Singularity Hub

Just found this awesome short video of a transformer robot from Japan.  There are several transformer robot videos out there, but I think this robot represents one of the more elegant designs.  It is two years old, but still pretty cool:

Over the weekend the 18th annual FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) was officially launched.  This competition challenges and inspires high school student teams to build robots that compete in a match whose rules change each year.  Each registered team is given a common kit of parts provided by FIRST and then has 6 weeks to build a robot for the competition.  In this year’s competition, nearly 1,700 high school teams are registered, comprising more than 40,000 students.

This year’s competition, dubbed Lunacy, has a moon theme.   Robots will compete on a 27′ by 45′ field, called the crater, with a floor surface and wheels that simulate the low friction conditions experienced on the Moon’s 1/6 gravity (relative to Earth) surface.  Each robot is fitted with a trailer and the objective is to put as many moon rocks (balls) into the opposing team’s trailer as possible.

The FRC, as well as other competitions sponsored by FIRST, is an amazing event that provides young minds with the confidence, experience, and the joy of participating in engineering and scientific endeavor.  FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen who, among other things, is designing the prosethetic arm we reported on earlier.  If you have some spare time, they can never get enough adult mentors.

Below is a video of the inspiring intro movie from the kickoff presentation, followed by an animated video of the Lunacy competition:

Singularity Hub is proud to deliver the web’s most comprehensive coverage and analysis of the Singularity Summit 2008. The Singularity Summit is the premier annual event for those that are interested in the singularity. Below you will find our high level summary, followed by a link to a much more detailed description with pictures.

On Saturday October 25, 2008 I attended the Singularity Summit at the Montgomery Theatre in San Jose, CA. An impressive lineup of speakers, including Ray Kurzweil (de facto singularity advocate), Peter Diamandis (Founder/Chairman of Xprize Foundation), Vernor Vinge (famous science fiction author), and Justin Rattner (CTO of Intel) were on showcase for the roughly 500 attendees. The summit was thought provoking, inspiring, and overall a success.

The summit began promptly at 9:00am and continued throughout the day until 6:00pm with a few breaks in between and a one and a half hour lunch break. Here are the Hub’s major takeaways from the event:

1. When people become believers in a near term singularity (a singularity that may come in their lifetimes) they radically change their behavior in terms of risk tolerance, eating habits, and investment horizon. If large numbers of people begin to believe in a near term singularity this poses the possibility of enormous and potentially dangerous upheavals for society.

2. Even if a true singularity is not reached within our lifetimes the singularity summit reinforces the vision that tremendous technological change beyond our imagining is coming in the next 40 years. In the next 5 years an explosion in interest about the singularity and the pace of accelerating technology may occur.

3. According to Ray Kurzweil, solar energy is an information technology that is experiencing exponential growth. Solar energy production has doubled every year for the last 20 years and is now only 8 doublings away (that is about 10 years!) from providing nearly all of the world’s energy needs. The implications of this trend are huge and warrant careful consideration for the environment, investment, politics, etc.

4. Peter Diamandis announced that the Singularity University (SU) will be launched in the near future. The Hub’s Keith Kleiner will be a founding member of SU and we will have much more to say about SU soon!

5. According to Intel CTO Justin Rattner Intel has a solid roadmap that will ensure that Moore’s law will continue for at least another 10 years, by which time computers will be at least 1,000 times more powerful than today’s computers

6. Virtual worlds will continue to gain traction and functionality as people continue to recognize and leverage the unique advantages that these worlds offer versus the physical world.

7. Computers may be able to beat humans at chess and air hockey, but they are still a long way off from emulating human emotion and social behavior. Demonstrations today of the cutting edge in computer emulation of emotion and social ability were downright pitiful. Of course it is possible that we will make big leaps in the coming years, but today’s demonstrations were not encouraging.

Below is a breakout of the entire Singularity Summit:

Read the rest of this entry »

Discover Magazine has just blown me away with a fascinating story on the current state of brain-computer interfaces (BCI).  The story cites numerous projects underway across the globe in which electrodes implanted into the brain are being used to detect and transmit human intentions, and the progress being achieved is incredible.  Here at the Hub we have already seen monkeys that can control prosthetic arms through brain implants.  The story from Discover Magazine shows us that such achievements are just the tip of the iceberg, and that a host of other breakthroughs in the field of BCI are turning up all over the place.

