robots

According to Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist at Stanford University, a robot with a processor as smart as the human brain would require at least 10 megawatts to operate. That's the amount of energy produced by a small hydroelectric plant. But a small group of computer scientists may have hit on a new neural supercomputer that could someday emulate the human brain's low energy requirements of just 20 watts--barely enough to run a dim light bulb.

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With all the sensors, computerized gadgetry and even Internet connectivity being built into cars these days, it's a wonder our automobiles aren't more like Optimus Prime. Our cars will now email us when they need to have their oil changed, and recognize our facial expressions to determine whether we're enjoying ourselves, but for all the information available to us when we're driving, it's often not possible to organize it all in real-time and package it in a way that we can digest while behind the wheel. Researchers at MIT and Audi created the Affective Intelligent Driving Agent to address exactly that problem.

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Autopsies, for all the useful information they provide, have significant downsides. They are often upsetting to the deceased's family, they prevent people from receiving certain kinds of religious burials, and they leave a bit of a mess. To correct for those problems and more, a team at the University of Bern, Switzerland, has developed a robot that can perform virtual autopsies.

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The latest innovation to come out of the Boston Dynamics labs is the Petman--a two-legged, upright robot that simulates the walking motion of human beings. And like its quadruped cousin the BigDog, this thing is equally creepy/hilarious (check out the shoes).

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As much as we love the actual future here at Popular Science, we love the past's vision of the future almost as much. So we basically freaked out when our good friends over at Pink Tentacle discovered this spread from a 1969 issue of the Japanese magazine Shonen Sunday.

These pictures show a predicted 1989 where computers have changed how we live. The above photo depicts a classroom full of children learning on computers, watching a video of a teacher, and receiving beatings from enforcement robots.

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Last year, after untold millions of dollars, DARPA failed to renew a Lockheed program to design a UAV based on a maple tree seed. While that program, backed by tons of cash and one of the world's largest aerospace companies, amounted to bupkis, a University of Maryland project to create a maple seed UAV has finally accomplished what DARPA and Lockheed couldn't.

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Google's Android operating system for cell phones could allow soldiers to track fellow squad members and even unmanned drones in real time on a map -- as long as the humans and robots are on their buddy list.

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Robots have finally risen to meet NASA's moon dirt digging competition after three years of failure. Three robotics teams took away a total of $750,000 in prize money by proving they could dig at least 330 pounds of simulated lunar regolith within half an hour.

The first place robot alone excavated 1,103 pounds of dirt and deposited it in a container within the time limit. Competitors not only had to dig out the sticky regolith grains, but also had to be light enough to meet a weight restriction of no more than 176 pounds.

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Families won't see any more household squabbles over dishwashing duty in the future, if Panasonic's kitchen robot has any say. The mechanical server uses a four-fingered hand to serve food from pans and fill waiting dishes, as well as empty glasses in the sink before depositing them safely in the dishwasher.

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