Advanced robotics - meet the real life C-3PO

It looks like a stripped-down version of Star Wars character C-3PO.

But this robot is science fact not fiction - and one of the most advanced in the world.

Ecci, as it has been named, is the first ever robot to have 'muscles' and 'tendons', as well as the 'bones' they help move. All made of a specially developed plastic.

And most advanced of all, it also has a brain with the ability to correct its mistakes - a trait previously only seen in humans.

World first: Ecci's creators say it is the most advanced robot ever created with tendons, muscles, bones, a brain and the visual capability of a human

Ecci looks like a stripped-down version of Star Wars character C-3PO seen here in a scene from the film with R2D2

Developed by a team of scientists at the University of Zurich, Ecci, is short for Eccerobot. Ecce in Latin means Lo or Behold.

The robot uses a series of electric motors to move the joints the tendons are connected to.

And a computer built into the brain of Ecci allows him to learn from his mistakes.

If, for example, a movement is causing him to stumble or drop something – the information is studied and analysed to avoid making the same mistake next time.

The creation also has the same vision capacity of humans too, despite only having one cyclops style eye.

The scientists now hope their creation will usher in a whole new generation for robots - and could aid development of artificial limbs.

Learning from its mistakes: The robot has a brain that allows it to analyse data if a movement causes it to stumble or drop something - thereby ensuring it does not happen again

Rolf Pfeifer, who is director of the laboratory for artificial intelligence at the University said 'It opens up a lot of possibilities but in particular it will help us to understand better how the human moving apparatus works – a complicated task.

'If we can make a robot hand operate like ours then it opens up all sorts of possibilities for artificial limbs. It would also mean a robot that moved like a person could take over some of the jobs done by people where human hands are needed.'

Scientists have worked on the multi-million pound project for three years, with funding provided partially by private enterprise alongside two million euros from EU funds.

The team now plan to present a more complete version of Ecci in two months time.

Sparsh- A bonus Invention by Pranav Mistry helps store data in your body

How often does you work suffer, just coz you don’t have enough Gigs left in you pen-drive to hold and transfer data? This situation crops up with me all the time.

Transmitting files and folders from one workstation to another is a bit of an ordeal. Researcher Pranav Mistry of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has cut the knot. He eased out this pain by making it as easy as picking up things from one place and keeping them to another just like we do with physical objects.

Pranav Mistry who attracted global attention for his invention-Sixth Sense and even received Popular Science 2009 Invention Award has struck back again with ‘Sparsh’. He has designed a system (Sparsh) in such a manner that if a user desires to copy a data item from one device to another, all he has to do is touch the screen to copy it (from the source) conceptually saving it in the user’s body, and then touching the other device (the destination) to which they want to paste the copied content.

For instance, you wish to call a long lost friend and you look for that person’s phone number on your laptop. Generally you will see and type the numbers from your laptop to your Smartphone, but if both devices are operating Sparsh, just lay a thumb on the phone number on your laptop’s screen, and then touch your smartphone’s keypad. The system would automatically know what you have transmitted is a phone number and it will then dial it for you. How cool is that?

How it works? The first touch copies the phone number to a temporary file in either a Dropbox or an FTP account and the second touch recuperates the data. This require both devices to be running the software and for a user to be signed into their Dropbox or FTP account. It works for any type of data, be it a photo, an address or a link to a YouTube clip.

Presently Sparsh toils on an application such as smartphones, tablets and other computers, although Mistry states that, “the ideal home for Sparsh is to be built into an OS, so that it can provide the copy-paste feature across all applications”. He says it’s currently possible to incorporate this into Google’s Android mobile operating system and that his team has also implemented a browser-based version.

Among some of his prior works, Pranav has invented Mousless which is an invisible computer mouse;thirdEye – Multiple viewers can see different things on a single screen; QUICKiES intelligent sticky notes that can be searched, located and can send reminders and messages; inktuitive – An intuitive physical design workspace; a pen that can draw in 3D; invent – design of a programming language for children; RoadRunner 2.01 – a 3D car racing game; TaPuMa a public map that can act as Google of physical world and a lot more.

Pranav also won Young Innovator Award TR35 by Technology Review and recently also named on 2010 Creativity 50 list — the list of the most influential and inspiring inventive personalities of 2010.Pranav holds a Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay (now known as Mumbai) besides his Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering from Gujarat University. Pranav’s research interests include Ubiquitous computing, Gestural and Tangible Interaction, AI, Augmented reality, Machine vision, Collective intelligence and Robotics.

An Inivisible Computer Mouse – Yet Another Invention By Pranav Mistry

Pranav Mistry, who earlier had made headlines for his invention Sixth Sense and even received Popular Science 2009 Invention Award for it, has now invented yet another similar device and this time its invisible – A mouse and amusingly it costs just 20$ to build its prototype.

