Image Caption: WIRED NextFest Banner at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The Fourth Annual WIRED NextFest in Los Angeles, California, USA this past weekend offered a glimpse of our technological future with a variety of themed pavilions exploring the future of exploration, entertainment, security, education, design, robotics, green technologies, communication, play, health, and transportation.

WIRED NextFest is hosted by a different city every year, and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined WIRED Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson, event sponsor Hitachi’s Chief Executive for North America Tadahiko Ishigaki, and teacher and astronaut Barbara Morgan to open the event around 10:00 AM on Thursday, September 13, 2007. The event began a day early for the media and 9,000 4th through 12th graders. Scores of school children were on hand for the opening ceremony, which featured a jet-pack flyover and the Kiyomori Samurai Robot from tmsuk. Mayor Villaraigosa said it was a day to focus on education by providing “a window, if you will, into the future.” He said that “Technology is an opportunity for us to go into space, to find cures for diseases, and an opportunity for us to change the world.”

Future of Robotics Pavilion

The opening ceremony was followed by the Google Lunar X PRIZE announcement and tours of the pavilions. A variety of robots were on display at the Future of Robotics pavilion. Xi’An Chaoren Sculpture Research Institute was present with company founder Zou Ren Ti and his look-alike android. The android is nearly indistinguishable from human because of realistic looking skin and motions that include blinking and other facial movements.

Image Caption: Zou Ren Ti Android Robot.

Hanson Robotics was another company present showing off their robots, including “Revolutionary Robotic Friend” Zeno and other more human-looking robots. Zeno is a 43 cm (17-inch) tall, 6 pound toy expected to be released sometime in the next few years. The robot is being developed to recognize faces, show emotions, and carry on conversations. His skin is made of a polymer that can easily be moved via motors create realistic facial expressions. A camera behind one eye and a microphone will eventually feed inputs into what company representatives described as a “learning AI”. The robots on hand were not yet enabled with AI but did demonstrate scripted facial expressions and face-recognition capabilities. Hanson Robotics plans to use animation software to develop Zeno’s capabilities and train the learning AI.

Image Caption: Zeno, a “RoboKind” robot from Hanson Robotics.

Earlier robots on display by Hanson Robotics included representative robots from their “HumanKind” line of products, including Albert Einstein

Image Caption: HumanKind robots Albert Einstein and friend, from Hanson Robotics.

Future of Exploration Pavilion

A simple all-terrain rover was a favorite with students and technology bloggers for the simply reason that people could lay down and become the terrain for the rover to drive over. Capable of climbing gently over objects twice the size of its wheels, the rover demonstrated technology that is being used to explore other planets while being of particular interest to kids.

Future of Design Pavilion

A highlight of the design pavilion was a polymer from d3o Lab. The gooey material d3o is easily molded but hardens instantly upon impact to absorb much of the energy. Used as a shock absorber, the material has found its way into clothing for Olympics athletes, snowboarders, mountain bikers, motorcyclists, and others. While not intended to stop bullets, d3o could be used with bullet-proof materials to absorb some of the residual energy that can still cause damage.

Future of Health Pavilion

Researchers from Wake Forest University and the University of Michigan were on hand to show their progress in developing artificial organs and regenerated body parts.

Graduate student Luda Khait from the University of Michigan Artificial Heart Laboratory explained that one of the goals of their research is to create tissues for transplant into heart attack victims in hopes of repairing damaged heart muscle. They hope to demonstrate that externally grown cells and tissues will go where needed when implanted into patients. Right now the technology is being developed using rat models. They have been able to use cells from rats on a special gel to create networks of cells that beat, a desired outcome of cardiotissue engineering. The differentiated cells used are taken from the hearts of three to four year old rats.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Wake Forest University Institute for Regenerative Medicine have successfully grown pig heart valves, a milestone toward a future where tissues and organs can be grown in bioreactors for patients. One of the difficulties in engineering organs is their fragile nature. A valve, for example, will readily withstand the continuous opening and closing motion of its action in the heart. A valve created outside the body, however, needs to be strengthened to handle this task. Therefore, technology that mimics the heart beat can be used to “train” the grown valve prior to implantation.

On display was an inkjet printer modified to print cells in a medium instead of ink. 2-D tissues can be “printed” in this way, but 3-D organs are the holy grail in regenerative medicine. These 3-D organs will have nutrient and oxygen requirements even before implantation, but researchers believe that the rapid pace of innovation in the field will lead to significant breakthroughs within the next five to ten years.

Traffic and Long Lines

Organizers expected to match last year’s 47,000 attendees over four days. On Friday, September 14, 2007 with the event open to the public, a line of people quickly stretched around the South Hall venue amidst heavy automobile traffic. Local media coverage and global Internet coverage, including many technology blogs, were extensive.

The IFE ROV “Hercules” is sending stunning live video - broadcast over the Internet on the NOAA Ocean Explorer site - from near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at a depth of over 2,000 feet. The mission? To explore the white carbonate chimneys and other geological formations at the “Lost City” site and surrounding areas.

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Image Courtesy NOAA, VBrick, EDS and TELEX/RTS.

I am watching live video footage from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean as I write this, courtesy of the NOAA Ocean Explorer site. The Lost City 2005 Expedition is using telepresence to operate the IFE ROV Hercules to explore the white carbonate chimneys and other geological formations from the “Lost City” site and surrounding areas. The spectacular locale at a depth of 2,100 feet was only discovered in the year 2000.

