Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
Scientists have created a way to control a robot with signals from a human brain.
By generating the proper brainwaves—picked up by a cap with electrodes that sense the signals and reflect a person’s instructions—scientists can instruct a humanoid robot to move to specific locations and pick up certain objects [video].
The commands are limited to moving forward, picking up one of two objects and bringing it to one of two locations. The researchers have achieved 94 percent accuracy between the thought commands and the robot’s movements.
“This is really a proof-of-concept demonstration,” said Rajesh Rao, a researcher from the University of Washington who leads the project. “It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person’s home.”
And this news is three years old. Imagine what they’ve come up with since then…
London’s Science Museum unveiled a new member of staff Tuesday — Berti the robot, who entertains visitors by playing rock-paper-scissors with them.
But the robot’s makers hope that Berti, who is less than two years old, will eventually help them develop artificial intelligence to a higher level than ever before.
“We are working towards the design of future humanoid robots that will be intuitive and natural for people to interact with,” said Graham Whiteley of Elumotion, a robotics firm which built Berti with Bristol Robotics Laboratory.
And so, a photography challenge to my photography students (robotics students can try this too, but might not see the point)… shoot a photo demonstrating the rule of thirds. Show it to me.
Gain fame and fortune. Or perhaps just a bit of food.
Well… PDQScience has morphed into more of a photography blog. Seeing as how I teach four photography classes, and only two robotics this term, it seems only fitting.
I should perhaps think about calling the blog PDQPhoto.
And so, a little inspiration for the beginning of the week. First this, of a monster from the University of Lethbridge:
Of course, from this point of view, the sculpture could be one of two things; a monster of some sort chasing someone running to the right, or something else, to the left.
This is the creative side of using photography to fool the eye, or other senses. Think about that when you take a picture, and want to choose a different or unique orientation.
And then there’s this video that I’ve been showing to my photo classes. It’s stop animation (many thousands of photographs) put together to help imagine the music. It’s by Israeli artist Oren Lavie, and the song is called Her Morning Elegance.
Simply breathtaking, on so many levels.
As I’ve told my students (parents, I’m sort of talking to you here): I can’t teach creativity, even if I know what it looks like when I see it. The best I can do is show examples of what I think is creative, and teach students some of the basic skills. Skills without which it’s very hard to be creative.
