Geeks Blog » Robots

Robots and Man Side By Side

gecko — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:19:35 +0000

The continuous efforts of cybernetics in recent years has had everyone thinking, will the time come that cybernetic creations known as robots to many, and man co-exist? Speculations such as this have drawn some peaceful and violent reactions that are largely dependent on how people would assess the possibility. But on thing that is for sure, the issue about power is within the topics for discussion.

The influx of the idea of robots in society has drawn various reactions. But among them, it seems like security and programming has been the most notable issue above all. Humans play God in creating them and from all indications, it shall man who will be at the top of things as well unless robots would be able to develop their own ways of thinking and feelings.

There are various automations that are in use today and these are close to indications of technology slowly rising to the occasion and making life easier for people. However, robots are another issue since it would all depend on how they would be used and for what purpose they shall be once they are introduced to society along side the human race.

Technical Aspect of Things

gecko — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:49:05 +0000

People would often have to cram and do immediate research to get a full understanding of a particular area of concern. People have to resort to doing search queries, resorting to periodical content and even reaching down to known reference books such as an Encyclopedia or the Almanac, to be able to get a full overview of what a particular topic or subject matter is all about.

While such is a given, there are people who can give their two cents worth of opinions and stored knowledge as well. This all stems from these individuals who have put emphasis on certain areas of interest that include electronics, travel and history. Not all people are expected to invest such effort and time since every individual would want to cater to a lot of things with nothing particular to specialize in.

Ideally, such knowledge from people which are tagged geeks at some time would go as far as holding technical information such as content, components and workflow processes. Such areas are not given much attention in the normal phase of life. But such are investments to which one day; such stored and solicited knowledge shall be of big use towards other people and big entities who seek better knowledge as well.

Star Wars – Pop Culture Icons of Space and Beyond

Atasha — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:10:07 +0000

The sci-fi trilogy began as a flop and was seen as a dream that was doomed to fail, George Lucas started out as an aspiring film assistant who grew into the business after bribing guards at the studio and eventually landing a job as a production assistant. His dream for Star Wars began as a simple idea that turned into one of Hollywood’s most memorable sci-fi film series pioneering some of the most innovative ideas during its release such as stop-motion and many other firsts.
The first three films(Star Wars 4,5 and 6) were utter box office hits that paved the way for the recent trilogy(Star Wars 1,2 and 3) again loaded with so much technology, the line between reality and the CG world was dulled some more in a seamless combination making for great films indeed. One has to be a die hard fan for you to wear some of the best Star Wars shirts on the market, from vintage ones that covered themes from the first three films to the recent trilogy that set the stage to complete the circle of the space sci-fi saga that is Star Wars, May the Force be with You.

Stem Cells and all those other cells, what’s the fuss all about?

Nick — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:04:33 +0000

Seems the world has come face to face with one of its worst nightmares, the advent of cloning and regeneration. Well theoretically that is, stem cell research has progressed so much that people are beginning to worry about the ulterior implications of such scientific fervor. Stem cells are the human body’s super cells or blanks that have the ability to turn into a heart cell to a skin cell and the area scientists are working on is how they get them to do so on demand. The subject of cloning has been successful in animals and plants but has been met with strong opposition form most of us humans due to the implications of ethical infractions by which people get cloned from a single DNA sample.
That might have been possible in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters but the advances in genetics and stem cell research are indeed taking us a step closer to such medical breakthroughs. Imagine growing a new and perfectly healthy heart to replace a diseased one that would not be rejected for it is made up of the same genetic materials, your own. Or better yet, have an injection to get a couple of hundred or so Nano-machines to go into your body and scrape away all the plaque on your heart and blood vessels lessening the chances of a heart attack. They have even been designed to carry radioactive isotopes into the body releasing them onto or near cancerous cells, killing them more effectively than current treatments available.
The prospect of a world where nobody dies and everybody is perfectly healthy is not so far off. We have begun to play GOD by manipulating and probing into the innermost workings of the human body down to the molecular level. These advances in medical technology will take time to get out and manifest their true potentials, let us just hope that they don’t become the precursor to the extinction of the human race.

