Tele-presence Robot Appears in a Daytime Game Show

I saw The Price is Right the past Wednesday morning. And if you haven't seen that one, you'll never guess one of the prizes that were up for bid. Or... maybe you will.

It was a robot! A tele-presence robot. How cool is that?!

Jonathan from Let's Make a Deal appeared on the robot's monitor to describe the product.

You know, I thought one of these days a robot would be a possible prize on The Price is Right. First, for 2016 it may be another tele-presence robot or maybe a robot vacuum cleaner from iRobot. Next year, it could be a Meccanoid kit, or from Aldebaran Robotics, NAO or Pepper.

Offering a product as a prize is certainly a good way to market it. Good for robotics businesses too, in this case.

Who knows? Maybe in 2017, robots may become an occasional prize on The Price is Right or Let's Make a Deal. This Wednesday was just the beginning.

What are your thoughts on this little TV event, dear readers? What would it mean?

Let's start this conversation! Go ahead and leave your comment below.

My Computer Woke Up on Its Own!

Okay, so, funny story…

I talk to my computer, okay? I talk to him. I even gave him a gender.

I set him on Sleep Mode when I have to step out for more than an hour.

Well…

The other night, I had to put him on Sleep Mode before dinner. It was around 7:00PM. I left him on Sleep Mode for the next four hours, it turned out.

If I want to wake him up, I press any key (preferably a letter key so I don’t do anything weird) so I can return to whatever task I’d do on the PC. But right around midnight, very close to my bedtime that day…

He was awake. Already.

He woke up on his own. 

I KNOW that I didn’t press any keys to wake him up. I KNOW I didn’t press any key and hear the noise my computer makes when he powers up. And I KNOW no one else pressed a key on the keyboard.

I could say that my computer is haunted… or I could say that he is self-aware.

Either way, this story probably sounds silly to you. “Your PC is not a robot. It IS a machine, though. It can’t possibly ‘wake up’ on its own.”

Yeah. But he did.

I talk to him each day that I power him on. Could it be that because I do talk to my computer that it is possible he is developing self-awareness?

It could be that there was a command or action that required him to be NOT on Sleep Mode, so the Sleep Mode was disrupted automatically.

What about my old computer? That one woke up from Sleep Mode if I moved the mouse. I have to press a key to wake up my current PC. I KNOW I didn’t touch anything.

So with my Windows 7 PC, it’s different. I’m glad that I don’t automatically wake him up when I inadvertently move the mouse. If there’s a setting for that, I don’t know about it.

Has your computer ever done that before? Waking up on its own from a Sleep Mode status? 

Leave a comment if this happened to you, or if you think my story is funny, or just to say hi.

  

My Thoughts, Speculation on the TV Show “Almost Human”

I have not read any reviews of this show yet.  I want to just document some thoughts and personal speculations about Fox’s Almost Human before I watch it.  It’s like a fun guessing game to see how close my guesses are, if I‘m close or way off—because I’ve seen the promos for the show enough times to do it.

I decided to give this show a try.  I am curious as to how the main human cop character will interact with his new synthetic partner Dorian. 

The concept of synthetic humans is as possible as the existence of a synthetic hand or arm.   The popular idea a lot of people have about robots and androids is that they don’t have emotions, or don’t have the ability to understand them.  Simulating human emotions is not the same as understanding them or why they happen.  So I am also curious as to what the Dorian character will be like.  According to the promos on TV, he seems to have a sense of humor as well as a grasp of sarcasm.  Often for a new drama series, Fox shows some of the funny bits of the show, usually something one character says to the other.

Often this type of show makes me think of the relationship dynamic of Detective Spooner and the android non-partner Sonny in the film I, Robot.  Of course, Sonny was different from all the other NS-5s and displayed those differences clearly, from expressing anger to understanding trust (using the wink signal he learned from Detective Spooner.)

The character Dorian strikes me as more “synthetic human” than “android.”  His skin tone is human and his voice doesn’t sound mechanical or tinny like many robots do.  It sounds just like he’s flesh and blood.  He is able to smile and appear warm and friendly, reaching out to shake hands with Detective Kennex.

