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Robo
Sapiens
Peter Menzel, Faith D'Aluisio
If you believe the children are our future, you're only half
right. Photographer Peter Menzel and journalist Faith D'Aluisio
travelled around the world interviewing researchers who want
to jump-start our evolution by designing and building electrical
and mechanical extensions of ourselves--robots. Their book,
Robo Sapiens, takes its title from the notion that our species
might somehow merge with our creations, either literally or
symbiotically. The photography is brilliant, showing the endearing
and creepy sides of the robots and roboticists and feeling
like stills from unmade science fiction films. D'Aluisio's
interviews are full of insight and often very funny, as when
she quotes MIT's superstar Rodney Brooks on his statement
that we ought not "overanthropomorphise" people.
Brooks is an interesting study; having shaken up the robotics
and artificial intelligence fields with his elimination of
high-level intelligence and dedication to tiny, insectoid,
built-from-the-ground-up robots, he now works on large, human-mimicking
machines. But hundreds of other researchers, in Japan, Europe,
and the US, are working on various aspects of machine behaviour,
from the eerily lifelike robotic faces of Fumio Hara and Alvaro
Villa to the monkey-like movement of Brachiator III; each
of them casts a bit of light on the future of their field
in their short interviews. Though it's clear that we shouldn't
hold our breath waiting for a robot butler, Robo Sapiens suggests
that much cooler--and stranger--events are coming soon. --Rob
Lightner
Synopsis
Around the world, scientists and engineers are participating
in a high-stakes race to build the first intelligent robot.
Many robots already exist - automobile factories are full
of them. But the new generation of robots will be something
else: smart machines that act like living creatures. When
they are brought into existence, science fiction will have
become fact. What will happen then? With our prosthetic limbs,
titanium hips and artificial eyes, we are already beginning
to resemble our... |
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Action
Robots
David Hawcock
Synopsis
This exciting book explores six modern three dimensional
robots in their environments: in a factory, in space, underwater,
in a nuclear plant and in a hospital, closing with a look
at the future with a friendly robot. Fully interactive with
pop ups, pull tabs, lift the flaps and string.
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1000
Robots
Terushima Kitahara, Yukio Shimizu
Synopsis
The toys featured in this book are the finest held in the
collection of Teruhisa Kitahara which is now housed at Yokohama's
Tin Toy Museum, of which Kitahara is the curator. The toys
include a steam locomotive from the 1800s to a battery-operated
robot of the 1950s
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Robot
Warriors
Hugh McDaid,et al
Synopsis
This is an examination of unmanned aircraft, containing
much material that was classified information until 1996.
The book charts the development of the weapons of tomorrow,
starting with the flying bomb of World War I and leading
up to a discussion of future possibilities.
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In
the Mind of the Machine
Kevin Warwick
Synopsis
Kevin Warwick has created robots with the brain power of
a wasp, and may soon have built robots which are not only
more intelligent than humans in some ways, but also superior
in their practical skills. In this book he argues that humans
may be at the mercy of these life forms, and be treated
in the same way as humans treat animals today. He proposes
that there is an urgent need for an anti-proliferation treaty
to prevent these and other even more horrifying scenarios
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Robots
for Kids
- not a kids book
Allison Druin, Jim Hendler
Book
Description
Exploring New Technologies for Learning Experiences brings
together the insights of ten designers, researchers, and
educators, each invited to contribute a chapter that relates
his or her experience developing or using a children's robotic
learning device. This rapidly growing area of endeavour
is expected to have profound and long-lasting effects on
the ways our children learn and develop, and its participants
come from a wide range of occupations. This important
book will appeal to many different professionals, including
HCI, AI, and robotics researchers in business and academia,
new media and consumer product developers, robotics hobbyists,
toy designers, teachers and education researchers.
Synopsis
This work brings together the insights of ten designers,
researchers, and educators, each invited to contribute a
chapter that relates his or her experience develping or
using a children's robotic learning device. This growing
area of endeavour is expected to have prodound and long-lasting
effets on the ways children learn and develop, and its participants
come from a wide range of backgrounds
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Robots
Among Us : The Challenges and Promises of Robots (New Century
Technology)
Christopher
W. Baker
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3D
Dynamic Scene Analysis
Zhang,
Z.Y. Faugeras, O.
Synopsis
This volume treats the analysis of 3D dynamic scenes using
a stereovision system. Several approaches are described, for
example two different methods of dealing with long and short
sequences of images of an unknown environment, including an
arbitrary number of rigid mobile objects. Results obtained
from stereovision systems are found to be superior to those
from monocular image systems, which are often very sensitive
to noise and therefore of little use in practice. It is shown
that motion estimation can be further improved by the explicit
modelling of uncertainty in geometric objects. The techniques
developed in this book have been successfully demonstrated
with a large number of real images in the context of
visual navigation of a mobile robot.
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