Robots could be future playmates for kids

As technology continues to improve, humanlike robots will likely play an ever-increasing role in our lives: They may become tutors for children, caretakers for the elderly, office receptionists or even housemaids. Children will come of age with these androids, which naturally raises the question: What kind of relationships will kids build with personified robots?

Children will view humanoid robots as intelligent social and moral beings, allowing them to develop substantial and meaningful relationships with the machines, new research suggests.

Researchers analyzed the interactions between nearly 100 children and Robovie, a 3-foot-tall (0.9 meters) robot developed by the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute in Japan. In the study, two technicians controlled Robovie remotely from another room, leading the children to believe that the robot was autonomous. The researchers imparted humanlike behavior to the robot, such as having Robovie claim unfair treatment when he was told to go into the closet at the end of the interaction sessions.

Follow-up interviews with the children showed that the kids believed Robovie had mental states, such as being intelligent and having feelings, and was a social entity capable of being a friend and confidante. Many of the children also believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be psychologically harmed.

"We typically think [of] robots as rational calculators rather than humanlike and emotional," said Adam Waytz, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Illinois, who was not involved in the study. "But this research provides a nice example of how endowing a robot with emotions can lead children to treat the robot as a companion and to consider its moral standing."

A mental, social and moral entity

A major goal in the field of human-robot interaction is to determine how people will behave socially with robots in the near future. Will we treat robots as tools to be used and tossed aside at will, or will we see them as moral entities deserving of fairness and rights?

To find out, Solace Shen, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Washington, and her colleagues recruited 90 children ages 9, 12 or 15 years old to interact with Robovie. The robot has some autonomous functions and speech recognition, but the researchers instead chose to control Robovie themselves.

"We tried to create a situation where people come in and interact with the robot in what would be a possible future scenario," Shen told LiveScience.

The 15-minute interaction sessions had several stages designed to impart Robovie with seemingly human characteristics and behavior. For example, Robovie introduces himself to the children, shows them an aquarium and teaches them about the ocean, asks them to move a ball out of his way, plays "I Spy" and argues with a researcher, who is present for the entire session.

In the last leg of the session, a second researcher interrupts the "I Spy" game to tell Robovie that he is no longer needed and has to go into the closet. Robovie objects and says that he is scared of being in the closet, but the researcher puts him in there anyway.

Immediately following the staged interactions, the researchers interviewed each child for 50 minutes. The majority of the children thought that Robovie had mental states; for instance, 79 percent believed he was intelligent and 60 percent believed that he had feelings. On the social side of things, 84 percent of the children said they might like to spend time with Robovie if they were lonely and 77 percent believed that he could be their friend.

Fewer children attributed Robovie with moral rights: 54 percent of the children believed it was wrong to put Robovie in the closet (whereas 98 percent said it would be wrong to put a person in a closet), and 42 percent believed that Robovie should be paid if he teaches peopleabout the ocean all day long.

A fanciful view

Overall, fewer 15-year-olds saw Robovie as a mental, social and moral being than did the 9- and 12-year-olds, who scored the robot relatively the same on mental capacity. "But even though the 15-year-olds attribute less of these qualities, overhalf of them scored pretty high for Robovie as a mental, social, moral entity," Shen said.

The older children may just have a less "fanciful" view of robots and see them as mechanical machines. Alternatively, their views may have something to do with adolescents, which is a "unique age group that comes with its own issues and struggles," Shen explained. To really figure it all out, the researchers need to follow up with similar studies involving Robovie and adults.

"If we did [that] and we saw that this developmental trend continues, then it would give us more clear evidence that maybe the older you get, the more you lose this fanciful view of robots," Shen said.

Whatever the case, the researchers think that the results have important implications for the design of future robots. If engineers design robots to simply obey orders, the master-servant relationship that children experience may trickle into their interactions with other humans. Is it then better to design robots with the ability to "push back" as Robovie did when he was instructed to go into the closet?

Shen said there is no easy answer to which design scheme is better.

"I don't think children will treat robots as nonsocial beings, they will treat them as social actors and interact with them in social ways," she said. "But we need more data and evidence to see how adults, as well as children, will develop relationships with these robots."

