Giant Freakin Robot

One of the loftiest goals of the human condition is to try and achieve a form of immortality, whether it’s figuring out how immortality can exist in nature, or by positing versions of individuals reformed as machines or things less mechanical. Like Avatar, only without all the depletion of human resources and blue skin tones.

This past weekend, Russian multimillionaire Dimitry Itskov held the Global Future 2045 conference in New York City, where a host of some of the brainiest people on Earth gathered to listen to and consider a future of immortal minds and holographic bodies. Sounds like a weekend with Timothy Leary, actually.

Let’s take a look at some of the goals Itskov foresees for humanity. By 2020, he wants humans to be able to control robots with our brains. Five years after that, he wants a Futurama scenario where brains can be transplanted into a life-support system, which includes a robot body. (The headless body of Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon are behind this theory 100%. Haroo!) By 2035, technology should allow our minds to be transferred into computers, rendering problematic items such as brains non-essential. 2045 is the year of the end goal, which will include artificial brains controlling holographic bodies. I know, I know. I’m not even that optimistic when I do something as simple as frying eggs. But if I have a hologram for a body, eating eggs would become a thing of the past, as would millions of humanity’s customs. (Is eating to survive a custom? Sure.)

For a robot trying to get a metal toehold into modern times, there’s no room for ones that fall all over the place like an alcoholic on broken roller skates. A sense of balance and a reliable set of limbs are what the bots of the future need. I mean, for the ones that aren’t just washing dishes and keeping you company. But maybe for future RobOlympic events.

The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) is among the first teams on the planet to create a robot with such realistic arm and leg joints, calling it COMAN (COmplant huMANoid). The robot has 25 degrees of freedom, in most of the areas humans do: the neck, shoulders, elbows, etc. The more flexible joints use a series elastic actuators custom designed by IIT, which allow for realistic flexing and extending of the limbs. The feet include a six-axis force/torque sensor that gives it the ultimate advantage of being able to keep its balance no matter where the pressure comes from. I’m assuming if the thing got hit by a rhino it would tumble, but as far as light pushes from humans and ramped walkways, COMAN has got most other robots beat. Check out the device in action below, and place your bets on when IIT will invent the Bully Bot to promote “real dink-shoving action.”

Tribbles, you may recall, are the cute and soft little buggers from the Star Trek universe that procreate about as often as I type words into this story. But do you want to know the real trouble with Tribbles? They’ve somehow brainwashed us and have manipulated humankind into manufacturing them. And even though they’re not for sale yet, they’ll probably cost a lot of money, the better to destroy our species.

Future heir to the universe’s throne Anna Flagg, along with others at the Sensory Perception and Interaction Research Group (SPIN), have invented the Cuddlebot, a cute and soft little bugger that can’t produce offspring yet, but it’s only a matter of severely limited time. Cuddlebots are touch-sensitive robots that can differentiate between nine different kinds of touching, and can even tell who’s doing it, and it knows that person will call it master.

A big furry ball of mechanized wires, the Cuddlebot can tell whether you’re scratching it, rubbing it, or tickling it, among other things. (No word on strangling though.) After time, it can tell the difference between those who do the tickling. Though it’s at a toy level now, SPIN hopes to further develop the device to use with cell phones and deliver “emotions” through applied gestures. You hear that, horny Japanese inventors?

Site-owner, my boss, and all around swell guy Josh Tyler knew what he was doing by not naming this website Giant Freakin’ Dot Matrix Printer, or Giant Freakin’ Edsel, because those are outdated forms of technology, and there’s a good chance robots will be around longer than we will. 2012 was a big year for our electronic brethren, and the next few years will be unprecedented in terms of how quickly advancements will occur. But scientists can hang their hats up on Vomiting Larry, surely the most advanced being of his kind, now and forevermore. Just don’t hang those hats around his mouth.

Though his name may strike fear in the hearts of germophobes everywhere, Vomiting Larry is actually on their side. He is currently being used in a major study of the highly infectious norovirus in the U.K., where the virus is referred to as the Winter vomiting bug, due to the rampant spreading between homebound citizens during the coldest months. Norovirses, though able to pass relatively quickly through healthy people, have no scientifically sound cures available yet. Ian Goodfellow, of the charity/research foundation Wellcome Trust, calls it “the Ferrari of the virus world,” and he’s been studying it for over ten years, so he should know. No word about what the Ford Pinto of viruses is.