The expedition site is complete with information about the site and mission, blog updates from the crew, and the live video feed. The video is fascinating to watch, and truly dramatic reality television. For example, earlier this morning, the robot arm tried to place an orange object into its basket to take back up to the surface. However, the object appeared to be quite delicate and started to break apart. After several frustrating attempts, the operator was able to retrieve some of the object and drop it into the basket. Sounds lame? Just watch. This could turn out to be the most exciting movie I have seen all summer.

The expedition is scheduled to last through early August. I will provide further information and images on Frontier Channel.

The invasion of Finland by giant robotic insects has taken an ugly turn with reports of forestry workers being swallowed whole. The unfortunate victims are visible through the insect’s clear head/stomach and look strangely industrious even while being slowing digested.

The six-legged freaks march through the forest like locusts, eating trees and unwary John Deere employees with an unsightly single mandible erupting out of the top of their head. Witnesses have reported surprising agility. Pursuit is difficult; the beasts leave no tracks. Green and black with yellow highlights on the mandible, the menace threatens the forestry industry with their automated efficiency. Experts worry that it is only a matter of time before the workers are gone. And after the robotic insects take over Finland, will they set their malicious sights on the world? Stay tuned.

Most robots at work today look nothing like humans (although much work is going into a new generation of bipedal robots.) For example, Rotundus AB in Sweden has developed spherical robots that move around by rolling using the physics of mass and rotation. While the technology developed by Rotundus focuses on the mobility of the robots, the design allows for a payload of cameras or other sensors for surveillance purposes. The media page on the Rotundus site includes images and movies of the robots in action.

When the Segway Human Transporter (HT) was unveiled a few years ago, most people reacted with a collective “That’s it?” and the expected transportation revolution never materialized. Interestingly enough, however, the few people who have actually tried and/or bought an HT have a completely different reaction. exhilarated praise. To take advantage of this fact, Segway has opened up dealerships were people can take a test drive, in hopes of spurring interest and, of course, sales.

The HT itself may not revolutionize transportation, but the self-balancing technology on which it was based has turned out to be revolutionary for a new generation of mobility devices for the handicapped and another group of individuals looking for mobility solutions.

Robots.

Space.com is reporting on the work of various research groups using the “Segway Robotic Mobility Platform” to build robots that can open doors, play soccer, or roll into hazardous areas. The mobility platform provides a solution for mobility issues in robots, allowing researchers to focus on other problems. By eliminating the human-centric design of the original Segway, an upcoming revision to the platform will make it easier to attach robotic payloads.

Humans just might get into the act yet. Popular Science was lucky enough to get the scoop on Segway’s successor to the HT. This new vehicle might just change the world yet.

Contemporary humanoid robots may look cool, but these robots really do very little thinking. They simply follow specific and exact orders from a human operator with preset motions and activities. Sony hopes to address this issue by moving the robot brain outside the robot body. The robot will connect wirelessly to a supercomputing grid that will take care of all processing and should start allowing robots to think for themselves.

Grids combine the processing power and communication ability of computers into a larger entity that acts as one large supercomputer. Grids are beginning to pop up all over, often in unlikely places. There are grids that try to predict the stock market, grids used by universities and researchers for processing-hungry simulations, grids for games that support millions of players at the same time, and grids maintained by businesses to make better use of their own computer resources. All of these grids will continue to grow, diversify, and merge, until the grid fabric becomes so pervasive than no one will be able to tell where one component grid begins and another ends. Robots will tap this enormous supercomputer brain. As robotics and grid technology progress, they will rapidly converge, creating a future that is beyond human predictive abilities. After all, what does it mean to have robots with supercomputer brains or super fast wireless connections to supercomputer brains? What happens when a robot has a supercomputer built into its body AND still connects to the Grid? And what happens when supercomputers begin approaching human-level intelligence?

You know those bright orange and white “bollards” placed on roads to direct traffic at construction sites? They are placed by construction workers, a task long considered to be quite dangerous. New robotic bollards have been developed that deploy themselves with the assistance of a human operator kept safely out of harm’s way. According to the developers, the two primary obstacles to acceptance are price (expected to fall rapidly) and the availability of user-friendly software interfaces (currently being created). I think I might actually have beaten Marshall Brain to the punch this time!

Here is a link to videos of a new robot performing various activities. Of course I found it on Marshall Brain’s Robotic Nation Evidence blog.

The robots are here, and they are planning to stay.

Marshal Brain’s latest Robotic Nation Evidence entry (04/05/04) seems to be stretching things a bit, but first impressions can be misleading. He illustrates what I have long held to be a sure sign of a rapidly changing world: the tiny changes that individually seem insignificant but in number indicate a coming tidal wave of change. He shows how advertising is subtly reflecting changes in the way we humans perceive robotics and automation in our future. The ad he quotes uses “untouched by human hands” as a statement of the highest quality.

To continue today’s theme of obstacles to technology, I believe that there are two primary obstacles standing in the way of Brain’s Robotic Nation. The first is the current state of robotic visualization systems. Scientists and engineers have not yet come up with a visualization system as complex as our own eyes and the visual processing that goes on in our brain. However, they are advancing quickly toward such a system, with many systems currently in use doing quite well at specific visualization tasks. A system that combines all of today’s advances will be formidable.

The second obstacle is more profound. Power supplies are rapidly becoming the major bottleneck in all technologies, including robotics. Today’s most advanced mobile robots last about twenty minutes before needing to recharge their gigantic batteries. Until robots can operate for days between charges, or can depend on power systems analogous to human’s need to eat for fuel, their usefulness and range will be limited. I expect the visualization obstacle to be overcome by 2020 and the power requirement obstacle to be overcome sometime after that. Both could occur much sooner depending on an unforeseen technological breakthrough or scientific discovery.