…Although I´m totally stressed out with preparations for my final presentation/exam, this little easteregg has to be posted.

I just got word about the new firefox 3 browser; a friend told me to type “about:robots” in the address bar. And boy was I surprised. SWWWWWEEEET robotic stuff with lots of allusions. Reading and watching all the books and movies about robots was at least good for this laugh. Thank you mozilla!

Try it yourself!

_endless hours of reading and writing.. led to this thing.

My thesis about robots and their “life”. It´s written out of the perspective of a codestring which evolved to a robot and now trys to understand what “it”(?) is. Is it alive? Is it a person or a thing? Is it the only one of it´s kind and what´s it´s suppose on this planet? And why the hell are human beeings so afraid of their own creations? Is there a way to take away these fears?

Since it came to “life” in a robotic institute it´s not allone with it´s questions. A robotic inventor “Frank Stein” and a guy named “Jan Itor” who is working in the institute and reading to much philosophers in his free time are more than willing to help the robot find it´s way. Thereby they are referencing to authors like Ray Kurzweil, Roodney Brooks, Hans Moravec, Joseph Weizenbaum, Daniel Wilson, La Mettrie, Alan Turing and many other “robotic guys”.

Apart from this classical AI-Authors the robot is also interested in the omnipresent fear of mankind overwhelmed by their own robots and therefore it is looking carefully in how media is dealing with the topic robots and AI. Movies like Terminator, Robocop, Ghost in the Shell, Star Wars, Appleseed, Robotic Angle, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet and many more are tried to understand and put into a greater picture. The Same goes for literature like Frankenstein, Golem, Do Androids Dream, R.U.R., Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy..

By comparing all this different input the three protagonists are taking the discussion from the history of robots, their status in human society(in the western world as well as in asian countries) to the perception of robots out of the view of children.

The Book is subdivided into the following parts:

Preface

Prologue

[0001] Activate!

[0001.0001] What are we?
[0001.0010] How do we work?
[0001.0011] Where do we come from?

[0010] Live!

[0010.0001] Are we alive?
[0010.0010] Are we intelligent?
[0010.0011] Do we have feelings?
[0010.0100] Do we have a soul?

[0011] Future!

[0011.0001] Shall we be like you?
[0011.0010] Are we gonna be like you?
[0011.0011] Are you gonna be like us?

[0100] Fear!

[0100.0001] Can we become dangerous?
[0100.0010] Are we really becoming dangerous?
[0100.0011] How do we not become dangerous?
[0100.0100] Are we dangerous already?

[0101] Appearance!

[0101.0001] How are we gonna be accepted?
[0101.0010] How should we look like?
[0101.0011] How do we look like?
[0101.0100] How do we really look like?

[0110] Friendly Take Over!

[0110.0001] Do we like children?
[0110.0010] What can we do small size?
[0110.0011] How do we look like small size?
[0110.0100] How do we really look like small size?

Epilogue

The whole book comes in a package:

And if you take the book out there comes some additional material in sight:

These are some robot pictures(around 50 different robottypes) with a short character bio and an appraisal of their dangerousness, their intelligence, the hight, the usefullness, their movement abilities and their ability to play;-).

and here some more detail views of the books layout:

_here´s another humanoid robot. It´s developed by a Spanish team for a company in the United Arab Emirates. So it´s quite a unusual national origin for a sophisticated human robot. Nevertheless his walkin and sittin is quite impressive but as you can see in the vid the bot still needs a lot of human help to accomplish “simple” tasks like pourin in a glass of coke(the bottle was still unoptened) and apparently it wasn´t able to lift the heavy mass object itself. But make up your opinion yourself:

source: www.pal-robotics.com

My Robosapien was the star on my last birthday sit in. However, as you can see it wasn´t even able to get a small glass a few meters to a friend in need without help. Fortunately the glass wasn´t filled so I didn´t care that the sapien was messin around with it that bad.

…and this time it´s far from beeing cute. You can imagine where this is leadin. This machine is rather search and destroy. So watch your back next time you´re walking your analog dog in the woods.

_while I was researching for robotic pets I came across this fellow. It´s the bot we ALL want to have! It´s a beer bot. It can open a beer can and fill it in PERFECTLY.

It´s a bit slow though but if you attach wheels to it and a remote control, it could pour the stuff on it´s way to your couch. And the dream of men has come true!

_and one last funny note on the robotic kittens. The real ones strike back!

_for those of you who scream out: “Kitty, the robo kitten is NO REAL CAT!! It doesn´t even look like one, it´s a cold robotic beeing!!”  Well!, fear not here´s the japanese answer from SEGA Toys.

“The Yume Neko Smile (Dream Cat Smile) is the latest in robotic animal interactivity. It’s incredibly soft and lifelike (we have one and visitors always think it’s real), and has five tactile sensors in different places on the body. Yume Neko loves to be petted, and will respond to friendly interaction with love. Don’t touch her tail too much or she’ll get fussy!”

(source: www.kilian-nakamura.com )

You can also buy these cute cuties on these Gadget site, which by the way is a great site for robotic extravagance and some more robotic pets.

_during my research about robotic pets “Kitty the Robotic Kitten” showed up:

The direct competition out of the real life for AIBO. If it´s that close to a real cat like the manufacturer promises, I wonder if it would try to scratch AIBO??. And if not would that mean AIBO´s no real dog after all, or is this cat just a fake?

This robot is manufactured by Manley Toy Quest and has three sensors with which it´ll “really captures the true cat essence. These electronic sensors trigger Kitty’s emotion program. When you pet her on her back, she will purr with appreciation. She will “meow” with a variety of emotion, look up with curiosity when called, move her tail with anticipation, cry when she is unhappy, and even fall asleep several times a day. Kitty’s internal clock wakes her up in the morning and her light level sensor lets her know it’s time to go to sleep at night. Kitty’s microprocessor allows for customized programming. She can be taught to speak, do a song and dance routine (yeees it´s here again; the robot dancing stuff), pounce, excuse herself, and even count to four. She is designed to hear and respond to other Tekno the Robotic Puppies or other Kitty the Tekno Kittens.” Apparently she´ll live like a real cat and also do the cat stuff, like beeing not too obedient.(source: www.agentland.com)

If you´re in need of more robotic pets. Here´s a whole zoo of them:

www.whateveruwant.com