R.O.V. – Programmable Soldiers

Nick — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 06:47:01 +0000

Got a war to fight? Want to fight the enemy and not get complaints about the lousy food or inadequate air and ground support? Then, send in the ROV’s with drones that could spread out, each with its own propulsion and surveillance equipment that can cover a larger area, sending information to the mother ROV, and then back to the command center for interpretation. You can even arm them with active systems to take out all threats that are designated by their human controllers automatically(choose from the arsenal of pistols, sub-machineguns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers and all the stuff you could think of they’ve tested it).
The US military has a lot of autonomous vehicles that can be armed with handguns, rifles and even rocket launchers for doing jobs which could be too risky to send in people. These robots will be cheaper and they can operate indefinitely or as long as their batteries last which they can re-charge through solar panels as they switch to low activity modes, shifting to reconnaissance mode in long-period missions as they charge up. Once they get powered up to continue their mission, they get back up and go rolling away to complete the mission. Patrolling borders may be easier this way, with autonomous robots that do not get hungry or are designed not to bee too affected by the temperature extremes. Clearing mines in hostile waters is easier and faster without the risk to human life.The future of “Terminator” may not be too far fetched as it seems, for there is no boundaries to the technological wonders we are seeing now (not to count the ones that are for military use only, for the ones you might be seeing are already old-tech and they are sure to have better more improved versions way in the deep recesses of those converted missile silos deep underground which have been converted into top-secret development laboratories) and will be seeing in the near future.

Swarms, the next big thing in robotics technology

Nick — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:39:13 +0000

Nope, they’re not bees, locust or any living thing as a matter of fact, they’re robots. Yes robots that would be able to function as part of a bigger organism or machine. They are the next big thing that robotics experts are trying to perfect for they are cheap and they can be made into smaller, more compact machines. Remember the spiders deployed in the movie “The Minority Report”, the ones that looked like disks which transformed into miniature retinal scanners that think on their own, going through all obstacles so all the residents to see if the character of “Tom” was in there. That’s the type of development in the robotics world scientists are trying to perfect and use as a cheaper and more manageable system for all kinds of uses.
Take a look at an ant hill and you see individual ants that as individuals are quite easy to subdue. Get those same ants and combine them to make-up the colony, that’s another story, you’ll end up with tons of welts as you run for cover wherever you could. As it turns out, smaller more autonomous robots can be made cheaper with the advent of advances in micro-engineering where they are working to create mechanical and electro-mechanical parts out of atoms making a whole robot the size of micrometers, even nanometers. Imagine being able to inject a syringe-full of these engineered microscopic repair robots suspended in a solution into the human body to manually remove a blood clot in the heart. Or better yet, design them to take out the free radicals in the blood to halt the aging process which plagues all of us, delaying it by decades if not indefinitely. Or take the place of the body’s immune system for AIDS sufferers killing germs and bacteria that can pose a threat to health. The possibilities are endless

Lego-Style Consumer Electronics

Nick — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:56:33 +0000

Bug Labs showcased its Lego-style products in the current 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The said system evolved around a BUGbase system which was essentially a programmable/hackable Linux based computer with the CPU, Ram, built-in WiFi, a rechargeable battery pack to provide power, USB Interface, Ethernet and a small lcd to show the status of the system. This would be a fun gadget for those adventurous developers or school-going teens who need something to pour their energy into. There are currently four modules like a separate GPS Transceiver, Digital Camera/Video Camera, Touch Screen, LCD Screen and an Accelerometer with motion sensors. These modules, when combined can be made into something like a GPS-tagging Digital Camera or as they call it “Geo-Cam” which has the exact geographical coordinates of the picture when it was taken.

Some other major manufacturers have been offering similar devices like “SONY” which has a dongle you attach to your digital camera or HD Camera that records positional data alongside the images allowing a digital map or history of when and where they were taken. The data is included with the time-stamp and date-stamp which can be used with proprietary software to create a digital timeline which can also be saved along with the video.

There is already a BUGcommunity that has been hard at work on the functionality and combination aspects of the said BUG system which is a good source of code and programs for developing other modules. This is similar to most open-sourced developing platforms which is fun for the sky is the limit when it comes to the ways the modules can be combined and how a program can utilize all of the said modules to provide useful information the user desires. More modules are being developed and are to be released in the second quarter of 2008. and one more thing, you need to get hold of Bud System SDK which can be downloaded fro their site.