The study was published in the March issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.
(Source : http://www.foxnews.com/.Article by Joseph Castro)


[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

Successful launch for rain-tracking satellite

A Japanese rocket roared into orbit early Friday (Thursday afternoon ET) carrying what NASA calls its most precise instrument yet for measuring rain and snowfall.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite is the first of five earth science launches NASA has planned for 2014. The 4-ton spacecraft is the most sophisticated platform yet for measuring rainfall, capable of recording amounts as small as a hundredth of an inch an hour, said Gail Skofronick Jackson, GPM's deputy project scientist.

The $900 million satellite is a joint project with the Japanese space agency JAXA, and it lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center at 3:37 a.m. Friday (1:37 p.m. Thursday ET). In a little over a half hour, it had reached orbit, deployed its solar panels and began beaming signals back to its controllers, NASA said.
Also, once fully activated, GPM will use both radar and microwave instruments to detect falling snow for the first time. It will also combine data from other satellites with its own readings, beaming back a snapshot of worldwide precipitation every three hours, Jackson said.

"We can start using the data for all sorts of applications -- for floods, for landslide predictions, for tracking hurricanes so we know what part of the coastline to evacuate," Jackson said.

That data will boost not only immediate storm forecasts, but also aid climate scientists who have been working on long-term models of a changing world.

"We can start validating and verifying what the scientists are saying from the models that say we're going to have more extreme precipitation," she said. "Where there's heavy precipitation now, the climate models are saying there'll continue to be more intense precipitation there, and where there's droughts, they think the droughts will be more intense."

The craft has enough fuel for at least five years and is expected to last longer -- so when combined with earlier missions, it will give NASA an unbroken 25- to 30-year rainfall record, Jackson said.
(Source : http://edition.cnn.com/.Article by Matt Smith and Elizabeth Landau)


[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

Apple will launch iOS in the car with Ferari, Mercedes, and Volvo

Apple's "iOS in the Car" operating system, which would let drivers access various iPhone functions through a car's built-in screen, is set to head out of the garage next week, says a report. Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo are the automakers on board for the launch, says the Financial Times, which cited unnamed sources in reporting that the official announcement will take place at the Geneva Motor Show.

Apple talked up iOS in the Car at its Worldwide Developers Conference last year, with VP Eddy Cue -- a Ferrari board member -- showing a mock-up of a car's LCD with Apple menu buttons for maps, phone, music, and messaging. Cue said the functions could be accessible via Siri as well. Many cars already include integration with iOS music functions. Cue said Chevrolet, Ferrari, Honda, Jaguar, Mercedes, Nissan, Volvo and others would be introducing iOS integration this year.

Beyond smartphones, "the bigger opportunity for Apple and its ecosystem is becoming essential not just for people texting, checking news, watching movies, and playing games, but for massive growth areas such as transportation, home automation, and health care," CNET's Dan Farber noted last week, following a report that Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions had met with Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla, in 2013.

Apple's rivals are also aware of those opportunities. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Google had teamed up with Audi to develop in-car entertainment and information systems based on its Android OS. And, of course, on the home automation front, Google is set to buy Nest for $3.2 billion.

(Source : http://news.cnet.com/.Article by Edward Moyer)

[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

Iranian Scientist Claims to Have Built "Time Machine"

It's not quite Back to the Future, but a young Iranian inventor claims to have built a time machine that can predict a person's future with startling accuracy.

Ali Razeqi, who is 27 and the "managing director of Iran's Center for Strategic Inventions," claims his device will print out a report detailing an individual's future after using complex algorithms to predict his or her fate.


According to the Daily Telegraph, Razeqi told Iran's state-run Fars news agency that his device "easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you."

Razeqi says Iran has decided to keep his prophetic time machine under wraps for now out of fear that "the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight."

Iran's Deputy Minister of Science, Research, and Technology dismissed Razeqi's claims on Friday in an interview with Fars—a sign of just how much attention the story has received.

We talked to Thomas Roman, a theoretical physicist at Central Connecticut State University and a co-author of the book Time Travel and Warp Drives, to ask about the possibilities for a Razeqi-like time machine and to debunk popular misconceptions about time travel. Here's an edited version of our interview:

What do you think of Razeqi's claim that he's built a time machine that can predict a person's future?

It's completely nuts.

Does his alleged time machine break any laws of physics?

It's hard to know because it's so wacky.

What are some popular misconceptions about time travel?

