A few days ago, Brown Robotics made headlines around the world for announcing their achieving the long fantasized goal of creating robots that could interact with humans. It’s not what you think. The robot, based off of iRobot’s PackBot model, can respond to basic gestures that signal for the robot to “follow”, “halt”, “wait”, and “door breach”. Throw out your Ridley Scott fantasies and Wall-E dreams because as the video confirms, the manifestation of this scientific breakthrough is more boring than it sounds.
Now, to imagine what the robot could someday do. The paradox of robot invasions at Brown has been a long time coming. (Does the hippie Brown image and the robot warrior thing seem more like paradox or perfection?) Since this particular project received funding from the military and exhibits apparently military-like actions—note the same “halt” gesture seen in Saving Private Ryan—it’s not long before it gets cannon arms. This prediction is definitely supported by the fact that the robot does not yet have arms, and it’s creepy that way.
Or maybe the new robot can take care of awkward social lives on Ivy League campuses. Read this:
“We want to foster natural human-robot collaboration in the long term and the kind of interactions that you can get between people,” said Loper, who was responsible for creating the gesture-recognition component. “That a person could interact with a robot in the same way that a person can interact with a person.”
Yes, you do sir. And ladies, if you’re not busy this weekend, Mr. Loper is an idea man. See some pictures of our favorite robots that are much cooler than Brown’s after the jump.
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Do you ever have great ideas for future businesses? Me too! But while I’m trying to settle on a name for my 2.0 erotic literature site, guys like Jordan Goldman are actually starting real companies. Goldman, Wesleyan ’04, just launched Unigo, a site that’s kind of like CollegeHumor without the boobs or jokes. The website, which Goldman considers more a “national grassroots movement” than a website, is essentially an online student guidebook: it contains brief staff-generated descriptions of the colleges and a growing amount of student commentary. That’s right: students are logging onto this site and reviewing their colleges (and posting pictures and videos). Let’s see what they’re saying:
Alli at Columbia:
Columbia social life is what you make of it. At a glance it is incredibly lame, but if you meet the right people and can make your own fun it is a great time. The Greek life seems to be run but neonazi’s as there is basically no such thing as a frat party anymore. There seems to be a war on fun at our school and I hear people complaining all the time. There are ways around it and as I said if you know the right people and put yourself out there, a good time can be had.
War? Nazis? Frat parties? Columbia exactly.
After the jump, Lamonster laments the exodus of Harvard grads into i-banking (I think this was posted before September).
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Everyone complains that blogs rip their material from newspapers and magazines. For the most part, it’s true: We are indeed the vultures hovering over the mainstream media’s festering carcass. But unoriginality is a two-way street, friends. Just ask Carol Hymowitz.
There we were, sitting down to our Honey Graham Oh’s, looking forward to a relaxing Monday morning with the Wall Street Journal Marketplace section, when we see this “In The Lead” column — and this chart in particular:
Look familiar? Let us refresh your memory:
Shameless ripoff? Innocent coincidence? Carol never replied to our email, so you be the judge. All we have to say is this: You’re free to borrow the idea, Hymowitz. But stay the hell away from our pie charts.
BETRAYAL UPDATE 9:45 p.m.: Hymowitz went to an Ivy grad school. The dagger twists.