The World’s Fastest Computers

Nick — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:37:11 +0000

Some of the world’s fastest computers are actually purposely designed machines that are used mainly in the Medical industry to analyze Viruses and in the drive to map the Human Genome project. IBM has released a new processor chip that is designed to run three times faster than Intel’s current Itanium processors. The said supercomputer chip was integrated into their latest supercomputer and was labeled the Power6 Microprocessor Chip that run’s at a whopping 4.7Ghz and at a processor bandwidth of 300 Gigabytes. Wow… Now if that were inside your home desktop, won’t that be pretty. The said chip doubles the capacity and speed of past chips and the good thing about it is that it runs basically on the same power requirements.

The new supercomputer servers come in 2 to 16-cores beating HP’s current Superdome Server by three times. Now, we can be sure the price of such computers run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars but we’re quite sure the companies who do have them makes use of them for the embitterment of mankind. IBM is expected to release another fastest computer later in the year adding to the list of computers that run in the tera-flop range. With their lead in the server-wars first won by IBM-Blue in 2004 which was known as the first ever super computer and was used to simulate the effects of the US’s ageing nuclear arsenal. Major clients of such machines are NASA, the Defense Department and major Pharmaceutical firms.

A Site for all Geeks

Nick — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:24:59 +0000

Geeks or Techie guys like us have a common drive to help the world in what ever way we can(in the backgrounds). From helping people who really need it and wouldn’t usually approach you till they really have to or the world is about to end. Say a famous guy or girl who’d die if he/she was ever caught being associated with you in any way. Then the site below would be a good place to be part of for they are a concentration of geek minds and tools all in one neatly packaged page without all the commercial influences.

Away with those pesky commercial sites who claim to have all the best utilities and neat stuff only to find out you have to buy something or get the program that works only for a day or a few hours. Or something that says you have thousands of errors with your windows installation but only fixes a few due to a need to purchase the full-blown product to get all the bugs fixed. Sites like MajorGeeks.com , offer a wide array of utilities and neat stuff that used to be all free in the early days of the internet.

Gone are the days when the internet used to be a place where everybody shared information and programs to help each and every user who needs it. People like us who tend to see the free internet as a long-gone dreams are labeled as Hackers but I find that totally unfounded and baseless. What’s wrong with a free internet? Isn’t commercial gain a bit too much on the minds of these corporations? “Knowledge is learned to be shared for unused knowledge is just a jumble of useless bright ideas”.

Body armor and so much more..

Nick — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:49:44 +0000

Everybody has heard of Kevlar and Nomex which has been in production by Dupont for quite sometime. These products have been associated more with their use in body armor which has become more and more popular in the recent years due to the proliferation of handguns and other weapons. Little do we know that these products truly are lifesavers asides from their most popular uses as we have mentioned.

They are used for quite a diverse line of products that all of us benefit from such as in electrical transformers and delivery systems and the protection of such equipment. Even workers in hazardous environments benefit from such miracle fabrics and materials such as those who work on oil rigs where Kevlar reinforced helmets, gloves and other safety equipment are incorporated into in the drive for a safer workplace. Fiber optic cables that span the globe are protected by both materials giving them unsurpassed protection from extreme temperatures and abrasion under water and even on land.

Even the aerospace industry uses such materials in the recent requirements for the reinforcing of the cockpit and other vital areas of an aircraft that was brought about the events of 9/11. Made into fabric, they are a better alternative to traditional bullet proofing methods on aircraft which would be too heavy and therefore too heavy and costly. All that is needed is a simple retrofit of all vital panels such as the doors, floors and equipment compartments that need protection from attack or other natural forces in normal use saving thousands if not millions of dollars in maintenance and of course making travel safer for all of us. The said fibers have even made it into outer space where they were used on the Mars Rovers.

As we can see, these fibers are getting into the most common uses as time passes and they just keep and getting stronger. In Asia, scientists have discovered that spider silk is much stronger than the same diameter of steel, Kevlar or any other man made products making it more affordable to produce protective equipment. Scientists have implanted the genes from spiders into goats allowing them to produce the same proteins that make up spider silk thus allowing unlimited supply.