Robots won’t be able to wrest control of the planet from us silly humans until they learn how to collaborate. Sure, they can mow the lawn or mix a drink, but only when you give ‘em explicit instructions. Luckily for our future robot overlords, The EU’s JAST project is studying the ways that humans work together, in the hope that it can someday teach robots to anticipate the actions and intentions of a human partner. “In our experiments the robot is not observing to learn a task,” explains Wolfram Erlhagen from the University of Minho. “The JAST robots already know the task, but they observe behavior, map it against the task, and quickly learn to anticipate [partner actions] or spot errors when the partner does not follow the correct or expected procedure.” This bad boy has a neural architecture that mimics what happens when two people interact, and the video below shows the rather melancholy automaton trying to convince his human partner to pick up the right pieces to complete a simple task. Watch it in action after the break.
Robots won’t be able to wrest control of the planet from us silly humans until they learn how to collaborate. Sure, they can mow the lawn or mix a drink, but only when you give ‘em explicit instructions. Luckily for our future robot overlords, The EU’s JAST project is studying the ways that humans work together, in the hope that it can someday teach robots to anticipate the actions and intentions of a human partner. “In our experiments the robot is not observing to learn a task,” explains Wolfram Erlhagen from the University of Minho. “The JAST robots already know the task, but they observe behavior, map it against the task, and quickly learn to anticipate [partner actions] or spot errors when the partner does not follow the correct or expected procedure.” This bad boy has a neural architecture that mimics what happens when two people interact, and the video below shows the rather melancholy automaton trying to convince his human partner to pick up the right pieces to complete a simple task. Watch it in action after the break.
Our gearhead brothers over at Jalopnik recently got a chance to take the insanely expensive Protoscar Lampo, a solar-powered roadster, for a test spin.
The Lampo will never actually be for sale because Protoscar isn’t an automobile manufacturer. Instead, the prototype was designed to show just what was possible with today’s technology.
Because of that, the car doesn’t quite drive like its pricetag might make you expect.
Driving the Lampo is not that different from driving any other car, apart from the lack of a gearbox. The “central selector,” as it’s called here, allows you to choose forward drive or reverse. There’s also an “E”-mode where the car will brake using mainly the torque of the electric motors, maximizing the energy recovery. This is not intended for regular braking, but works brilliantly holding speed constant or slowing down while driving downhill. The Lampo’s main problem is that this is basically the only feature of the car that works as it’s supposed to.
If you spend a six-figured amount on a car, you’ll want it to fire on all cylinders or whatever that translates to in EV-speak. The Lampo doesn’t. In theory its twin motors and battery packs running the front and back wheels separately are good for 268 HP and 325 Lb-Ft of torque, but for “technical reasons” the power output has to be limited to somewhere in the region of 60 % during our test drive. Maximum speed is supposed to be over 125 MPH, but it’s been restricted to 75 MPH. Hard acceleration is also out of the question, as that may upset the batteries and cause all sorts of problems. Problems like fire.
Which is all fine, because again, this is a prototype. And it’s still impressive that a solar car is out there. Just its existence promises that we’ll see the good parts of this car in consumer autos at some point, with the bad parts left off. [Jalopnik]
What happens when you take a Segway to a supercross track? You make motocross far less exciting.
In this video, AMA Supercross champion James Stewart rides a Segway around the supercross track at his house. It seems super easy, at least until you see a non-supercross champ try it and fail miserably. But still, this is why the only sport that’s done on Segways is Segway Polo. [James Stewart]
Been thinking about settling down with an XP netbook but can’t get the idea of an Android tablet out of your mind? We understand your pain — and so does Taiwan’s Institute for Information Industry, which is showing off the Mtube II netbook / tablet at Computex. The slick remix of an HP Mini 1000 runs XP when in netbook configuration, but then switches over to Android on an unspecified ARM processor when the screen is pulled off and used as a tablet. Yes, it’s basically the product most of us have daydreamed about for ages — much like the Touch Book — but there are some tradeoffs here: first, the Atom in the netbook base has been swapped for a VIA C7-M, so it’s not exactly a rocket, and second, the screen is connected by VNC, so video performance isn’t going to be all that great. We’re hoping the additional year of development III says it needs will solve some of those problems, but until then you know we’ll be doodling this thing all through math class. Videos after the break.
OCZ Technology’s Ion-infused Neutrino may not look all that different than the existing model, but we all know it’s the secret sauce within that makes it so magical. Our BFFs over at Engadget Chinese managed to spend a few quality seconds (some might say they “had a moment”) with this very machine as well as the all new desktop-bound Colossus SSD. Sadly, the booth workers couldn’t provide a definitive ship date or price for either, but the read link’s still the place to go for a few hands-on shots as well as a video of the Ion Neutrino showing 3DMark 06 who’s boss.
I doubt the makers of this costume have ever actually seen Star Wars, because this is downright terrible. But if you’re looking for an ugly sleeping bag you can wear to parties, here you go. [Product Page via Boing Boing]
Our gearhead brothers over at Jalopnik recently got a chance to take the insanely expensive Protoscar Lampo, a solar-powered roadster, for a test spin.
The Lampo will never actually be for sale because Protoscar isn’t an automobile manufacturer. Instead, the prototype was designed to show just what was possible with today’s technology.
Because of that, the car doesn’t quite drive like its pricetag might make you expect.
Driving the Lampo is not that different from driving any other car, apart from the lack of a gearbox. The “central selector,” as it’s called here, allows you to choose forward drive or reverse. There’s also an “E”-mode where the car will brake using mainly the torque of the electric motors, maximizing the energy recovery. This is not intended for regular braking, but works brilliantly holding speed constant or slowing down while driving downhill. The Lampo’s main problem is that this is basically the only feature of the car that works as it’s supposed to.
If you spend a six-figured amount on a car, you’ll want it to fire on all cylinders or whatever that translates to in EV-speak. The Lampo doesn’t. In theory its twin motors and battery packs running the front and back wheels separately are good for 268 HP and 325 Lb-Ft of torque, but for “technical reasons” the power output has to be limited to somewhere in the region of 60 % during our test drive. Maximum speed is supposed to be over 125 MPH, but it’s been restricted to 75 MPH. Hard acceleration is also out of the question, as that may upset the batteries and cause all sorts of problems. Problems like fire.
Which is all fine, because again, this is a prototype. And it’s still impressive that a solar car is out there. Just its existence promises that we’ll see the good parts of this car in consumer autos at some point, with the bad parts left off. [Jalopnik]
Could a meteor strike be the reason behind the crash of Air France flight 447? The math geeks at Discover crunched some numbers and it turns out that it’s not as implausible as you might think.
According to their calculations, there’s a 1-in-20 chance that a meteor would hit one flight over the past 20 years. Which isn’t too crazy. But still, the odds of something so small falling from the sky and striking something else that’s so small and moving so fast are close to nil, so while this is an interesting theory, the chances are good that it was just a malfunction of the airspeed indicators. [NY Times and Discover]
Our gearhead brothers over at 
What happens when you take a Segway to a supercross track? You make motocross far less exciting.
I doubt the makers of this costume have ever actually seen 
Could a meteor strike be the reason behind the crash of Air France flight 447? The math geeks at Discover crunched some numbers and it turns out that it’s not as implausible as you might think.
This makes you want to buy a black Wii, even if you already have a white one, right? Right?? [
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