One popular misconception is that you could go back to any time in the past. And that's not true. You can only go back as far as the time when the time machine was invented. So if I invent my time machine today and I wait 30 years and go back to the past, the farthest back in the past I can go to is today when I turned my time machine on.

Another major misconception—and you see this a lot in time travel movies—is the idea that you can go back in time and change the timeline. In these stories, the time traveler goes backward in time and does something that mucks up the future and subsequently has to do something to "restore the timeline." However, that can't be the case, since we can't have the same event both happen and not happen in the same universe. You can't change the past.

For example, suppose I go back in time and try to kill my grandfather. If I succeed, then of course I'm never born and I could never have made the trip back using the time machine.

Once again, we can't have the same event—the killing of my grandfather—both happen and not happen in the same universe.

Is there any way of getting around this "grandfather paradox"?

There are two possibilities. One is what's sometimes called the self-consistency scenario, in which all events along the time loop that I make are adjusted to be self-consistent.

So for example, if I go backward in time and try to shoot my grandfather, something will always prevent me from doing so. The recoil on my shoulder makes me miss, or my grandfather ducks, or I change my mind. It's like the universe and the laws of physics are conspiring to make things consistent.

The other possibility is that when I shoot my grandfather the universe splits and there's one universe in which I shoot my grandfather and there's another universe in which I did not shoot my grandfather.

Didn't split timelines play a role in the latest Star Trek reboot by J. J. Abrams?

Yeah, there was something along those lines. In the movie, the Romulan bad guy Nero goes back to the past to get revenge against Spock, who he claims is responsible for the destruction of his home planet Romulus. So he's going to get even by going back into the past to destroy [the planet] Vulcan.

But since Vulcan wasn't destroyed in the original timeline—the one Nero came from—then upon going back into the past, he causes the universe to branch.

So the Vulcan he destroys is not the one in his original timeline, but the one in the new branch. So he's not really getting revenge on the original Vulcan from his timeline. But I suppose revenge is revenge.

That aside, I thought that [using the concept of a split timeline] was a clever way of rebooting the franchise because then you have the same characters but you don't have to slavishly follow the past history of the episodes since you're in a new timeline where everything can be different.

Okay, so you might not be able to travel to the past. But is future time travel possible?

There's no problem with that. In fact, we know how to do it in principle. If you travel very close to the speed of light, time slows down for the space traveler compared to someone on Earth.

Another way of traveling to the future is by orbiting very close to a black hole. For example, if you orbit around the black hole at the center of our galaxy, you could also have your time stretched relative to observers on the Earth.

If future time travel is possible, then could a time machine like the one the Iranian businessman claimed to have built actually work?

Going to the future is no problem. A mechanism for traveling into the future is afforded by [Einstein's] special theory of relativity. It's when you try to go backward that you run into the grandfather paradox. However, that said, what the businessman claims to have built is still nuts.

One thing that's rarely mentioned in time travel stories is that if you travel back only in time but stay in exactly the same point in space, the Earth won't be there anymore. So wouldn't time travel require traveling through space as well?

Yes, it would have to. The Earth is turning on its axis, and it's orbiting the sun. So the Earth isn't always in the same spot in its orbit. So if you're staying in the same place and traveling back to the past, the Earth is gone from underneath you. When you stop your time machine, you'll be in a bit of a pickle.

Why do you think time travel is so popular in books and movies?

You have to admit, it's a pretty tantalizing idea. Part of the appeal is that you can go back and see things for yourself that you only know through history books and the geological record. I think everybody would think it'd be really cool to go back and see dinosaurs or go back and visit ancient Greece.

I think another appeal is we all have things in our past that we wished that we hadn't done, or that we wished hadn't happened. And I think there's the desire to be able to go back and prevent those things from having happened.
(Source : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/.Article by Ker Than)


[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

NASA is building a robotic spacecraft refueling system, to prevent a Gravity-like orbital debris cascade

NASA is preparing to take the next logical step after in-flight refueling between two aircraft — robotic refueling of orbiting satellites. This could extend the lifetime of many satellites indefinitely, and could play a very important role in preventing a Gravity-like scenario, where fragments of a single satellite cause a cascade of debris that destroys almost every satellite in Earth orbit.