The perpetual changes in computer technology & web has seen many evolutions, right from large room size CPUs to miroprogrammed slim netbooks, heavy bulky monitors to thin LCDs, few MBs capacity hard disks to trillion capacity HDs but in all these what remained nearly unchanged and un-evolved is mouse – moving it around to help us interact computer.

Mouseless is an invisible computer mouse project done in in MIT Fluid Interfaces Group headed by Pranav Mistry, this invisible mouse provides the familiarity of interaction of a physical mouse without actually needing a real hardware mouse, hence removes the requirement of having a physical mouse altogether but still provides the intuitive interaction of a physical mouse that everyone is familiar with.

Mouseless consists of – (1) an Infrared (IR) laser beam, (2) an Infrared camera and both embedded in the computer itself. The laser beam module is modified with a line cap and placed such that it creates a plane of IR laser just above the surface the computer sits on. The user cups their hand, as if a physical mouse was present underneath, and the laser beam lights up the hand which is in contact with the surface. The IR camera detects those bright IR blobs using computer vision. The change in the position and arrangements of these blobs are interpreted as mouse cursor movement and mouse clicks. As the user moves their hand the cursor on screen moves accordingly. When the user taps their index finger, the size of the blob changes and the camera recognizes the intended mouse click.

However, the possibilities of this mouse is just beyond the capabilities of a modern mouse we use these days as Pranav Mistry stated on its website – As we improve our computer vision algorithms, an extensive library of gestures could be implemented in addition to mouse movement and mouse clicks. Typical multitouch gestures, such as zooming in and out, as well as novel gestures, such as balling one’s fist are all possible. In addition, the use of multiple laser beams would allow for recognition of a wider range of free hand motions, enabling novel gestures that the hardware mouse cannot support.

Wireless Electricity Is Here (Seriously)

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Ryan Tseng, CEO of WiPower, says his system is cheaper and better than rival eCoupled's. | 

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Ryan Tseng holds his wirelessly lit lightbulb 3 inches above its power source. 

I'm standing next to a Croatian-born American genius in a half-empty office in Watertown, Massachusetts, and I'm about to be fried to a crisp. Or I'm about to witness the greatest advance in electrical science in a hundred years. Maybe both.

Either way, all I can think of is my electrician, Billy Sullivan. Sullivan has 11 tattoos and a voice marinated in Jack Daniels. During my recent home renovation, he roared at me when I got too close to his open electrical panel: "I'm the Juice Man!" he shouted. "Stay the hell away from my juice!"

He was right. Only gods mess with electrons. Only a fool would shoot them into the air. And yet, I'm in a conference room with a scientist who is going to let 120 volts fly out of the wall, on purpose.

"Don't worry," says the MIT assistant professor and a 2008 MacArthur genius-grant winner, Marin Soljacic (pronounced SOLE-ya-cheech), who designed the box he's about to turn on. "You will be okay."

We both shift our gaze to an unplugged Toshiba television set sitting 5 feet away on a folding table. He's got to be kidding: There is no power cord attached to it. It's off. Dark. Silent. "You ready?" he asks.

If Soljacic is correct -- if his free-range electrons can power up this untethered TV from across a room -- he will have performed a feat of physics so subtle and so profound it could change the world. It could also make him a billionaire. I hold my breath and cover my crotch. Soljacic flips the switch.

Soljacic isn't the first man to try to power distant electronic devices by sending electrons through the air. He isn't even the first man from the Balkans to try. Most agree that Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, who went on to father many of the inventions that define the modern electronic era, was the first to let electrons off their leash, in 1890.

Tesla based his wireless electricity idea on a concept known as electromagnetic induction, which was discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831 and holds that electric current flowing through one wire can induce current to flow in another wire, nearby. To illustrate that principle, Tesla built two huge "World Power" towers that would broadcast current into the American air, to be received remotely by electrical devices around the globe.

Few believed it could work. And to be fair to the doubters, it didn't, exactly. When Tesla first switched on his 200-foot-tall, 1,000,000-volt Colorado Springs tower, 130-foot-long bolts of electricity shot out of it, sparks leaped up at the toes of passersby, and the grass around the lab glowed blue. It was too much, too soon.

But strap on your rubber boots; Tesla's dream has come true. After more than 100 years of dashed hopes, several companies are coming to market with technologies that can safely transmit power through the air -- a breakthrough that portends the literal and figurative untethering of our electronic age. Until this development, after all, the phrase "mobile electronics" has been a lie: How portable is your laptop if it has to feed every four hours, like an embryo, through a cord? How mobile is your phone if it shuts down after too long away from a plug? And how flexible is your business if your production area can't shift because you can't move the ceiling lights?

The world is about to be cured of its attachment disorder.