Games Gadgets n Technology

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Gentlebot: A robot that knows when it’s hurting you

The DLR Light Weight Robot III knows when it’s hit a human, and backs off accordingly

Hamburg: In his famed science-fiction novel ‘I, Robot’, author Isaac Asimov states three rules for robots, the first of which is that no robot may ever harm a human being.

Now, in a project that would have brought a smile to Asimov’s face, a robot in Germany has undergone conditioned programming to ensure it will not accidentally injure humans.

High-speed industrial robots at factories are still too dumb to know whether they may have injured a human co-worker who inadvertently gets in its way.

“Accidents happen,” said robot engineer Sami Haddadin from the German Aerospace Centre Space Agency in Oberpfaffenhofen.

“We have to accept that when people start to work more closely with robots, they will sometimes hit people,” he told New Scientist magazine.

To tackle this problem, Haddadin built the DLR Light Weight Robot (LWR) III. Like a child told to be gentle with small animals, the robot knows when it’s hit a human, and backs off accordingly.

To achieve this, Haddadin’s team placed sensors in the six joints of a robot arm, which was programmed to stop moving if it felt unexpected changes.

Fitted with a large pad – the robot version of a boxing glove – the arm was then put to the test.

Haddadin actually allowed the LWR III to punch him in the stomach, chest, head and arm, forehead and arm at speeds of up to 2.5 metres per second.

It performed as expected, stopping at soon as contact was made.

However, Haddadin admits he was “definitely concerned” when the blows began.

Once the arm pulls a punch, its motors and torque sensors allow it to “freeze”, supporting its own weight. The arm can then simply be pushed aside.

“You give it a push and it just floats away,” Haddadin said. “It feels like it weighs only a few grams.”

More sophisticated responses are also possible. The robot arm can, for instance, tell the difference between a big hit and a soft collision.

It responds to the latter with a gentle nudge that signals “get out of my way” to its human co-worker.

Robot manufacturer Kuka of Augsburg, Germany, will launch a commercial version of the arm next year.

Bots for babies

Scientists have built robots that take care of mobility limitations in toddlers with special needs, helping them with their mental and social development


Sunil Agrawal (left) and James Galloway with one of their ‘testers’ on the UD1 robot
Babies driving robots. Sounds fururistic, but it is actually the focus research being conducted at US’ University of Delaware that could have significant impact on the cognitive development of infants with special needs.

Two researchers – James Galloway, associate professor of physical therapy, and Sunil Agrawal, a professor of mechanical engineering – outfitted kid-sized robots to provide mobility to children who are unable to fully explore the world on their own.

The work is important because much of infant development – both of the brain and behaviour – emerges from the thousands of experiences each day that arise as babies independently move and explore their world.

Infants with Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other disorders can have mobility limitations that disconnect them from the exploration that their peers enjoy.

“Currently, children are not offered power mobility, such as wheelchairs until they are 5-6 years of age, or older,” Galloway said. “This delay in mobility is particularly disturbing when you consider the rapid brain development during infancy.”

When a baby starts crawling and walking, everything changes for everyone involved.

“Now consider the negative impact of a half decade of immobility for an infant with already delayed development,” Galloway said. “Given the need, you would think that the barriers to providing power mobility must be insurmountable. In fact, the primary barrier is safety.”

Therapists and parents fear a young child in a power wheelchair might mistakenly go the wrong way, end up in a roadway and get hit by a car, he said.

And therefore, a baby robot…

“Our first prototype mobile robot, called the UD1, was designed with smart technology that addresses each of these safety issues so that infants have the opportunity to be a part of the real world environment,” Agrawal said.

The tiny robot is ringed with sensors that can determine the obstacle-free roaming space, and will either allow infants to bump obstacles or will take control from the infant and drive around the obstacle itself.

The next prototype, UD2, will build on the current technology to provide additional control to a parent, teacher or other supervising adult.

“In this way, we can bind technology and human need together to remove barriers for movement in the environment,” Agrawal said.

Galloway said no one had ever tried using robots with babies – early experiments show that seven-month-olds can learn to operate the simple joystick controls – and he is passionate about the possible benefits to children with special needs of even younger ages.

“Infants with limited mobility play in one location while their peers or siblings go off on distant adventures all over the room or playground,” Galloway said. “With the robot, they become the centre of attention because their classmates want to try it.”

“We predict that this increased social interaction alone will provide an important boost in their cognitive development,” he added.

Agrawal – a robotics expert who had been developing a fleet of small, rounded robots that could work as a unit through a wireless network – first approached Galloway with the idea.

“When I saw his little robots, it was easy to envision a baby driving one,” Galloway said.

Initial jitters were calmed by the first test run of the UD1 at the UD Early Learning Centre.

