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A Pittsburgh-area robotics company has good news for unemployed computer industry types: They're hiring!. RedZone Robotics, which makes machines to repair sewer pipes, on Friday said it plans to hire 100 people over the next three years. About half of the new employees will be engineers, including software engineers, said Eric Close, the company's CEO. What's more, he said, the jobs probably won't be shipped overseas anytime soon, as is happening with many tech positions. That's because robotics is a field requiring expertise that's not found in many places, he said. "It's so nascent, it's so specialized," Close said. "You...

Movie tests Asimov's moral code for robots 11:33 16 July 04 NewScientist.com news service The possibility of developing truly intelligent machines, and their potential to be friend or foe to humanity, gets the Hollywood treatment in a new blockbuster film I, Robot, which opens in the US on Friday. In the movie, robots wrestle with human-like emotions (image: 20th Century Fox) At the heart of the movie are Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics", invented as a simple, but immutable moral code for robots [See below]. The film's plot revolves around an apparent breaking of the laws, when a robot...

Isaac Asimov was the steak-and-buffet restaurant of American authors: What he lacked in quality, he made up for in volume. If you didn't like what he was serving, you could wait a few minutes for him to bring out something else. By the time he died in 1992, at the age of 72, Asimov had published more than 470 books, ranging from science-fiction classics to annotated guides of great literature to limerick collections to The Sensuous Dirty Old Man, a defense and celebration of lechery. "His first 100 books took him 237 months, or almost 20 years, until October 1969,...

Electronic skin could give machines a sophisticated sense of touch. A flexible friend: rubber polymers form the basis of an electronic skin.© Takao Someya Group Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan."Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision...

Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan. "Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision and voice recognition for robots, touch sensitivity is still fairly rudimentary. Our own skin contains a battery of touch receptors that produce nerve signals...

Carnegie Mellon University robotics researchers, in conjunction with the US Marine Corps' Warfighting Laboratory, have developed a small, throwable, remote-controlled prototype robot designed for surveillance in urban settings. Several of the robots are being sent to Iraq for testing. The robot, known as Dragon Runner, has the ability to see around corners and deliver information to Marines while keeping them out of danger in urban settings where human access is impractical, dangerous or unsustainable. The Dragon Runner project is managed and funded by the Warfighting Laboratory, Quantico, Virginia, which is part of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. The system...

Metal Storm just released video on an anti-IED 40mm grenade delivery system. They arm a small UAV rotorcraft. The craft can be used for convoy escort, taking out IED's or assaulting small groups of foes. They even have a pic of an 8 barrel mounted system capable of delivering 32 40mm grenades. Video links: http://www.metalstorm.com/04_video_latest.html Press release Test Firings Lay Groundwork for Airborne Weapon System Thursday May 20, 9:48 am ET ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 20, 2004--Metal Storm Limited (NASDAQ:MTSX and ASX:MST) International ballistics company Metal Storm Limited has completed test firings of its electronic ballistics weapon system from an Unmanned...

Herds of robotic traffic cones could soon be swarming onto a highway, closing down lanes and slowing the traffic. The new road markers have been developed by Shane Farritor, a roboticist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in a bid to help reduce the $100 billion per year that the Department of Transportation estimates is lost to the US economy through accidents and delays caused by highway lane closures. The self-propelled markers take the form of robotic three-wheeled bases for the brightly coloured barrels that are set out to demarcate road repair zones. Farritor says they can open and close traffic...

Israeli designed and operated robots swept the 11th Annual International Fire Fighting Robot Contest this month, taking first, second and third prizes. All told, Israeli teams filled six out of the top ten places. 45 teams (ten of which were Israeli) from seven different countries took part in the competition, which was held at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The first place award in the High School Division of the prestigious competition went to the six-member team from Hayovel High School in Herzliya, with their robot "FF-01=FE"; in second place was the team from Aviv High School in Ra'anana, with...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Microminiaturization has made possible swarms of autonomous robots using nothing more than off-the-shelf parts. But concentrating their wireless chatter and getting them to cooperate to solve problems may be five years away, the National Science Foundation cautions. It's putting $2.6 million into a five-year effort to turn multiple wireless robots into an emergency search-and-rescue team. "We want to help emergency response personnel by sending cooperative robots into an unknown site," said California Institute of Technology researcher Joel Burdick. "My team will be developing software that enables each of them to perform slightly different tasks that together accomplish...

