I am always amazed that the developments in robotics that are happening in my lifetime. I wish that Isaac Asimov had lived just a bit longer so he could see what the industry is producing today. Sarcos has made the prototype, which is under development in Japan. This robot can recover from pushes intended to topple it over. I’m sure a lot of you have seen the video of the ASIMO robot falling down some simple steps. This new robot with flexible joints and advanced balancing system appears to be the next generation of humanoid robots. For more information, including a video demonstration, check out the full article at NewScientistTech. Found via SlashDot
Flexible joint robot by Sarcos puts Honda’s ASIMO to shame
Categories:
Related Post
Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90
Arthur C. Clarke died early this morning after a long battle with post-polio syndrome. The New York Times has an interesting summary of his life and major accomplishments. I’m ashamed to say that I still haven’t read 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it is on my ever expanding reading list. Hopefully I can review it some time in the near future. Clark is well known for his laws of prediction, which are as follows:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Isaac Asimov introduces the Radio Shack TRS-80 pocket computerIsaac Asimov introduces the Radio Shack TRS-80 pocket computer
I ran across this ad recently for an amazing new product, promoted by my own favorite science fiction author, Isaac Asimov.
Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Pocket Computer turned my dreams into a reality. Now I can take the power of a true computer with me wherever I go.
— Isaac Asimov
The marketing guys chime in a few paragraphs later.
And it can also function just like a calculator — something a desktop computer can’t do.
— Radio Shack
Wait, what!? With a standard calculator included in just about every phone that I can think of, it is hard to imagine a desktop computer ever existing without that ability. Crazy, right? Now that I think of it, it wasn’t too far in the distant past that desktop computers couldn’t be used for voice communications, something a simple phone could do. So what does $169.95 actually get you?
From Dave Dunfield’s old computer page:
The machine was actually a Radio Shack branded version of the Sharp PC-1211, which features:
- Sharp SC43177/SC43178 4-bit CPU running at 256khz
- 1×24 character LCD display
- 57 key “Qwerty” keyboard
- 1.5k of RAM for user program storage
- Pizoelectric buzzer
Be sure to check out the full breakdown at Dave’s TRS-80 Pocket Computer page
As a point of comparison, here are a few highlights of Motorola’s Droid 2 tech specs:
- 1 GHz processor
- 480×854 Pixel display (Characters displayed depends on the font)
- QWERTY keyboard
- 8GB flash (expandable to 32GB)
- Support for stereo bluetooth (not sure if actual speaker is stereo or not)
- 100’s of other features like camera, video capture, streaming video, and get this includes the ability to make phone calls. Sadly though, it can’t make you breakfast… yet.
Let me whip out my calculator on my i7 Desktop Computer! The Droid 2 has a 3,906.25 times faster processor (just based on clock rate, not actual computational power) and has 5,592,405.33 times more storage. That seems crazy right? The TRS-80 pocket computer came out in 1980, about 20 years ago. I wonder how people will feel about our state of the art smartphones in 2020? That is assuming we haven’t been taken over by robots gone wild, destroyed ourselves with nukes, or succumbed to a raging nano-plague. But that is all just science fiction.
Isaac Asimov promotes Radio Shack's TRS-80 Pocket Computer
Teenager gets a bionic hand that Luke Skywalker would envyTeenager gets a bionic hand that Luke Skywalker would envy
Luke Skywalker's Cyborg Hand
OK, maybe Luke wouldn’t envy this hand, but it looks like we are much closer to the technology in The Empire Strikes Back when he gets his hand lopped off by his father. Matthew James is a boy born with a defect that stopped the growth of his arm at the wrist. He just got a brand new hand with the help of the Mercedes F1 Team. Matthew actually wrote Mercedes, the car maker, to ask for help getting an i-Limb Pulse prosthesis in return for displaying their logo on it.
After receiving the letter in June, Mercedes invited Matthew to their headquarters, where he toured the factory and met racing legend Michael Schumacher.
The company [Mercedes] said they were unable to pay for the hand but agreed to help Matthew raise the money, by asking fans and sponsors to make donations.
Mercedes couldn’t pay for the hand? That seems hard to believe. Anyway, it’s a good read so check it out. There was a follow-up video that I’m embedding below.
Via The Telegraph