Author: julien

Taking Blue Screen of Death to another level

Two deaths and 52 injuries were caused when the mechanical surgeon spontaneously powered down mid operation or made an incorrect movement.

In another 10.5 per cent of recorded malfunctions, electrical sparks burned patients, resulting in 193 injuries.

Robot surgeons kill 144 patients, hurt 1,391, malfunction 8,061 times

Tickle robots

In the past years Driessens & Verstappen have developed three devices for automated skin caress: Spear is a first attempt to reproduce the unpredictable movements of a blade of grass when it is blowing in the wind and gently touches your skin. Tickle is a small autonomous robot with a pair of nubbed rubber caterpillar tracks. Tickle Salon is a robotic installation that uses a suspended probe to carry out sensitive movements over the surface of the skin.

http://notnot.home.xs4all.nl/ticklerobots/

Google files a patent for generating a personality for a robot based on user data

Extract of US Patent N°: 8,996,429 B1

A robot may access a user device to determine or identify information about a user, and the robot may be configured to tailor a personality for interaction with the user based on the identified information. A robot may further receive data associated with the user to identify the user, such as using speech or face recognition. The robot may provide a personalized interaction or response to the user based on the determined information of the user. In some examples, a robot’s personality or personalization can be transferred from one robot to another robot, or information stored on one robot can be shared with another robot over the cloud.