[clue-talk] robot girl

[Louis Miller]

Hello,

        Anyone hear about Project Aiko? It is a bilingual (English and 
Japanese) android created by a Taiwanese inventor in Canada. It can't 
walk, and is in a wheelchair. The inventor is not focused on profit, so 
I don't know where the project will go. I saw a video of it, and the guy 
seems to have made some progress over other roboticists and 
cyberneticists, by himself and with limited finances.

       One of Le Trung's focuses is putting nerve endings in, and 
allowing the machine to sense pain, and programming it to respond to 
pain and move the arm back and ask not to be touched.

         One of the leading Robotics designers is Rodney Brooks, an 
Australian who works on projects with students at MIT. He is one of the 
characters in Errol Morris's documentary "Fast, Cheap and Out of 
Control." That documentary was from 1997. It's interesting to imagine 
the progress that might have been made in that time. Rodney Brooks may 
no longer be one of the leading Robotics designers in the world.

Louis