The implications for BCI are absolutely stunning.  Paraplegics will regain the ability to move their own limbs (or prosthetic limbs) when signals from their brains can be extracted and interpreted.  Stroke victims who have retained their consciousness yet lost the ability to speak will regain their voices when signals from their brains are routed to a computer that will synthesize speech.  Normal humans will gain superhuman abilities as their brain is freed of its physical prison, allowing the brain signals that comprise human thought to be projected across a wire or even wirelessly to anywhere on earth or even beyond earth.  Imagine controlling objects anywhere on earth or transmitting thoughts and images to anyone or anything simply by thinking about it.

Many will say that BCI is in its infancy and that we are hundreds or even thousands of years from reaping its benefits, but this type of thinking ignores the reality presented by the story from Discover Magazine.  Paraplegics and monkeys are already controlling prosthetic limbs and computer screens.  Those who cannot speak have already been given a very rudimentary voice.  The next 10 to 30 years is likely to offer advances in BCI beyond most people’s wildest dreams.  Look at these key quotes from the story:

The ultimate aim is not just speech but restoration of full bodily
function. If Kennedy has his way, someday the blind will see and the
paralyzed will walk—and other researchers are racing him to make those
things happen.

Miguel Nicolelis says his quadriplegic sub­jects will walk again—not in 10 or 20 years, but in just a few.

The melding of man and machine appears inevitable, Kennedy believes.
“It’s not hard to imagine that eventually somebody’s brain will be
incorporated into a robotic body,” he says. “It could grant humanity a
kind of immortality and also make us redefine what a human is.”

In a few generations, Nicolelis speculates, brain implants will be
as socially acceptable as breast implants are today. “Implants will
happen in normals when there is a benefit and they are safe,” he
states. He agrees with others that the technology will shape the
evolution of Homo sapiens, and his perspective is unmistakably
philosophical.

Today, he says, we are all in a sense locked-in, but we won’t be for
long. “With these experiments we’ve accomplished something that nobody
has noticed yet: We have freed the brain from the body. We have created
a profound new paradigm for the brain—and not just the disabled brain—to enact its will without the limitations of the biological machinery that we call a body.

“My children probably will see the day when they can sit physically
on a beautiful beach in Brazil but at the same time control a rover on
Mars, experience Mars,” Nicolelis reflects. “Their bodies will be here,
but their brains will be free.”

Yesterday Intel CTO Justin Rattner delivered his keynote presentation about the future of technology and the coming of the singularity at Intel’s annual Intel Developer Forum (IDF). Although Rattner could use some tips on giving a more entertaining presentation, some of the ideas and technologies presented during the keynote were truly fantastic and we give the keynote a mild thumbs up.  Below is the Hub’s take on this exciting event:

The first thing that must be acknowledged about Rattner’s keynote is that it represents a symbolic endorsement of the singularity from a major player in the technology industry. Believers in the singularity are sometimes seen as crazy or over optimistic, but with Rattner’s keynote it is clear that the idea of a singularity occurring in this century is gaining serious momentum.

Rattner’s keynote began with a roughly 5 minute introductory video from singularity proponent Ray Kurzweil. During the rest of the keynote Rattner brought out a series of individuals to demonstrate futuristic technologies that are on the horizon. Some of these demonstrations were really cool…others not so much. Here is the breakdown:

1. Intel Scientist Dr. Mike Garner Presents the Future of Moore’s Law
Our Take: Nothing new here

In this segment Rattner discusses with Dr. Garner how the industry will be able to continue the doubling of computing capacity every year as it has done for the last 40 years. With current technology at the 32 nanometer scale, we are fast approaching limits on how small we can get with current semiconductor technology. Dr. Garner suggests a number of technologies and ideas for overcoming this hurdle (trigate transistors, quantum computing, carbon nanotubes, etc.), but in our opinion none of these ideas are new and no new light is shed on how and when any of these technologies will become a reality.

2. UCSB phD Brian Koch Presents Silicon Photonics
Our Take: pretty cool

Brian discusses a collaboration between Intel and UCSB to combine the speed and bandwidth offered by light (photonics) with the versatility and mass production capabilities of silicon. This marriage between silicon and photonics could offer a host of new capabilities and advantages in the future including huge bandwidth, decreased cost, and decreased energy consumption. Intel has a pretty good website dedicated to this entire technology here.

3. UCSB Professor Jan Rabaey Presents Massively Wireless Communication
Our Take: Interesting, but not revolutionary

Dr. Rabaey predicts that we will have 1000 radios per person in 10 years! This was the most interesting idea offered during Dr. Rabaey’s presentation and is definitely an exciting vision of what the future may hold. Dr. Rabaey stated that the three major problems with a massively wireless world are limited radio spectrum, limited energy for radio devices, and too many standards. Dr. Rabaey offers intresting ideas for overcoming these problems, but from our view this is simply a focus on improving the efficiency and the intelligence of how radios communicate. What we fail to see in this presentation is any revolutionary technology or capability for the future.

