Obama Announces National Robotics Initiative of $70 Million Per Year

With the possibility of graduation actually within the horizon, I thought it might be a good idea to start a new topic in my blog: Robotics Jobs. This will help me research on what kind of robotics jobs are out there since I don't plan to be a professor and stay in Academia. It is encouraging to see more and more robotics jobs in the industry emerging and start to make a difference for people's lives, although most of them are small start-up companies. Hopefully this series of blog posts will be interesting and helpful for other people who are also searching for the right robotics related jobs. I see a new great era of robotics applications just about to knock on our doors, and it is great to be a part of this effort to transform new technologies developed at university research labs into the real world and change the world! Good luck to me and all robotics job hunters out there! And I'll start the series with the positive news that U.S. President Obama is allocating funding to create more robotics jobs!

Obama Giving a Speech at Carnegie Mellon
(Credit: White House)

In a recent visit to Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center, Obama announced a new National Robotics Initiative seeking to advance "next generation robotics." The new initiative will provide $70 million per year to fund new robotics projects, focusing on robots that can work closely with humans. The funding will be squeezed out from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and the Department of Agriculture.

Obama Meeting Japaneses Android (Credit: AIST)

Obama loves robots (see photo on the left) and has a strong belief that advancing technology makes US companies more competitive and creates more jobs. But in order to help the economy grow, one important factor is how technology can be transitioned from research labs (the Academia) into the business world (the industry). Therefore, it is likely the money will be spent on research projects that are in a sense more applied than fundamental research, and private companies working in collaboration with university research labs will also have access to this funding and the money can be spent on developing real commercial robots -- really creating more robotics jobs!!

In the past, private robotics companies have had opportunities to get funding from the government mostly through military agencies to develop robotics weapons. Some also get a bit of money through the program called Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR). The new initiative focuses on how humans and robots can work as a team where humans can supervise and advice robots using human expert knowledge. This is very different from programming an industry robot to perform dull repetitive tasks that required precision and speed, for example, in a food processing plant. This is especially good news for me because my research focuses on how human can better manage AI/robot autonomy leveraging their rich experience and domain expertise in dynamic tasks and environments. The program solicitation states:

This theme recognizes the emerging mechanical, electrical and software technologies that will make the next generation of robotic systems able to safely co-exist in close proximity to humans in the pursuit of mundane, dangerous, precise or expensive tasks. Co-robots will need to establish a symbiotic relationship with their human partners, each leveraging their relative strengths in the planning and performance of a task. This means, among other things, that for broad diffusion, access, and use (and hence, to achieve societal impacts), co-robots must be relatively cheap, easy to use, and available anywhere. As the US population ages and becomes more culturally and linguistically diverse, these co-robots may serve to increase the efficiency, productivity and safety of individuals in all activities and phases of life, and their ubiquitous deployment has the potential to measurably improve the state of national health, education and learning, personal and public safety, security, the character and composition of a heterogeneous workforce, and the economy, more generally.

I applaud Obama's effort in advancing robotics technology and creating more robotics jobs! Although the funding is still very small compared to, for example, the $20 billion per year the government is spending in air conditioning for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially when robots are expensive (e.g., a Honda UAV Copter costs $300K and a humanoid robot costs $300K-millions). But it is certainly a good start. Let's hope whoever gets elected as the next president will keep such initiatives alive!

Obama's speech about robots and technology.

You can listen to Obama's entire speech (above) if you are bored. You can also check out the IEEE Spectrum article for more details. The speech mentioned about Obama's visit to a local company called RedZone Robotics, who makes robots to explore water and sewer pipes. Guess I'll have to check this company out and then post a blog about it next time. Enough for this one. Ciao!

Video of the Day:

A funny robot video from the Portal 2 game.

Robot of the Day: Fitbot, Shape-shifting Robot Lets You Try Clothes Before You Buy

Ever wondered how a shirt or dress looked good on you when YOU wear it? Mirrors in fitting rooms don't really tell you the entire story. And things get worse if you are buying from a catalog by phone or order one online. Thanks to robotics technology, your wish might be coming true. Before I say anything else, check out this video below.

The robot is the female version of the FitBot, a shape-shifting robot mannequin created by Fits.me, an online clothing store. The company also has a male version.

