 |
DARPA Avatar Program Coming, But Will Soldiers Want To?
How much of your tax money would you spend on a program to recreate Avatar, a movie in which a human is "uploaded" to a robot?* Whenever a science-fictional desire exists, DARPA is ready to meet that desire (and if you don't think so, see my DARPA Project List).
The DARPA Avatar program is not quite like the movie: what they want are “interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bipedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.”
(Neytiri and jake [as an avatar])
You might notice that most of the sites covering this story showed Jake with some sort of macho weapon. But we all know why Jake wanted to stay in Avatar mode - so he could get next to lovely Neytiri.
Which, as it turns out, is a scenario that is at least three-quarters of a century-old. In his 1938 classic The Robot and the Lady, Manly Wade Wellman wrote about a man and woman who met - as a dashing and a beautiful robot, respectively.
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...I turned to where, on my desk, I had set up my controls. To my ears I clamped receivers, upon my eyes I bound the gogglelike televisors that would coincide my viewpoint with that of the robot. A transmitter would place my voice upon those sculptured lips. My hands touched a great keyboard, whence, perfect through long practice, I could direct lifelike motion.
(Read more about Wellman's teleoperated robot surrogate)
Via ExtremeTech; thanks to Winchell Chung for the reminder to do this story.
* (Actually, kind of cloned alien android, based partly on your own DNA, if I recall correctly.)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/18/2012)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Flying Dragon Robot Transforms In Mid-Air
Terrific prototype video.
MXene Hydrogel Skin For Robots Flexes And Senses
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...' - JG Ballard, 1962.
Drywall Robot Looking For Sheetrock
Sheetrockers have sure changed since my day. Speaking as someone who as done this, I welcome robots.
Robots Help People Get Dressed, As Predicted In 1931
Yes, people of the future, robots will dress you.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Wound Healing With Wearable Nanogenerators
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to ... erase the other internal-external damage.'
Flying Dragon Robot Transforms In Mid-Air
Terrific prototype video.
Negative Matter Fluid Theorized In New Paper
'Of course, being negative matter, when you push it, it comes toward you..'
Grow Structures Upon Planetfall - Myco-Architecture
'They'll also start pulling in gases and liquids from the local atmosphere...'
MXene Hydrogel Skin For Robots Flexes And Senses
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...'
EXPLORER, The First Total-Body Scanner
'The object is built up of an infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray...'
UK Police AI To Stop Criminals Before They Strike
'... the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.'
Sonitus Audio Interface Positioned Beyond The Noise
'... an instrument having relatively small bit pieces adapted to be gripped between the teeth.'
Volvo's Self-Driving Mining Trucks
'A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag'
Audi Pop.Up Autonomous Electric Flying Car
'The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics...'
Music Not Impossible (MNI) Vibrotactile Wearable Experience
Don't you want to experience the 'feely' effects?
Chinese Face Recognition Mistakes Bus Ad For Jaywalker
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
A Look Back At Apollo's Emergency Escape Vehicle
'A simple mechanism... it drove the iron ball through space like a ship.'
InMotion Glide 3 Electric Unicycle For The Last Mile
'...gyro-stabilized on a single wheel.'
China's Social Credit System - A Facebook-1984 Mashup
'Prestige, face, mana, repute, glory: the Sirenese word is strakh.'
Musk Declares Tesla Supercharger Capacity Will Double By Next Year
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'
