LONGECITY

Super cool robot videos (ASIMO and QRIO) mentioned at Marshall Brain's blog:

http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/

"All the way down! Outstanding, ASIMO!"
http://www.marshallb.../gif/asimo2.mpg

http://pc.watch.impr...218/sony_01.wmv
http://pc.watch.impr...218/sony_02.wmv
http://pc.watch.impr...218/sony_03.wmv
http://pc.watch.impr...218/sony_04.wmv
http://pc.watch.impr...218/sony_05.wmv
and my favorite:
http://pc.watch.impr...218/sony_06.wmv

Great videos! Thanks for posting them John Doe. It is amazing how human-like these robots are getting.

It's not just amazing, it's truly astounding : do you realise these robots use very inefficent "muscles" ? electrical motors with gear-boxes ? And they still manage to perform excellent inertia control. The last video, the dancing robots, especially shows how graceful they can be.

I can only think of how good these robots will become once the Japanese switch to electro-active polymer artificial muscles. That'll mean lighter robots, much more antropomorphic, using less power while being stronger and faster.

I simply can't wait to get there ! Gimme a time machine and blast me to back to the future ! [lol]

Jean

Why can't I have electro-active polymer artificial muscles in my legs so I don't have to deal with running out of breath on the way to the T!

I was thinking about how cool it would be to have artificialy enhanced legs that could respond to my brains neuronal impulses like the monkey with the robotic claw can.

Simply astounding, uncanny!

Marshall Brain has some interesting stuff to say, his blog is really information-rich if you're interested in robotics (which I incidentally consider substantially separate from much of AI and AGI.)

Considering electroactive polymers are much stronger than human muscles (polypyrrole : 100 times !) you could well have them as replacement muscles in your body : a muscle 100 times smaller than yours could still do the job and you'd see no difference.

Using glucose-conversion batteries it could be powered by the very food you eat, too.

This is something I'm considering for when I'm so old my muscles can't support my body anymore.

Only limiting factor so far is that EAP's need to operate in an environment with free ions. Water is perfectly suited. Good thing the human body is 70% water, don't you think ?

Jean

Forgot to mention : there is a lot of research being done regarding solid electrolytes for EAP muscles. But these contain lithium, which you certainly know isn't very healthy.

Jean