Mostly Harmless…
Last week I started playing with Last.fm in an attempt to stave off the boredom associated with the statistics labs that were piling-up on my desk.
If you have a strange desire to know what I’ve been listening to recently, here’s a link to my profile.
I haven’t had very much to do since I finished work for the Summer so I’ve been wasting time on Hubdub (It was on the BBC Click program a while ago). Basically, it involves betting fake money on mundane events and watching how the market changes. It’s totally pointless, but an entertaining waste of time introduction to economic markets.
Anyone want to join in?
A friend of mine emailed this to me this morning. It took 18 days of work, but it’s all kinds of awesome!
More photos: http://englishrussia.com/?p=2487
Mamoru-Kun (”Little Protector”) is a robot that is able to tell his owner where an object he or she lost or misplaced within a certain area is located. He can do it verbally or by pointing at the object.
It seems to be using some pretty heavy computer vision technology to track objects as they’re moved around a room, then point them out when asked later.
The robot stands 40cm tall and weighs 3.8kg. He has 4 joints (two in the neck and one in each arm) and is equipped with a microphone and speakers. Mamoru-Kun is cell phone-controlled.
Users have to register and record items they regularly misplace in advance. Once they did that, the area in question will be constantly covered by various cameras, which are connected to Mamoru-Kun.
This is really cool! It’s aimed toward helping the elderly or disabled, but I’d want one just to hack around with!
Commercialization of the assistance system is planned to begin by 2018.
But I want my Japanese Helper-Robot now!