In many past occasions, we have been lured into buying dresses from catalogs or online stores because the dresses looked wonderful in the pictures but turned disastrous when we put the actual clothes on. What was the problem? The answer is simple: we are no models. That's why those beautiful models get paid big $$$s to put these clothes on and look beautiful in the pictures. But we had to jump through all kinds of hoops to return the dresses and get refunds. We are not alone.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could see how the dress would look on me, not that beautiful model? Wouldn't it be nice if I could see how the dress looks like when I walk around and get into different body postures with the dress on? The answer to the problem: robot! Using servo motors, the FitBot can actually change its shape into your body shape based on your own body measurements.

Now before you get all excited about the many possibilities, that's not how the robot is used at the present time. The retailer actually enumerates all the possible (humanly possible, that is) body shapes with the robot with each dress and then take many photos. These photos are made available through the web site, so after you enter your body measurements, the photos with those body measurements would be shown to you so you know how the clothes would look like if you had worn it.

Well, don't get too disappointed, this is at least a step closer. I could almost envision how it works in the future: After you log into your account with the online store, the system automatically loads your body shape measurements into one of the waiting mannequin robots. Then the robot will retrieve the dress you are interested in, put it on, and then get into various poses for you. You can probably even pose yourself, and a camera on your computer will recognize the pose and send that to the robot to imitate. The robot can slowly rotates around so you can see the full 360 degrees view. There might even be an added benefit: when you see how gross you look no matter what pose your use and what clothes you put on, you might have more incentive to get off your ass, walk away from your computer and try to get rid of some of those fat.

Anyway, glad to see another innovative way of using robotics technology to solve real-world problems. You can read this article for more details if you like. I am going to get off my lazy ass, walk away from my computer to do some exercise now! Ciao!






I am so glad drinking coke is not against the Honor Code of the university.

Kung Fu Tetris with Kinect and FAAST -- How To Tutorial

[Ignore the date stamp. I just have a lot of blogging to make up for...]

I love Kung Fu; I am very passionate about Artificial Intelligence; and I like playing the game of tetris. What happens if I put all three things together?

Here, I proudly present to you: Kung Fu Tetris!

If you can't view the video above, try this or this or this or download video here.

So what do you think? If you think this is fun and want to do it in your home, read on. It's probably much simpler than you expected. In this blog post I will explain to you step-by-step how you can set this up yourself. Everything is pretty much off-the-shelf, except a small configuration file, which you can download from my blog.

Required Components:

1. The first thing you need is a Microsoft Kinect. Microsoft developed this depth-sensing device for Xbox game console. Thanks to the open source community for writing the drivers, now you can connect it directly to your computer and there's no need for an Xbox. You can buy Kinect from local electronics stores or order it from Amazon for $139. And if you are a student like me, you can get it shipped to you in two days for free.
    
2. You also need to have a computer to connect Kinect too. It can be your desktop computer or your laptop computer, as long as it has a USB port. I used an Acer Aspire One netbook, which I bought for $179. Even with a netbook's slow processor and limited memory, Kinect runs just fine.
    
3. It also helps if you have a large TV/monitor, so you can see the game better while not standing next to the monitor. Most large screen LCD TVs let's you connect your computer to it like it's an external monitor. I used a VGA to VGA cable (just like connecting to a regular LCD monitor) and set the LCD to RGB mode. Your miles may vary.
    
4. Next thing you need is a bit of space in front of the TV/monitor. Because the game of Kung Fu Tetris requires the tracking of your full body, you have to stay a good distance away from Kinect so it can cover your entire body. Besides, I am sure you don't want to accidentally smash your nice TV with your fierce kicks. So a living room is a better environment than your study.
    
5. You also need the tetris game to run on your computer. I just use free online flash version of the tetris game.
    
6. In order to use Kinect with your computer, you need to install the Kinect driver and the following three Open Source Applications: OpenNI, NITE, and FAAST.
    
7. Lastly, you need to create a small configuration file for the keyboard command and body gesture mapping. You can just download my version.
    

