Can you imagine a robot delivering your baby or downloading a file from your favorite designer to print clothes at home on your 3D printer? You might not have to imagine these things for much longer. These are just a few of the amazing advances we are likely to see in the next ten years, according to seven top futurists who were recently interviewed by The Huffington Post. The article titled 7 Top Futurists Make Some Pretty Surprising Predictions About What The Next Decade Will Bring describes these advances and more. Dr. Ray Kurzweil, inventor, computer scientist, and Director of Engineering at Google, believes that by 2025, 3D printers will be printing clothing and even […]

The following is a guest blog post by Tom Dietterich, current president for The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and Eric Horvitz, former president of AAAI. The first winter AAAI meeting is occurring now in Austin, Texas until Friday, January 30, 2015.  Discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) have jumped into the public eye over the past year, with several luminaries speaking publicly about the threat of AI to the future of humanity.   Over the last several decades, AI — computing methods for automated perception, learning, understanding, and reasoning — have become commonplace in our lives. We plan trips using GPS systems that rely on AI to cut through the complexity of millions […]

Last week the National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA announced $31.5 million in new awards to spur the development and use of robots that work cooperatively with people (known as co-robots). The awards mark the third round of funding made through the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a multi-agency program launched in September 2012 as part of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiative, with NSF as the lead federal agency. The 52 new research awards, ranging from $300,000 to $1.8 million over one to four years, advance fundamental understanding of robotic sensing, motion, computer vision, machine learning and human-computer interaction. The awards […]

The following is a special contribution to this blog from Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair Gregory Hager (Johns Hopkins University). Imagine you have to change the IV on a writhing patient while wearing two layers of protective gear, the temperature is nearly 100 degrees, the humidity is 100 percent, and you’ve been in your suit for nearly an hour. That is the daily struggle for healthcare workers across Western Africa treating Ebola patients. Can we somehow use our technologies, either those existing today or envisioned for the near future, to change the course of this daily battle and, by doing so, have an impact that could potentially save the lives of […]

Could robots really aid in the Ebola fight? On November 7th, robotics researchers from around the country will come together to try to answer that question. They will see if robots can prevent the spread of Ebola by possibly decontaminating infected equipment and or even burying victims. Robin Murphy, a professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University and former CCC council member, is helping to set up this Safety Robotics for Ebola Workers workshop. The workshop will bring together health care workers, relief workers and roboticists. It is co-hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Texas A&M, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. The goal of the workshop is […]

Inspired by the traditional Japanese art form of origami, researchers from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have figured out how to take flat sheets of specialized paper and plastic and make it self-fold into a complex machine that can “get-up and go”. The robot starts as a flat sheet with embedded electronics, which can then transform autonomously into a functional machine. This is done using shape-memory composites that fold themselves along embedded hinges to recreate fundamental folded patterns. The origami-inspired robot can fold itself in 4 minutes and walk away without human intervention. This demonstrates the potential for both complex self-folding machines and autonomous, self-controlled assembly. “This is a new […]