The program, which has the delightful acronym of RROxiTT (Remote Robotic Oxidizer Transfer Test), essentially consists of a special robotic arm and a cannister of nitrogen tetroxide. Nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) is a very strong oxidizer, and it combusts automatically when combined with fuel. Because no ignition source is required, NTO is often used in spacecraft rocket engines (Space Shuttle, most geostationary satellites), and in their launch vehicles (Russia’s Proton, China’s Long March). Basically, spacecraft can only carry a limited amount of NTO — and when they run out, they lose the ability to maneuver. In the case of satellites, which have to constantly jiggle around and boost themselves back into a higher orbit, running out of fuel is usually the end of its mission. These dead satellites then become part of the growing problem of orbital debris.

With RROxiTT, however, NASA wants to give those old spacecraft a new lease of life — saving money, and reducing the amount of debris (i.e. dead satellites) stuck in orbit. There are two key problems that RROxiTT needs to be overcome: Safely transporting and transferring highly volatile oxidizer, and then unscrewing the spacecraft’s fuel cap (which was never designed to be removed). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which has experience in robotics, is handling the second problem, and the Kennedy Space Center was drafted in to help with the first bit.

A further layer of complexity is that the refuelling craft will be unmanned and controlled from Earth. Remotely controlling a spacecraft and complex robot arm is an innately complex task — but once you add in some latency, it becomes even harder. Presumably the spacecraft and refueling nozzle will have some level of autonomy — but the final task of actually unscrewing the satellite’s fuel cap and inserting the nozzle will most likely be done by hand. As you can see in the video embedded above, extensive testing will be carried out here on Earth before NASA actually goes ahead with a launch. It’s worth noting that this same tech might also be used to fill up spacecraft here on Earth — a hazardous task that is currently performed by humans.

If NASA can successfully perform in-space refueling of spacecraft, it would be a pretty huge boost for commercial satellites, which currently have a fairly short lifetime — but also potentially for space exploration. We still don’t quite know how we’re going to power long-distance space journeys. There are pretty strict limitations on just how much fuel we can easily lift off the surface of the Earth. It’s not too crazy to suggest that, in the future, manned trips to Mars or Europa might involve a few refueling stops along the way.
(Source : http://www.extremetech.com/. Article by Sebastian Anthony)


[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

Samsung releasing three non-Android smartwatches

Earlier this week, at Mobile World Congress, Samsung unveiled three new smartwatches: the Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo, and the Gear Fit. Building off of last year’s Galaxy Gear, these devices are fundamentally designed to cover as many use cases as possible. Samsung is obviously angling to gain an early lead in the smartwatch market by ditching Android, but can it really compete against the likes of Google and Apple?


Gear 2

The Gear 2 effectively serves as Samsung’s flagship smartwatch. As the name implies, this is the direct successor to the original Galaxy Gear. Of course, this model has dropped Android in favor of Tizen, and the “Galaxy” moniker is gone as well.

With a redesigned 720p camera, a built-in heart rate sensor, a 1GHz CPU, and a replaceable strap, this is clearly the deluxe model. We don’t know the price quite yet, but the current Galaxy Gear is retailing between $250 and $300, so expect something in that ballpark. This is clearly aimed at the high-end market, and will likely serve as the benchmark against which other smartwatches are judged.



Gear 2 Neo
For the most part, the Gear 2 Neo looks just like the Gear 2, so why does it exist in the first place? Largely, the Neo is a reduced price model: it’s lighter, it lacks a camera, and it will certainly launch at a lower price point come April.

If Samsung can drop the price down below the $200 line, it could potentially reach a much larger audience. In addition, some industries and public venues frown on wearable tech like Google Glass. The fact that the Gear 2 Neo doesn’t ship with a camera actually defangs some of the worries regarding stealth video recording.

Gear Fit
As if we didn’t already have enough fitness gadgets, Samsung’s third smartwatch is all about exercise. It eschews Tizen and Android in favor of Samsung’s own real-time OS, and features a much slimmer form factor. It doesn’t have a camera or a mic, but it does sport a heart rate sensor, gyroscope, and accelerometer for fitness tracking. It connects with your other devices over Bluetooth 4.0, and can display notifications, but it’s strictly designed to aid your workout.

