Adtex, a roving hospital robot with a cartoon face, camera system, and compartments for transporting medical records and equipment; and the Lighbot, a kind of cane on wheels with obstacle sensors and a pressure-sensitive handle.
Four years in the making, RoboEarth will be presented Thursday to a delegation from the European Commission, which financed the project, using four robots helping patients in two simulated hospital rooms.
Once the robots are done with the demo, who wants to bet they'll go right back to sharingWildcat videos? As long as they're not spending their Internet time hanging around the Terminator's how-to blog, we probably don't have much cause to worry.
(Via BBC News)
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57617277-1/wikipedia-for-robots-because-bots-need-an-internet-too/
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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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