“It was a relief when we saw that the children quickly grasped the use of the joystick,” Agrawal said. “If they had just sat there or cried, it would have been back to the drawing board. But over time, we have seen them increase their time with the robot and the amount of distance they cover.”

The project will now move on to a second generation with more than one robot. The researchers believe the study will also expand the understanding of young infants’ learning capacity.

They believe the training, robot design and new technology derived from the project will provide the foundation for the first generation of safe, smart vehicles for infants born with mobility impairments.

They want the UD1 to be light enough for moms to stow in a car trunk, and robust enough for babies to use in the home, yard and playground, and maybe even the beach.

Researcher James Galloway can be reached at jacgallo@udel.edu, while Sunil Agrawal can be contacted at agrawal@me.udel.edu

Decoding da Vinci: Scientist unmasks another painting

Pascal Cotte presents his findings on Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Lady with an Ermine’. Cotte applied his multispectral photography to the painting, providing historians with a more accurate rendition

After unlocking the secrets of the Mona Lisa, French scientist Pascal Cotte has turned his all-seeing “multispectral” camera on a lesser-known Leonardo da Vinci muse in Poland: the “Lady with an Ermine.”

Cotte virtually strips away centuries of sometimes sloppy restoration work to provide a digital image of a painting as it may have left the artist’s studio.

Cotte’s unique 240-megapixel camera uncovers the true colours of a painting, literally: Cotte found that the late 15th century wood-panel portrait was not painted on the black background visible today.

“The background was deep blue, very lightly shaded with earth, and probably an azurite mixed with earth,” Cotte said.

“It’s far more beautiful than we thought,” said French art historian Jacques Franck, a da Vinci expert who worked alongside Cotte.

“Here we have a Leonardo da Vinci which has been masked by bad restoration work and which, as a result, has perhaps been seen as less important than it really is,” Franck said.

The camera gives insight into colours, pigments and strokes underneath a weathered surface.

“It enables us to break down the light spectrum three levels into the pictorial layer, from the ultraviolet to the infrared, and from the visible to the invisible,” he explained.

“Multispectral photography provides us with knowledge of the stratification of the successive layers painted by Leonardo and restorers, which enables historical understanding of the way the work was constructed and of subsequent actions,” he said.

In the ‘Lady with an Ermine’, he discovered hidden traces under the ermine’s left paw and muzzle, leading Franck to believe da Vinci may originally have painted the animal lower down the portrait of the woman – who was thought to be Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Duke Lodovico Sforza of Milan.

The technology also laid to rest doubts over how much was drawn by da Vinci and how much was that of his assistants.

Cotte’s conclusion, based on a virtual version he built as close as possible to the original, suggests it is da Vinci’s handiwork.

Cotte, who aims to help build a global archive of digital “originals,” has already gazed behind the layers of around 500 paintings, including da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and also works by Rembrandt, Van Gogh and others.

mumbai news

Fear Factor::Game of the day

The spine-chilling Jericho will leave you spellbound and screaming for more...

Minimum Requirements: 2.4 GHz processor, 1GB RAM, GeForce 6600 or Radeon X1600 128MB graphics card, 2 GB Hard disc space
For Adults Only (18+) Rating: * * * * * Price: PS3: Rs 2,606; Xbox 360: Rs 2,100; PC: Rs 999-Rs 1,200


It’s not often that fiction is genuinely scary. It’s easy to try to scare people with ghosts and gory images, like in games such as F.E.A.R, or horror flicks such as The Ring. But the ominous anticipation of ‘What’s waiting around the corner?’ is what makes Clive Barker’s Jericho a lot more frightening than any game I’ve played.

Barker is the famous horror author who wrote Cabal, and also the movie, Hellraiser. And even with this track record, I wasn’t prepared for what Jericho offered. Come a little closer and I’ll fill you in.

Here’s the briefing I got. Before creating man, God created another being – a being beautiful, yet terrifying; a being that was neither light, nor dark. And it greatly disturbed the Almighty. Unable to destroy this first creation, God decided to banish it, and trapped it into a different plane of reality, which we call ‘The Box’. As for the creature, we don’t dare call it anything other than The FirstBorn.

For centuries now, The FirstBorn has tried to escape from its prison of time and space, hell-bent on revenge. And each time, it has been stopped by a band of seven warrior-magicians, who sacrificed their lives by sealing the prison from within. In the process, they added layers of Earth’s time and space to the prison. Now, The FirstBorn has breached the walls yet again, and it’s upto us to save mankind.

The whole concept impressed me. It was so fresh, so original... Like a fool, I took control of my character, Captain Devin Ross, and rushed into The Box with my six warrior-magician teammates – We’re the Jericho squad. My haste cost me dearly, as I lost my life in an early battle; but in The Box, this meant I merely lost my body.

