In the 1984 film Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the role of an invincible human-like cyborg. Until recently most real robots looked more like toasters than people, but now researchers are developing robots that act and look more like humans.

Take George, for example. George was developed by scientist Alan Schultz at the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence. George is able to play hide-and-seek with humans, where it has the ability to both find humans, as well as hide itself. As simple as this task sounds, it actually requires that George is able to recognize signals from people and act accordingly. (Personally, given the fact that movie cyborgs are usually designed to hunt humans down and kill them, I’m not so sure that teaching real-life robots to find humans is such a good thing – that’s a joke guys before I start getting commented).

Entrepreneur David Hanson, of Hanson Robotics, is creating robots with expressive human-like heads that can walk and talk. The skin of the face is made from “Frubber”, a skin-like material that Hanson invented. Powered by battery backs, Hanson’s robots can move around completely independently. Hanson is well known for his Einstein Robot, which has been described as “creepily cool”. You can see clips of Einstein and his other robots at the Hanson Robotics web site.

Hanson is planning to launch a two-foot robot in the next 12 months that can dance, talk, and recognize its owner’s face. The target price is $3000. Thankfully Hanson has promised that he’ll make his robot look more like Astro Boy, than say, the Terminator.

That’s a trend that TECH.BLORGE.com will certainly be encouraging. 

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Entry was posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 11:36 am under Technology.

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