'Atlas' humanoid robot

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[b][color=#0000FF]Atlas robot So far, Atlas has only been put through its paces in a lab[/color][/b]

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

US unveils 'Atlas' humanoid robot test bed
BBC News, 12 July 2013

<<A humanoid robot called Atlas could pave the way for intelligent machines to help in the wake of natural disasters. The two meter tall robot was created as a test bed for a US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency challenge. The Darpa challenge demands Atlas completes eight tasks that it might have to perform in an emergency. Six teams have until December 2013 to develop software that will help Atlas complete the tasks. Atlas has been developed by the Boston Dynamics robotics firm which has been working on robots that can aid the military.

Like a human, Atlas has two arms and legs and gets around by walking. It sees using a stereo laser scanning system and has gripping hands developed by two separate robotics companies. Unlike humans, it has a high speed networking system built-in so it can communicate with its creators and pipe data back from disaster areas.

Before now, the teams taking part in the robotic challenge have only worked with virtual versions of Atlas. In the next stage of the competition, algorithms and control programs for the virtual Atlas will be transferred to the real thing. The teams will then have five months to refine Atlas's abilities before taking part in a series of trials. During those, a tethered version of Atlas will be expected to complete tasks which include driving a car, removing debris blocking doors. climbing a ladder, finding and closing a valve and connecting a fire hose.

The best performing teams in the December 2013 trials will win funding to continue refining Atlas so it can perform all eight tasks autonomously during the challenge finals in late 2014. "We have dramatically raised the expectations for robotic capabilities with this challenge," said Gill Pratt, programme manager for the challenge in a statement.

Darpa kicked off the competition in a bid to help drive breakthroughs in robotics. Current autonomous machines tended to be highly specialised and limited in their ability to cope with the real world. The teams taking part include researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Virginia Tech and hi-tech firm Schaft.>>

[Beyond]

Only five tasks are listed here. I suppose they will list the other three at the final trial.

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Only five tasks are listed here. I suppose they will list the other three at the final trial.

• Atlas might need one of these APPs:

Sarcasm detector! I’m really excited!
By Alexandra Petri, Washington Post: July 11

<<According to the BBC, a French company called Spotter has designed a sarcasm detector. It relies on an algorithm and, if Spotter’s estimates are correct, is capable of picking up on about 80 percent of sarcasm. That’s GREAT!

It used to be that you could only algorithm your way to 50 percent. I could do better than that, and I am the person who responds to “Cool story, bro!” with effusive, heartfelt thanks. (Then again, I once spent several hours squinting at a ceiling to try to locate where “gullible” was written on it, so maybe I am a bad sample.)

“One of our clients is Air France. If someone has a delayed flight, they will tweet ‘Thanks Air France for getting us into London two hours late’ — obviously they are not actually thanking them,” the company’s U.K. sales director, Richard May, told the BBC. I’m glad they are here to tell us these things.

Eighty percent, if correct, is higher than some people.

I get a fair number of e-mails every week from people who do not realize when I am joking, because communicating online through text alone has robbed us of the rich nonverbal cues that would have indicated that, say, Jonathan Swift did not actually want to eat the Irish children. (I am not sure what these rich nonverbal cues were in Jonathan Swift’s case. Possibly he wiggled his eyebrows a lot.) I suggested earlier this week that the president needed to be impeached after declaring that broccoli his favorite food, and I got a note from a reader observing, quite reasonably, that “if any random, basic person said to you, ‘Broccoli is my favorite food,’ you wouldn’t say, ‘What, that’s crazy. You should lose your job.’” Good observation, citizen! Please don’t run that last sentence through Spotter.

People keep making the case that we need a “Sark Mark” or indicator of sarcasm, given the vast volume of our communication that takes place via text, either online or in our phones. And that’s true. Without intonation, as numerous T-shirts remind us, a misplaced comma can be the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!” You can get into dangerous territory quickly, long before you reach the other common problem of parents mistaking LOL for Lots of Love. It is the inability to discern tone that forces congenitally earnest people like me to end every sentence in our e-mails with an exclamation point, lest we be misconstrued. Better to sound a little deranged at all times than to sound like you might not mean it!

