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Megabots v Kuratas: US and Japan battle it out for robot supremacy
They’ve been popularized in movies, television and video games, but giant fighting robots still haven’t left the realm of science fiction. That will soon change.
Megabots Inc, an Oakland, California-based startup, has built a 15ft (4.5m) mechanical gladiator called the Mark II and challenged a Japanese firm to an international battle for robot supremacy.
Tokyo-based Suidobashi Heavy Industries, maker of the 13ft (4m) Kuratas, accepted the challenge, setting the stage for the first giant robot battle of its kind next year. The exact date and location are yet to be determined.
US firm challenges Japanese firm
Win or lose, it’s all part of Megabots’ plan by to make gladiator-style robot combat into big-time entertainment – a mix between Ultimate Fighting Championship and Formula One auto racing – while developing new industrial technologies and inspiring a new generation of engineers.
The Megabots founders envision a sports league where teams from around the world build huge humanoid robots that throw each other down in stadiums filled with screaming fans.
“Everyone wins as long as there is robot carnage,” said Megabots co-founder Matt Oehrlein, an electrical engineer. “People want to see these things fight. They want to see them punch each other, they want to see them ripped apart and they want to be entertained.”
Megabots was launched in 2014 by Oehrlein, Gui Cavalcanti and Brinkley Warren, who grew up playing video games like “MechWarrior” and “BattleTech”, and wanted to fulfill their dreams of watching massive machines fight.
“We want to bring the giant robots from science fiction and movies and video games to life because now we have the technology,” said Cavalcanti, a robotics engineer. “It’s really about: How do we put on the best show? How do we make the coolest fight?”
Inside a cavernous Oakland workshop, the Megabots founders built the Mark II – a 12,000lb (5,443kg) behemoth with tank treads, two-pilot cockpit and missile launcher that fires canon ball-sized paintballs.
Then Oehrlein called out Suidobashi in a YouTube video: “We have a giant robot. You have a giant robot. You know what needs to happen. We challenge you to a duel.”
Suidobashi’s founder Kogoro Kurata accepted in his own video: “We can’t let another country win this. Giant robots are Japanese culture. Yeah, I’ll fight. Absolutely.”
Japanese firm accepts challenge.
Kurata also taunted the Megabots team: “Come on guys, make it cooler. Just building something huge and sticking guns on it, it’s super American.”
The Megabots robot isn’t quite ready to take on Kuratas, a more polished fighting machine with a big, agile hand that mimics the movements of the pilot’s hand.
“Our current robot, the Mark II, looks pretty intimidating,” Oehrlein said. “The truth is, it’s pretty slow. It’s top-heavy. It’s rusty, and it needs a set of armor upgrades to be able to compete in hand-to-hand combat.”
That’s why Megabots launched an online Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $550,000 from robot fans to turn the Mark II into a real fighting machine – faster, tougher, more balanced and equipped with detachable weapons such as a giant chain saw or punching fist.
The startup has enlisted the help of engineers from Nasa, software maker Autodesk, the TV shows Mythbusters and BattleBots.
“We’re absolutely confident that Team USA can beat Japan. We’ve assembled the best of the best of this country. We’re not going to let our country down,” Calvalcanti said.
Robot enthusiasts such Gordon Kirkwood are eagerly anticipating the fight.
“I think it’s going to be a smash hit,” said Kirkwood, a robotics engineer in San Francisco. “This has the potential to be a fantastic spectator sport that people would really pay good money to see.”
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/16/megabots-kuratas-us-japan-robot-challenge
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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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