OHBU, Japan - To some scientists, robots are the answer to caring for aging societies in Japan and other nations where the young are destined to be overwhelmed by a surging elderly population. Related Quotes SNE DJIA NASDAQ ^SPC 41.98 10442.03 2052.88 1139.32 -0.33 -38.12 +2.64 0.00 delayed 20 mins - disclaimer Quote Data provided by Reuters Missed Tech Tuesday? Wal-Mart's doing it, and soon tech could track your every move. Here's how to protect yourself from RFID. In one of a budding series of robot-therapy sessions at Japanese hospitals and senior citizens' homes, the elderly patients suffer from severe...

1. Ever since NASA was founded, the greater part of its resources have gone into putting men and women into space. On January 14 of this year, President Bush announced a "New Vision for Space Exploration" that would further intensify NASA's concentration on manned space flight. The International Space Station, which has been under construction since 1998, would be completed by 2010; it would be kept in service until around 2016, with American activities on the station from now on focused on studies of the long-term effects of space travel on astronauts. The manned spacecraft called the space shuttle would...

Those on-the-prowl Mars robots -- Spirit and Opportunity -- are sending back extraordinary images and science data about the red planet and its history of climate and water. Both rovers have found evidence of water at their respective landing sites. But the question remains open as to whether Mars was, or is today, a planet capable of supporting life. The tell-tale clues of water left behind hint that some spots on Mars did have a persistent wet look that might have been sociable to extraterrestrial creatures. While Mars scientists have their eyes focused on finding tiny microbes, the question remains:...

Sony to set up intelligent robot lab: report TOKYO (AFP) Mar 14, 2004 Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony will set up a laboratory to develop intelligent robots, adding to its line of pet and humanoid machines, a press report said Sunday. The wholly owned laboratory will be established in May or June by recruiting 10 to 20 leading researchers in robotics and brain science from universities and research institutes in Japan, the Asahi Shimbun daily said. No official was immediately available at the head office of Sony Corp. to confirm the report. "I hope to bring into existence in...

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"/> March 14, 2004 A Soapbox Derby for the War-Games SetBy JOHN MARKOFFand JOHN M. BRODER ARSTOW, Calif., March 13 — Fifteen robot vehicles took off across the Mojave Desert starting at dawn on Saturday, dodging boulders and 15-pound tortoises in search of a place in scientific history and $1 million in Pentagon cash. In the end there was no winner and none of the machines came close to completing the 142-mile race, over some of the most forbidding terrain on the planet. However, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon skunk-works research...

BARSTOW, Calif. - A $1 million race across the Mojave Desert by driverless robots ended Saturday after all 15 entries either broke down or withdrew, a race official said. Two of the entries covered about seven miles of the roughly 150-mile course while eight failed to make it to the one-mile mark. Others crashed seconds after starting. The race ended after about four hours when the final competitors were disabled, said Col. Jose Negron, race program manager. Competitors suffered a variety of problems that included stuck brakes, broken axles, rollovers and malfunctioning satellite navigation equipment. One six-wheeled robot built by...

The first of 15 driverless robots began trundling across the Mojave Desert on Saturday in an unprecedented race for $1 million in government-funded prize money. First out of the gate was Carnegie Mellon University's converted Humvee, nicknamed Sandstorm, which took off at a fast clip. Within 15 minutes it had covered five miles of the roughly 150-mile course. "That's amazing. It's moving. It's moving. For a million dollars, I'd move too," said spectator Arturo Martinez. The vehicles were leaving the starting line at staggered times, racing against the clock rather than each other. The Pentagon's research and development agency plans...

PITTSBURGH - She might not be paid, but Carnegie Mellon University's newest staff member does all that a typical receptionist should: gives directions, answers the phone — even gossips about her boss. "Valerie" is considered the world's first robot receptionist with a personality, university officials said Wednesday. The blonde roboceptionist interacts with people by talking about her boss, her psychiatrist and her dream of being a lounge star. "We wanted to give her an underdog character, struggling to make it in a world of humans," said Kevin Snipes, 26, a graduate student in drama writing, one of four writers who...

A Sandia National Laboratories RATLER™ vehicle named HAGAR was loaned in a technology evaluation program to the Sierra Army Depot near Reno Nevada for use in their open-pit munitions demolition activities. The open-pit detonation method sometimes results in 'misfires' where a pit stack was commanded to detonate from the manned command bunker but failed to do so. In the case of a misfire, which can occur due to either electrical or mechanical failures in the remote detonation system or the stack itself, the pit stack must somehow be inspected and rendered safe to approach before workers can re-rig the...

<p>DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- With her sparkling blue eyes, wispy eyelashes and demure smile, Hertz is the center of attention wherever she goes.</p> <p>If you're lucky enough to meet her, try to ignore the tangle of wires slinking from behind her face. If you speak with her, talk slowly and loudly. And no matter what you say, don't be offended if she looks at you blankly and repeatedly asks, "What did you say?"</p>