4. Alanson Sample from the University of Washington Presents Wireless Power Transmission
Our Take: Awesome!

Wireless power transmission technology debuted about a year or so ago, but nonetheless it is a stunning concept and the demo was great to see. Alanson was able to send 60W of energy wirelessly across a distance of two feet to power up a light bulb. Approximately 25% of the energy is lost during transmission, which is pretty good (Alanson claims this is more efficient than many wall warts)! From the standpoint of the singularity one of the more interesting applications of this technology would be the ability to recharge or power up devices that have been implanted into the human body. Jordan Robertson from the Associated Press in a recent article gives us more in depth information about the technology, and reveals that 90% efficiency of power transmission has actually been achieved at a distance of 3 feet.

5. Dave Ferguson and Siddhartha Srinivasa Present Autonomous Robots
Our Take: Not bad, but nothing revolutionary

David and Sidd demonstrate a robot named Herb that can enter an environment and autonomously find, navigate to, and then pickup any coffee cups in the vicinity. Many people underestimate the difficulty in such a task, but in truth it is actually quite difficult for robots to replicate the human ability to navigate a new and unknown environment that is also changing as people and other objects within it move. Herb did a commendable job of performing his task, but overall this demonstration is similar to many other projects occurring all over the world, most notably the DARPA Urban Challenge which is referenced during the presentation.

6. Joshua Smith from Intel Presents a Sixth Sense Called Pretouch
Our Take: Now This is Revolutionary!

Josh presents to us something completely novel, a sixth sense called pretouch in which a robot uses electric fields to sense its environment. The inspiration for this technology comes from certain species of fish that have this same capability. In the demonstration a robotic hand was able to use pretouch to create a 3 dimensional spatial model of an apple that it was presented with. The robotic hand was then able to grab the apple based upon this dynamically generated model. The entire task was performed without the aid of cameras (for vision) or any other conventional senses. MIT Technology Review wrote an article about pretouch nearly a year ago and it is a good place to start if you want to learn more. Pretouch gives us a glimpse of a future in which humans and robots will have capabilities that are completely different and novel from those that we have today.

7. Tan Le From Emotiv Presents Noninvasive Neural Interfaces
Our Take: Cool, but invasive neural interfaces are the real future

Emotiv demonstrates one of the most practical and well developed noninvasive neural interface applications we have seen. In the demonstration a human plays a game in which he is able to scare creatures away, change colors of the game, and even move objects (though with noticeable difficulty) simply by thinking alone. The gamer is wearing a helmet that detects electric field fluctuations emanating from his skull and these fluctuations are translated into actions within the game. Emotiv shows us a really cool possibility for enhancing gaming interfaces and a compelling pathway to many other novel applications. Despite this, we are only marginally excited about this technology because noninvasive neural interfacing is a poor substitute for the capabilities offered by truly invasive, direct neural interfacing. Noninvasive neural interfacing is error prone and limited in its ability to extract human intention. Lets go straight to the source and focus on direct neural interfaces into the brain…that is where the true link to human intention will be revealed.

8. Jason Campbell from Intel Presents Shape Shifting Materials
Our Take: This Rocks!

Jason Campbell presents an Intel initiative to build shape shifting materials composed of building blocks called catoms. Intel’s latest catom prototypes are currently 1/10 of millimeter in diameter nanobots with their own microprocessors and actuators that are capable of changing their color and other properties. Jason presents us with the vision of a matchbox sized cell phone composed of thousands or even millions of catoms that can morph on demand into a nearly full sized keyboard. Catom based shape shifting technology is still in the very early research phase and there does not seem to be any real world example of this technology to date. Nonetheless, it was fascinating to see real progress being made in a technology that has captured the imagination of science fiction writers for decades.

In May the New York Times and many other outlets reported on the “most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology”. From the article:

“The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.

In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill.

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.”

Check out this awesome video of a monkey operating a robotic arm:

Robo-monkey uses brain power to feed itself

New Scientist released an awesome article describing how researchers are using rat brains to control a robot. Approximately 300,000 neurons from a rat fetus are deposited onto a sheet of nutrients and electrodes (and MEA, or multi-electrode array) and the neurons immediately begin to build connections to each other and to the electrodes.

