This is incredible…Did You Know?

[Mike Cohen]

Some hospitals have Dalek-like courier robots that start off in the Pharmacy and drive around the building delivering meds to nurse’s stations. If the robot senses an obstacle (such as a person) it beeps and makes an announcement to get you out of its way. It can even get on and off of elevators.

Another type of medical droid is remote controlled by a doctor in a remote location so that a medical exam can be conducted from afar. Kind of like a Predator aircraft but for healthcare.

Then there is the most well-known medical robot, the DaVinci surgical robot. It is controlled by a human via remote control, either across the OR or around the world. It is debatable whether this saves time or improves outcomes, but the ability to do surgery on a beating heart is pretty amazing.

If any of these devices were to become self-aware it would not be much of a problem, since they move so slowly…but you never know.

While we have gone off on a robots-taking-over-the-world tangent, I think we can all spend some time trying to anticipate future changes in our industry. At the moment, changes appear to be cutbacks, but assuming the economy recovers things should improve. But perhaps we can also look at future technology, and anticipate areas that will need our services.

Mike Cohen

[Matt Sepeta]

Wow i just laughed out loud.

You didn’t happen to get footage of the roguebot did you???

Good Day

[Gav Bott]

The only thing we can be certain of is change…..

Was it one of you guys that I stole that one off of? Anyway, that what’s forcing my planning into a more “Ali” style – stay on those toes and happy to keep dancing.

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.

[Timothy J. allen]

Ron,
I appreciate you posting the video. It’s been making the rounds around NASA for a while now, but as you said information is power and putting our heads in the sand won’t do us any good.

All this talk about robots and the future reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q4p8RXhDhs

The production quality of the video isn’t that great, but the technology is really cool – and it’s real not just speculation. If this robot was wondering the shop floor, it wouldn’t matter so much if it ran amok, it still wouldn’t hurt anyone.

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[Christopher Wright]

Terminator 4, the beginning…..

Dual 2.5 G5, IO, Kona LH, IO, Medea Raid, UL4D, NVidia 6800, 4Gig RAM
Octocore 8 GB Ram, Radeon card, MBP, MXO
Windows Vista Adobe Studio CS4, Vegas 8.0, Lightwave 9.3, Sound Forge 9, Acid Pro 7, Continuum 5, Boris Red 4, Combustion 2008, Sapphire Effects

[Simon Stutts]

Seen this before, but a pretty cool video none the less. Mindblowing to see how exponentially technology has been advancing.

I’m a bit dubious as to some of their “facts,” though – how does one measure the computational power of the human brain, exactly? Is that even knowable?

And I think it’s a bit of a misleading thing to say, anyway – even if a computer had the sheer computational power of a human brain, I would think that it means very little until you crack the software gap. Lots of stuff that’s simple and natural for our minds to accomplish is by no means an easy thing to tell a computer how to do reliably.

[Alan Lloyd]

There’s also Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up – a very good look at the dark side of the future.

[Chris Blair]

Sorry to stray…but speaking of the daVinci surgical robot mentioned earlier. We did a spot for an area hospital that bought one. Their CEO saw a sales video where they showed the device doing miniature origami…so guess what we had to build a TV commercial around.

You got it. ORIGAMI and a SURGICAL ROBOT!

I didn’t like the concept, but here’s the result.

https://www.videomi.com/clients/Deaconess/daVinci/daVinci_Preview.wmv

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chuck Pullen]

Future generations will have one of two career choices: Robot creation OR robot repair…That is of course until we design a robot capable of designing and building other robots, then of course that robot will design and build a robot capable of fixing other robots. The only thing that will stand in the way of robot nirvana? Those pesky “flesh bags” as Bender “Bending” Rodriguez would call us!

[Michelle Aubrecht]

Aside from all the discussion about robots taking over the world, I think that even if a computer can beat a master at Chess, we have to remember that the computer is not embodied. (Think I Robot) It cannot think like a person because it lacks physical sensation. We are not thinking separately from our bodies. George Lakoff’s Philosophy in the Flesh reframes many assumptions in Western thought regarding disembodied reasoning as understood by Kant, Descartes and others.

I am studying video games as a way to teach because I think that visual communication combined with just-in-time information and engaging the learner can teach students in profound ways. Because the field is changing quickly, I’m learning how to find the similarities in software programs and build upon that. I’m also learning how to learn new software all the time. Teaching students to think and reason and do research is more important than the subject matter – because it might change.

I’m 48 and learning a lot of new things but I already knew how to reason, research, and figure out how to discern credible sources. Recent studies indicate that playing video games and probably using software is like learning a second language, it changes the way the brain develops. But if students don’t learn to think analytically, then Robots might really take over the world.

This is Sarah Connor.