As Ross’s spirit, I could inhabit any of my Jericho squadron and play as them.

Squad-based ‘shooters’ are always fun, but Jericho offers a refreshingly new gameplay. I had the choice of playing as six different players at any time I wanted, each with different armoury and unique magic spells: From Xavier Jones’ ability to project his astral image and Frank Delgado’s shield of fire, to Abigail Black’s telekinesis and Billie Church’s blood wards that freeze enemies. I know it sounds like a lot of multi-tasking, but trust me, five minutes of practice was all that was needed.

And so, my Jericho squad set forth to stop The FirstBorn. The story unfolded with great charm, as I went back in time and learnt about past attempts to stop it. The fights were great, the gameplay refreshing, and it all lasted for a long time too; in fact, if it weren’t for the anti-climatic main boss fight, Jericho could very well have earned a perfect score.

All the while, I learnt more about my squad through their conversations, which almost made me forget that they were

virtual: Little bickering and some banter; shouting, screaming and pacifying. Well, it sure sounded real.

The sounds didn’t help in snapping me back to reality either. Sure, the visuals were good, but some animations did remind me that it’s just a game. But the sounds? I still hear them sometimes: Those grotesque wails of the undead, interspersed with the sound my feet splashing through a river of blood and guts. And Barker’s experience with the film world showed through with his well-timed, heavy bass notes. A braver man than I would play the game again solely to study the art of building a spooky ambience.

Jericho really is a masterpiece in the art of horror story-telling. The secret, I think, lies in the little things – like how the mere prospect of a group of children attacking you seems a lot more frightening than a cloud of flying ‘man-bats’.

One more thing: Don’t let your kids play this one. Yes, it has a ‘Mature 18 ’ rating, but we tend to gloss over that many times. But the amount of violence, strong language and pure gore in Jericho warrants special attention to the age limit.

There’s often talk about how the movie industry and the video games industry would merge in the future, with what would be termed as ‘interactive films’. If you ask me, Clive Barker’s Jericho is a sneak peek into that world.

The timing of the release is unfortunate as it clashes with the launch of a lot of popular titles. But remember, missing out on Jericho is your own loss.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Molecular detectives

Scientists have developed technology that could speed-up the detection of the virus that causes cervical cancer by using just a single molecule; method could also be used to detect other viruses such as HIV and avian flu

Researchers in the US have developed a technology that detects a single molecule of the virus associated with cervical cancer in women. The development, they say, could help in the early detection of diseases.

The advancement is a significant improvement over the current test for the human papillomavirus (HPV), said Edward Yeung, a professor of chemistry at Iowa State University, and leader of the research team that developed the new test.

About the pathogen...

Papillomaviruses are a diverse group of DNA-based viruses that infect the skin and mucous membranes of humans and a variety of animals.

Over 100 different human papillomavirus (HPV) types have been identified so far.

Research scientist, Edward Yeung, uses laser beams to light up tags that indicate molecules of human papillomavirus are present in a cell
Some HPV types may cause skin warts while others may cause an infection resulting in precancerous lesions. All HPVs are transmitted by skin-to-skin contact.

A group of about 30-40 HPVs is typically transmitted through sexual contact. However, some HPV types, which may infect the genitals, do not to cause any noticeable signs of infection.

Notably, HPV infection is a necessary factor in the development of nearly all cases of cervical cancer.

Researchers believe that the human papillomavirus is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections the world over.

When one molecule is better than fifty The current test, the Nobel Prize-winning polymerase chain reaction technique, requires 10 to 50 virus molecules for detection.

“We are always interested in detecting smaller and smaller amounts of material at lower and lower concentrations,” Yeung said. “Detecting lower levels means earlier diagnosis.”

The discovery by Yeung, Jiangwei Li, an Iowa State doctoral student; and Ji-Young Lee, a former Iowa State doctoral student; was published in the Nov 1 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Their work was funded by a five-year, $9,50,000 grant from US’ National Institutes of Health.

The project advanced rapidly just as the human papillomavirus made headlines in scientific circles: In June of 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine – for females up to the age of 26 – that was developed to prevent cervical cancer, precancerous lesions and genital warts caused by four types of the virus.

Yeung said single molecule detection of the virus could help earlier detection of disease and could help prevent serious consequences.

The new detection technology improves current technology by eliminating a step to amplify DNA samples for testing.
Although the current test is efficient and well understood, the amplification can cause small contaminants to create test errors.

Yeung’s single molecule technique involves creating chemical reagents that recognise and fluorescently tag the genetic sequence of the human papillomavirus.