And that’s not the only application for a sarcasm indicator. Consider the Internet rule Poe’s Law, which states that once you pass a certain point, it becomes impossible to tell the difference between actual extremism and a parody of extremism. As a first test, I would like to run this subreddit fundraiser for Victims of Feminism through Spotter’s detector. Maybe the machine will be able to discern if this is ridicule or COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS. If it can do that, it’ll be worth its weight in gold.

Actually!>>

[Chris Peterson]

Only five tasks are listed here. I suppose they will list the other three at the final trial.

I'm pretty sure that the final task is to find and kill John Connor.

[Beyond]

Only five tasks are listed here. I suppose they will list the other three at the final trial.

I'm pretty sure that the final task is to find and kill John Connor.

That's -one-. Any guesses as to the other two

EDIT. Sleeping on the job. That's hard for a robot to do. .. One more to go.

[Moonlady]

Only five tasks are listed here. I suppose they will list the other three at the final trial.

I'm pretty sure that the final task is to find and kill John Connor.

[BMAONE23]

How about to aid in the development of Skynet

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<<Roger Connor (July 1, 1857 – January 4, 1931) entered the National League in 1880 as a member of the Troy Trojans. He later played for the New York Gothams, and, due to his great stature, gave that team the enduring nickname "Giants". He was regularly among the league leaders in batting average and home runs until his retirement in 1897. Although he only led the league in home runs once (the Players' League in 1890), Connor's career mark of 138 was a benchmark not surpassed until 1921 by Babe Ruth. He finished his career with a .317 batting average. Connor is credited with being the first player to hit a grand slam in the major leagues and being the first to hit an over-the-wall home run at the Polo Grounds. His grand slam came with two outs and his team down three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. George Vecsey, in The New York Times wrote: "Roger Connor was a complete player — a deft first baseman and an agile base runner who hit 233 triples and stole 244 bases despite his size (6 feet 3 inches and 200 pounds)."

In the 1880s, the Polo Grounds was considered a difficult place to hit a home run. However, on September 11, 1886, Roger Connor hit a ball completely out of the Polo Grounds, off Boston's Old Hoss Radbourn, depositing the ball over the right field fence and onto 112th Street. The New York Times reported of the feat, "He met it squarely and it soared up with the speed of a carrier pigeon. All eyes were turned on the tiny sphere as it soared over the head of Charlie Buffinton in right field."

In Connor's first year in the Majors with the Troy Trojans, he teamed with future Hall-of-Famers Dan Brouthers, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe and Mickey Welch, all of whom were just starting their careers. Also on that 1880 Trojans team, though much older, was Bob "Death to Flying Things" Ferguson. After retiring as a player in 1897, Connor moved back to his hometown of Waterbury and managed several minor league teams. He lived to see his career home run record bested by Babe Ruth.>>

[BMAONE23]

So Connor made it to First Base

[Beyond]

And beyond Quite a few times

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

So Connor made it to First Base

And beyond Quite a few times

• Indeed He's even going to marry Yum-Yum

[Beyond]

Well, i guess that's a lot better than 'smokin' her

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Sarcasm detector! I’m really excited!
By Alexandra Petri, Washington Post: July 11

<<According to the BBC, a French company called Spotter has designed a sarcasm detector. It relies on an algorithm and, if Spotter’s estimates are correct, is capable of picking up on about 80 percent of sarcasm. That’s GREAT! Eighty percent, if correct, is higher than some people. "If someone has a delayed flight, they will tweet ‘Thanks Air France for getting us into London two hours late’ — obviously they are not actually thanking them,” the company’s U.K. sales director, Richard May, told the BBC. >>

[Beyond]

Some people Heck i figure I'm good for at least 1%. All we need now, is some more people to add up to 80%, and we got it beat