Because it’s smaller and more focused, it’ll probably end up being the cheapest of the three. Other products, like the Nike+ FuelBand and Fitbit Flex, are in the $100 to $150 range. It’s safe to assume that Samsung will be targeting roughly the same price to remain competitive.
(Source : http://www.extremetech.com/. Article by Grant Brunner)


[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

Microsoft is considering a free version of Windows 8.1

Faced with poor adoption of Windows 8, and no clear sign that matters will improve any time soon, Microsoft is thinking about releasing a free or low-cost version of Windows 8.1 called “Windows 8.1 with Bing.” The theory is that, by providing a free (or perhaps low-cost) version of Windows 8.1, users of Windows XP, Vista, and 7, will finally be convinced to upgrade, driving up its anemic market share. Microsoft hopes to offset the massive loss of income by pushing more users towards services like Bing, OneDrive, and Office. This follows news from MWC 2014 that Microsoft is also considering a similar move for Windows Phone. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

News of Windows 8.1 with Bing comes from Wzor, a rather renowned Windows leaker from Russia. As it stands, this new build appears to be a fairly normal version of Windows 8.1 Update 1. Microsoft insiders tell ZDNet that Windows 8.1 with Bing “is key to Microsoft’s experimentation with monetization.” As for why there doesn’t yet appear to be any money-grabbing monetization, it’s likely that this is just a very early build. We have no idea if Windows 8.1 with Bing will debut at the same time as Update 1 (due to be released on April 8), or whether it’s following its own separate schedule.

The big question, of course, is how Microsoft actually intends to recoup the massive loss of revenue by giving away Windows 8.1 for free. There is some revenue to be gained from OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) and Skype subscriptions (both of which come pre-installed in Windows 8.1), but we’re talking relative peanuts to the billions of dollars that Windows licensing brings in per quarter. (Plus, OneDrive and Skype are available for all other Windows platforms anyway.) The most likely clue is the name of the build — Windows 8 has always had tight integration with Bing, and 8.1 Update 1 further cements it. Microsoft is working hard to make Bing much more than just a web search engine — some kind of deep-querying analytical engine that links together all of your Microsoft devices, services, and subscriptions — but still, we have no clue how Microsoft intends to make money from it.
(Source : http://www.extremetech.com/. Article by Sebastian Anthony)


[Alif Wisesa Muhammad 9.3/5]

Unity, a famous game-developing software

Unity is a game development ecosystem: a powerful rendering engine fully integrated with a complete set of intuitive tools and rapid workflows to create interactive 3D and 2D content; easy multiplatform publishing; thousands of quality, ready-made assets in the Asset Store and a knowledge-sharing community.

For independent developers and studios, Unity’s democratizing ecosystem smashes the time and cost barriers to creating uniquely beautiful games. They are using Unity to build a livelihood doing what they love: creating games that hook and delight players on any platform.

Features : 

Rendering

The graphics engine uses Direct3D (Windows, Xbox 360), OpenGL (Mac, Windows, Linux),             OpenGL ES (Android, iOS), and proprietary APIs (consoles). There is support for bump                         mapping, reflection mapping, parallax mapping, screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO), dynamic shadows using shadow maps, render-to-texture and full-screen post-processing effects.

Scripting

The game engine's scripting is built on Mono, the open-source implementation of the .NET Framework. Programmers can use UnityScript (a custom language with ECMAScript-inspired syntax, referred to as JavaScript by the software), C#, or Boo (which has a Python-inspired syntax).

Asset Tracking

Unity also includes the Unity Asset Server - a version control solution for the developer's game assets and scripts. It uses PostgreSQL as a backend, an audio system built on the FMOD library (with ability to playback Ogg Vorbis compressed audio), video playback using the Theora codec, a terrain and vegetation engine (which supports tree billboarding, Occlusion Culling with Umbra), built-in lightmapping and global illumination with Beast, multiplayer networking using RakNet, and built-in pathfinding navigation meshes.

Platforms

Unity supports deployment to multiple platforms. Within a project, developers have control over delivery to mobile devices, web browsers, desktops, and consoles. Unity also allows specification of texturre compression and resolution settings for each platform the game supports.

Physics

Unity also has built-in support for Nvidia's (formerly Ageia's) PhysX physics engine (as of Unity 3.0) with added support for real-time cloth simulation on arbitrary and skinned meshes, thick ray casts, and collision layers.

I will also give a sample of the game creation that was made with Unity 3D.

Go here for game sample.

If you want to give it a try just directly go to the official website.