The robot can send signals to the neurons via these electrodes and the neurons will over time fire off in predictable patterns. These patterns can be connected to output electrodes that can send signals back to the robot and cause it to react to its environment, such as avoiding a wall. The video is simply awesome so check it out:

Intuitive Surgical introduced its Da Vinci robotic surgical system to the world in 1999, converting surgeons into “super surgeons” by giving them eyes with 3D HD vision and digital zoom and giving them hands with ultra precision, motion scaling, and tremor reduction.  Take a look at this beauty:

Early adopters have been promoting the virtues of the Da Vinci for nearly a decade now, but only in the last year or so has the Da Vinci gained the critical mass to leap from fledgling technology to revolutionary game changer. The Da Vinci robot is being massively adopted by hospitals across the nation as its virtues to the patient including faster recovery, less blood loss, less risk of infection, and less pain have become overwhelming. Below is a promotional video from Intuitive Surgical that explains this amazing game changing innovation in the field of human health and medicine:

da Vinci Surgical System

Related to the IEEE special report on prosthetic arms is a fascinating article on prosthetic limbs that can take their signals directly from the nerves or even the brain of the user. As reported earlier, DARPA has given $30.4 million to initiate two separate prosthetic arm projects. The first project focuses on creating a noninvasive prosthetic arm and is being spearheaded by Deka as reported here. This article focuses on the second project which is aimed at connecting the user’s true intentions to the prosthetic arm either from the brain or from nerves.

One of the major problems with current prosthetic limbs is that they signal in only one direction, yet true human limbs signal on a bidirectional basis. Not only does the brain send signals to the limb to tell it what to do, but the limb sends signals back to the brain about what it is sensing in the form of pressure, temperature, and so on. The brain uses this sensory information to send adaptive instructions to the limb, allowing for the subtle or rapid changes that define true human agility. From the article:

“Sensory feedback for prosthetics is in the embryonic stages. The best mechanism on the market today consists of a vibrating motor that buzzes against the skin more or less intensely to reflect, for instance, such force factors as grip strength. The DARPA project is gunning for much more than that: researchers want an arm that transmits sensation to the user—pressure, texture, even temperature…with 100 sensors that connect the body’s natural neural signals to the mechanical prosthetic arm to create a sensory feedback loop…”

“As it turns out, the degree of control is directly proportional to the invasiveness of the method.”

The researchers are working with different levels of invasive interaction with the user, but there are two major categories of interaction.

The first category is to connect the muscles or nerve fibers that transmit signals from the brain to the limb. Even when a limb is lost, nerve fibers from the brain still exist up to the point where the limb was cutoff and amazingly they still function years after the loss of the limb. By connecting these nerve fibers to the prosthetic arm the signals from the brain to curl a finger or to clench a fist can still be accessed by interpreting the signals being transmitted across these nerve fibers. From the article:

“In a an individual with both limbs, those nerves travel from the spinal cord down the shoulder over the clavicle and then into the armpit, where they connect to about 80,000 nerve fibers that allow the brain to communicate with the arm.”

The second category is to entirely skip the nerve fibers and link directly into the neurons in the brain. From the article:

“Finally, the most extreme solution is meant for people whose bodies no longer offer any means for interfacing to the artificial limb, for whom even nerve-rerouting surgery may not be an option”

“When electrodes penetrate directly into the motor cortex, embedded electronic circuits intercept the motor neurons firing their instructions and, with the help of complex algorithms, translate the related signals into a language that can control the mechanics of the arms.”

In this piece from the IEEE special report on prosthetics we learn about Deka’s amazing noninvasive prosthetic arm. As noted earlier, DARPA gave $30.4 million to fund two projects for the next generation of prosthetic arms, one noninvasive and the other invasive. Deka is pursuing the noninvasive project which does not require any surgical access to anything inside the body such as nerves, muscles, or neurons.

Deka’s next generation prosthetic arm, called the Luke Arm (named in homage to the prosthetic arm used by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) has overcome many of the signficant problems with the outdated prosthetic arms that are currently available. About the state of current prosthetic arms:

“…after the initial shock of amputation wears off, usually within a year or two, patients stop wearing their prostheses. Even extreme levels of amputation don’t much curb this tendency. Wearing the burdensome prosthetic is simply not justified by the small amount of assistance it provides…”

This accompanying video summarizes the project and is well worth your time!

In Feb 2008 IEEE Spectrum released a fantastic special report on some of the latest work being done on prosthetic arms.

The special report covers a lot of ground, but mostly focuses on DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program:

“The program was created in 2005 to fund the development of two arms. The first initiative, the four-year, US $30.4 million Revolutionizing Prosthetics contract, to be completed in 2009, led by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., seeks a fully functioning, neurally controlled prosthetic arm using technology that is still experimental. The latter, awarded to Deka Research and Development Corp., Kamen’s New Hampshire–based medical products company (perhaps best known for the Segway), is a two-year $18.1 million 2007 effort to give amputees an advanced prosthesis that could be available immediately “for people who want to literally strap it on and go.” Kamen’s team designed the Deka arm to be controlled with noninvasive measures, using an interface a bit like a joystick.”