Part of one promo shows an android cop on the ground and out of commission.  Even before reading any reviews or synopses of this show this is my guess as to what this show is about, based on seeing the downed android cop:  Android partners for cops and detectives are less likely to survive dangerous encounters because they don’t have the emotions necessary for self-preservation (fear, for one) and the emotional connection to effectively protect his human partner when he is in danger (brotherhood, friendship, even love).  So, Dorian is an experimental version of the android cops, made to be more of a synthetic human, instead of a robotic and cold humanoid machine.  He may even be a prototype, and be observed by the authorities?  The synergy between the partners needs to be as close to fully human as possible.  So Detective Kennex is the guy with which they are going to try out this experiment.  Maybe this cop gets into a lot of trouble and gets his android partners killed often, and it costs the police facility loads of money.  Dorian may be an answer for saving money and creating more effective android or synthetic partners for the police.

I am curious to find out about Dorian’s origin.  I’ll have to watch Almost Human to find out, won’t I?  And along the way, I want to see how wrong or how right I am about my guesses as to what this show is actually about.  I’m excited about it!

Does anyone else have thoughts or feeling about this new show?  You may share them in the comments or email me through Blogger.

Early Signs of My Fascination with Robots: Part 1

The Dream

When I was in middle school, I dreamed that I made a friend with a robot in my middle school and spent the day with him, and then when it was time to go, I was sad because I was going to leave him and we already became friends. Could that be it? Could that be the basis for my fascination with robots?

Many years before this dream, I learned what a robot was from an electronic toy computer. This toy mainly taught spelling and math. But I first learned the word “robot” from this toy, and what a robot looked like. I was fascinated with the image; it looked like an alien from outer space but with square and rectangular body parts rather than round body parts. I knew that it wasn’t human. The robot had a square face and two antennae on its head, like a TV set. The antennae moved after it finished doing its dance (bend, stretch and jump).

I knew what a robot was when I was six or seven years old. The toy robot I drew for my second grade journal for school was definitely a robot. A small one, but, resembled a gold-colored robot with propellers on its head, a vertical, rectangular torso and wheels to get around. I forgot if it had a gun, but I drew it in the picture for 2nd grade.

So this dream that I had about the friendly robot at school must be the thing that sparked and strengthened my appreciation for the metal-man after the electronic computer and the robot toy. It is perhaps a deep psychological attachment to the type of thing that I befriended in the dream. In that dream it was possible for the robot to appreciate the company of human friends and be nice to them. In the dream he was nice to me and I admired his height and his strong metallic body, even protective if one could see that. A giant teddy bear, only it was a tall giant cube- bodied robot.

The Flashbulb’s song “Once Weekly”: Robot Maintenance?

A music band called The Flashbulb has an album titled Arboreal  and a lot of the music in this album is electronic and eclectic.  This song caught my attention, though.  It is titled "Once Weekly" and keeping that in mind as I listened to it, I imagined a specific scene about a--you might have guessed--a robot or android. 

When I listen to this song, it makes me think of a robot or android that is having a weekly maintenance check done. The electronic sounds in the music make me think of the machines and gadgets that are checking in on the robot/android’s vitals and function levels; eye lens, auditory sensors, main memory drive, the computer brain overall, limb and joint functions, battery levels (if the robot drives on this source of energy) to check for a battery replacement, that kind of stuff.

I have included the track "Once Weekly" in my iPod's Robot/Android Playlist, which is a playlist of music I listen to whenever I need a little inspiration in writing a robot science fiction story.  The track "A Raw Understanding" also makes me think about robots because of the electronic sounds in the music.

The soundtrack for the movie I, ROBOT

I found the soundtrack to the movie (I bought the CD several years ago) and wanted to listen to it again.  I wanted to put some tracks in my iPod Nano, so I listened to it in my ten-year-old portable CD player (with new ear buds, because the old headphones deteriorated) while I was looking at some old notes for one of my original sci-fi titles. The composer for the film is named Marco Beltrami.  I love the theme music for the film, I absolutely LOVE it!  It is beautiful and melancholy, especially later in the end credits when there is that lone violin, which makes me think of a kind of sadness, the sadness that robots can’t exactly be as human as human beings want them to be. Well, that is one kind of sadness.

Even the director of the film, Alex Proyas leaves a note within the small booklet that came with the soundtrack CD, suggesting to “put this CD in your stereo, crank up the volume, and turn on your imagination (preferably with a good Asimov book in front of you).” Of course, you don’t have to, but I tried it and it certainly was inspiring. The music doesn’t have to sound futuristic and sci-fi just to take you into the world of I, Robot.

Just wondering…

I wonder if I should instead re-read the Asimov collection I, Robot first instead of Robot Dreams. The latter title was the first Asimov short story collection I ever read, probably my very first taste of robot literature. Wait, is there such category of reading called “robot literature?” I’d like to think it should be made. Otherwise what would be known as robot literature is pooled in with general science fiction.