Test samples pass through a laser beam that lights the tags. Cameras capture the images for computer analysis.

The research team tested the technique using

samples from normal Pap smears. They also spiked some of those samples with the virus to make sure the tests picked up known amounts of the virus.

Although this test concentrated on detecting the human papillomavirus, Yeung said it should detect HIV, avian flu and other viruses as well.

Will the tech make it to medical labs?

Yeung said he won’t be directly involved in taking the detection technology to market. But he said companies have expressed some interest in licensing and developing the technology.

As that project moves on, Yeung will continue looking for ways to detect chemical targets at the smallest limits. He said the next challenge is to figure out how to detect single molecules of proteins.

No driver, no worry

Autonomous robotic cars race through simulated life-like road conditions, throwing up the possibility of unmanned vehicles for military as well as civilian purposes




The race began with mechanics moving eleven cars to the starting line. The monsters roared their engine at the starting line. But at the fateful moment, the drivers abandoned their vehicles, and the cars began moving on their own, eliciting cheers from thousands of spectators!

Robotic cars built by prominent universities in the US competed Saturday in a high-stakes race organised by the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which hopes to use driverless vehicles as weapons on urban battlefields by 2015.

The competition was staged at an unused military base, and promises a first-place prize of $2 million.

A member of the MIT team tunes their entry’s computer before the start of the race
Cars and trucks with electronic brains, sensors, radar and other sophisticated gear crafted to eliminate the need for humans at steering wheels had to manoeuvre 100 kilometres along mock city streets in less than six hours.

The cars picked up pace as they found their way along streets of the closed-down base without any help.

The challenge sent them along neighbourhood roads, through traffic and around jams created by humans. About 50 humans piloted other cars to simulate real road conditions.

Over and over, cars with a warning honk and roof-rack of space-age gear came to a perfect halt at the stop sign of a deserted intersection, then pulled through smoothly.

In fact, the biggest error was a minor ‘fender bender’, which did not stop or significantly damage either vehicle.

“There’s more computing power in the back (of the cars) than most companies have,” said Paul Barrett, team leader of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) entry, while describing the technology that went into their modified Land Rover.

Only seven contenders remained by the end of the race, and Stanford University’s ‘Junior’, crossed the finish line first.

Carnegie Mellon University’s entry finished second, while Virginia Tech took third place.

Finishing first does not guarantee victory because speed is just one of several criteria used to determine who will be the champion and get the prize money.

Competitors are also rated for precision and performance while navigating the course.

Of the five finalists who bogged down early, one car ended up in a driveway with its sensors continuing to swivel, while an 11-tonne self-controlled green truck called the TerraMax halted inches away from mowing down a column.

In qualifying events, some robot cars simply stopped, lost in thought, climbed over curbs and sideswiped parked vehicles.

However, this scenario is still a lot better than the first DARPA race held in 2004, which had no finishers.

While the teams get fame and large cash rewards, it’s the US military that hopes to be the real winner, by gaining technology that would enable the military to make a third of its vehicles robotic by 2015.

Manufacturer Oshkosh trucks, which built the TerraMax, supplies the US military in Iraq, and a driverless version is exactly what is needed to cut the number of soldiers’ lives at risk in battle.

Universities also see interesting artificial intelligence problems to solve, while corporations see the building blocks of an automobile of the future.

However, there’s enough interest for the common man as well, as hundreds of spectators turned out for the event.

Along with the military uses, DARPA sees the race as ensuring better public safety as well.

While the cars may not be ready to hit the vehicle market just yet, DARPA said the contenders should throw up a few options in the forseeable future.


Inside the Winner
Here’s a look at what goes inside Stanford University’s ‘Junior’, which finished first.

The body
Model: 2006 Volkswagen Passat wagon
Engine: 4-cylinder turbo diesel injection
Transmission: 6-speed direct-shift gearbox
Fuel Consumption: City: 10.8 km/l;
Highway: 18.1 km/l; Combined: 14.7 km/l
Top speed: 203km/h
Acceleration: 0-100km/h in 10.1sec


The senses
Cutting-edge sensors and custom AI software enable Junior to determine its position and perceive its surroundings, day or night, even in adverse GPS conditions. To measure its localisation and perception, the car uses an array of Lidars – a measuring system that detects and locates objects on the same principle as radar, but uses light from a laser. It can estimate positions with an accuracy of within 5cm.


The brains
Hardware: High-tech servers crunch sensor data up to 20 times a second, and run Junior’s artificial intelligence software.

Software: Junior’s intelligence comes from a suite of integrated, custom-coded programs that include four major components: a planner to make decisions and choose paths; a mapper to transform sensor data into environment models; a localiser to refine GPS position and road map structure from lane markings; and a controller to turn decisions into driving.