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CONVERSATIONS ON ROBOTICS
Steve Euin Cobb has produced over 100 podcast interviews on his award-winning, The Future and You, www.thefutureandyou.com. A tagline on his home page says it all: “Ideas and opinion about the Future based on verifiable facts of today.” If you are interested in listening to a discussion with Robot editor-in-chief Tom Atwood on robotics and technical trends from a journalist’s perspective, please check out Steve’s June 10, 17 and 24 episodes.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/thefutureandyou/TFAY_2009_6_10r.mp3
Interview 1, June 10, 2009
Topics: Robots are in a world-wide boom time. Hundreds of thousands of hobbyists are building robots. Competitive robot events draw Rock-Star-sized crowds and are doubling in attendance each year. High schools and colleges are using the building and programing of robots (from scratch and from kits) to get students enthused about science, math, logic, engineering, programming and many other crucial subjects. Open source collaboration is driving innovation in robotic software as well as hardware. Tom emphasizes how these learning benefits are also beginning to work their way into grade schools, and how all this learning forms a foundation for the future of the students and of our world. Tom also describes an experiment in which rat brain tissue (grown in a culture dish) was wired to a robot and taught to successfully navigate an obstacle course.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/thefutureandyou/TFAY_2009_6_17r.mp3
Interview 2, June 17, 2009
Topics: the astounding progress being made in all areas of robotics such as: how vacuum cleaning robots are getting improved house-mapping abilities; what's happening in artificial intelligence for robots; trends in Japanese robots; the brilliant new way in which robots are being used in physical therapy for post-operative patients; and which needs to advance more to put robots to work in our homes as cooks, house cleaners, gardeners and laundry workers -- artificial intelligence or the basic mechanics of robotic bodies.
Tom also talks about his conversation with Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University, winner of the Second DARPA Grand Challenge, about how Sabastian's team programmed their car to win the robotic auto race. (The DARPA Grand Challenge is a series of very long -- some might say 'grueling' -- road races sponsored by DARPA in which all the participants are computer controlled motor vehicles. Not toy cars; but full-sized cars and trucks with no human driver. DARPA is the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency: the organization that created the Internet.)
http://media.libsyn.com/media/thefutureandyou/TFAY_2009_6_24r.mp3
Interview 3, June 24, 2009
Topics: the latest in 3D displays for TV and for video games; self-fueling robots; robots in warfare now and in the near future; robots as smart weapons; robotic fighter jets; educational robots; robotic dance competitions; fighting methods used by TV battle robots; diversity of robotic body styles; and getting started in robotics without much money or without having to build your robot.
We recommend that readers sample other podcasts at The Future and You, www.thefutureandyou.com as well. You’ll find any number of speakers offering opinions on technology futures, and the format is open ended, friendly and engaging.
--the editors
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