Step-By-Step Instructions:

1. Buy Kinect if you don't already have it. Amazon sells it for $130. No need to buy Xbox.
2. Connect your computer to a big monitor or TV.
3. Download and install the Kinect driver. Extract the msi file from the zip file and then double click the msi file to start the installation.
4. Download and install the latest version of OpenNI (NI stands for Natural Interaction). You can find the latest versions on this page. Unstable versions are just fine. The current latest 32-bit version v1.1.0.41 can be downloaded from this direct link. It's an msi file, so you can double click the file to install. Note that if you are running Windows 7, then you need the 64-bit version.
5. Download and install the latest version of PrimeSense NITE. You can find the latest versions on this page. Unstable versions are just fine. The current latest 32-bit version v1.3.1.5 can be downloaded from this direct link. Again, just double click the msi file to install. During NITE installation, use this free license key: 0KOIk2JeIBYClPWVnMoRKn5cdY4= when prompted.

6. Download and install the latest version of FAAST (Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit). You can find the latest version on this page. The current latest version 0.08 can be downloaded from this direct link. It's a zip file. All you have to do is to extract the zip file to a location on your local hard drive. Later, you just need to run the FAAST.exe file inside the folder. No other installation required.
7. Now plug the Kinect adapter into a power outlet.
8. Connect Kinect to your computer by plugging it into the USB port. You will be prompted to install three devices: Kinect Camera, Kinect Audio, and Kinect Motor. Since you have already installed the drivers, the system should automatically find the driver files for the installation. However if it fails to find the drivers, you can point to folder c:\Program Files\PrimeSense\SensorKinect\Driver\x86 (use \amd64 for 64-bit systems).
9. Sometimes the driver might not install Kinect Motor or Kinect Audio correctly. You can try the CL NUI Platform driver instead. The latest version can be found on this page. The current latest version v1.0.1210 can be downloaded from this direct link. The file is an exe file so you just have to double click to install. Drivers are installed to this folder c:\Program Files\Code Laboratories\CL NUI Platform\Driver.
10. Test if Kinect is working correctly by running the NiViewer program inside All Programs - OpenNI - Samples - NiViewer.
11. Open FAAST by running the FAAST.exe file. Click the Connect button to start the device. You should now see human shapes on screen.
12. Stand in front of the Kinect device and then hold a ‘Psi’ pose for several seconds until a stick figure appears, as shown in the image on the right.
13. Open a browser window and position it so it is side-by-side next to the FAAST application. Load the tetris game by going here (or here). I linked the flash file directly so you don't have to deal with the annoying flash ads on those web sites.
14. Right-click and then select save to download my configuration file from http://www.lannyland.com/download/KungFuTetris.cfg, and save it to a location you remember (such as your desktop).
14. In FAAST application, click Load button and then browse to where you saved the configuration file and load that file.
15. Click Start Emulator button, then select your tetris game so your browser is the active window. You might have to recalibrate by doing that ‘Psi’ pose again.
16. Start the tetris game and then start kicking. See if you can move the pieces. Remember the controls are: 1) front kicks rotate the pieces 2) side kicks move the pieces left or right 3) jump does fast drop.

Be aware:

1. Do your warm up routines before playing this game. I AM SERIOUS! Otherwise you risk injuring yourself.
2. Don't stand too close to anybody/thing, because you might kick that body/thing and cause damage to him/her/it.
3. Kick with good speed and good form, otherwise weird things might happen.
4. Jump sometimes doesn't work too well. Just jump more. It's good for your heart.

That's it! Leave some comments if you find this helpful. Hope you get it working and start kicking! Enjoy!!


Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible if you
1) smash your TV/monitor with your fierce kicks,
2) injure yourself because of excessive or improper kicking,
3) become so addicted that you stop doing your share of the housework and irritate your better half, or
4) develop a habitual involuntary kicking syndrome and find yourself always throwing kicks at people near you.

By the way, the Chinese character on the back of my t-shirt is Tao, as in Taoism, meaning the way of life. So here's the Tao of the day:







Workout should be fun and enjoyable instead of torturous.
And playing tetris can be productive too!






Videos of the Day:

I thought these two videos are very appropriate for today's Videos of the Day! You really have to finish watching the first video to really appreciate the humor in the second one.