Because there are only about 6,000 prosthetic arms needed per year, the market has not been big enough to justify the large investment required to make next generation prosthetic arms. As a result it is amazing to note that commercially available prosthetic arm technology has not changed much in 100 years and is stuck in the “stone age”! Meanwhile prosthetic legs have seen significant investment and are extremely advanced and capable today.

The DARPA funding has literally changed the game by providing the investment necessary to propel prosthetic arms into the current era and beyond. In subsequent posts I will highlight some of the more notable aspects of this report.

Below is an interesting video of Michael Chorost speaking at Google June 30, 2008. Michael spends about half of the video explaining the amazing cochlear implant that has enabled himself and more than 100,000 deaf people around the world to regain their hearing. In the other half of the video Michael explores the future of man and machine, which is the focus of his upcoming book “World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humans and Machines”. A few interesting themes from the video:

1.  There are only 100,000 people with cochlear implants in the world, yet there are 500,000 deaf people in the United States alone. It really is a shame that the gift of hearing is technically available yet not being given to the millions of deaf people around the world for due to cost and other reasons.

2. Michael describes the internet as a worldwide mind that we are all able to access and update. He explains how he felt disconnected from this “mind” when his blackberry was not functioning for a short period of time. This idea is one of the centerpieces of his upcoming book and is a major theme for all of us to consider as we envision the future of mankind.

3. Michael shows video clips of the incredible advances that are being made in interfacing the human brain with prosthetic limbs. Michael asks us to consider the implications and capabilities that will be unleashed for mankind as our ability to interface directly with the neurons of the brain improves in the coming years. The ability to read minds and the ability to purposely enhance the human body is considered.

Authors@Google: Michael Chorost

The Short:
Newscientist reports that researchers at the University of Toronto have created a microgripper device capable of grabbing and releasing objects as small as a cell. Tiny tweezers or grippers have been created by several researchers over the years, but what makes this microgripper unique is its sense of touch. From the article:

“The robotic gripper can exert as little as 20 nanoNewtons of force and are the first to be able to feel the strength of their grip on objects so delicately, says Yu Sun of the University of Toronto in Canada, who led their development.”

“The grippers are the first to not only feel their grip strength, but
also when they touch a surface. This allows them to sense when they’ve
run into things, helping them get close to cells and other objects
without damaging collisions.”

The Long:

The original research article can be found here. A few other interesting quotes:

“This paper reports on a monolithic MEMS-based microgripper with integrated force feedback along two axes and presents the first demonstration of forcecontrolled micro-grasping at the nanonewton force level”

“The tweezers’ arms are about 3 millimetres long, with fine tips able
to grasp cells just 10 micrometres across. In trials using pig heart
cells, the pincer could pick up and move the cells without damaging
them. Holding them with only 100 nanoNewtons of force, the gripper
squashed the cells out of shape by only 15%.”

“The grippers are controlled by software that can identify individual cells
and move the tweezers into position in just a few seconds. That’s much
faster than a person could do, Sun says.”

An amazing series of photos is presented below, showing how the microgripper was used to take three randomly placed cells and move them into a straight line:

Figure 11. Cell manipulation and alignment with force-controlled micrograsping. (a) After contact detection, the microgripper grasps a first cell. (b) The microgripper transfers the cell to a new position and releases the cell. (c) The microgripper grasps a second cell. (d) Transferring and releasing the second cell. (e) The microgripper approaches a third cell. (f) Transferring and releasing the third cell. Three cells of different sizes are transferred to desired positions and aligned.

Images are from the research article

Just found a nice video posted below of a group of Nao robots doing a synchronized dance. The Nao represents the next generation of “affordable, autonomous, and easily programmable humanoid robots”. Created by Aldebaran Robotics, the robot has succeeded the Sony Aibo as the official robot for this year’s RoboCup, in July 2008 in Suzhou in China. In late 2008 Aldebaran Robotics hopes to make the Nao commercially available.

Nao SmoothMove Dance

The Feelix Growing Project is a $2.5 million euro initiative funded by the European Union to foster research in the development of robots that can detect and mimic human emotion. The project started in December 2006 and has already been cited by numerous outlets such as Gizmodo.

Euronews, a major European news outlet, recently aired this interesting 8 minute video clip documenting the project:

euronews - futuris - Robots learn to express emotions