The original Wii Fit Ad

The Wii Fit Parody

Seven Weapons - Longevity Sword: Chapter 1 (1)

Seven Weapons is another great book written by Gu Long. The book consists of seven individual stories, each describing a specific type of weapon. However, at the end of each story you will find out that the real weapon the author wanted to discuss is not the one named at the beginning. In this book, Gu Long showed his mastery of depicting the spirit and soul of the characters. This is not a book about weapons, it is a book about humanity.

=============================================================================

Chapter 1: Wind-Cloud Inn

A palace of white jade in heaven,

Has pavilions five and castles a dozen,

Where the deity stroked my pate and coiled up my hair,

And blessed me longevity as my welfare.[1]

 

ONE

It was dusk.

Nine eccentric looking men suddenly appeared on the stone slated street, all wearing yellow hessian tunics, hemp shoes, and a bowl-sized golden ring hung from each man’s left earlobe. All of them had a head full of disheveled hair in bright red that spread across their shoulders like burning flames. Among the nine were people of various heights and ages. Though they had different body features, their faces all carried the same emotionless countenance, the kind normally found on dead corpses. And the way they walked, without ever moving their shoulders or bending their knees, closely resembled zombies.

They slowly marched along the long street, silencing the surroundings wherever they passed through. Even the sounds of crying children halted abruptly from because of fear.

At the end of the street, four giant lanterns sat atop a thirty feet long flagpole.

Bright red lanterns with pitch-black words that read, “Wind-Cloud^[2] Inn.”

The nine red-haired weirdoes walked all the way to the front door of the inn and then halted. The leading man took off the golden ring from his ear and waved his hand. With a loud thump, the golden ring shot into the stone wall next to the pitch-black painted gate.

Sparks flashed everywhere as the golden ring actually wedged into the stone.

The second man grabbed a bundle of red hair from his shoulder with his left hand and then swiftly chopped using his right palm, which easily cut thorough the hair as if it were a sharp blade.

After tying the bundle of hair to the golden ring, the nine men marched on, their bright red hairs fluttered in the wind like blazes, and soon faded into the boundless twilight.

Right at that moment, eight sturdy horses came galloping out of the twilight. The sounds of hooves hitting the stone slated street echoed like raindrops hitting the window and battle drum beating like thunders.

All the riders uniformly wore green arrow suits with green handkerchiefs on their foreheads, flat toe Kung Fu shoes, and puttees wrapped around their calves, looking bold, vigorous and nimble.

As the eight horses sprinted pass the gate of the Wind-Cloud Inn, the eight riders waved their hands in unison.

Reflections of blades flashed like lightning. Another loud thump resonated as eight shinning steel sabers embedded into the large-bowl-sized flagpole.

The handles of the sabers still vibrated as the red silk piece attached to the handles puffed from the throw. Moments later, the eight riders vanished into the dark horizon.

The darkness of the evening had thickened when more hoof beats suddenly rose in the street, only faster and more intense than the previous eight riders.

But this time there was only one horse, a pure white horse without a single strand of colored hair from head to toe.

When the horse approached the gate of the inn, it suddenly let out a loud neigh and halted, rearing up on its hind legs.

Only by then could people distinguish the rider on horseback, a shirtless brawny man with wild curly beard whose dark-skinned muscles were as study as steel.

After the hefty man reined in the horse, he spotted the red hair tied to the golden ring by the gate and the eight sabers embedded in the flagpole. The man suddenly sneered and quickly jumped off the horse. Holding a horse leg with each hand, he let out a thundering roar and raised the horse high in the air until it reached the eaves of the gate.

The white horse let out another loud neigh. Although its manes danced in the wind, its four legs seemed to have been nailed into the eaves above the gate, not moving the slightest bit!

The bearded man laughed loudly and then strode away. Only moments later, he was already gone, leaving the white horse standing in the west winds under the nightfall sky all alone, making up an eerie scene with ineffable oddity.

The long street was completely desolate by now. All households and shops had shut their doors.

The Wind-Cloud Inn was completely silent. Inn guests had quickly slipped away through the back door when they saw the golden ring and the eight sabers by the gate.

The white horse, however, remained still in the west winds as though it had turned into a stone statue.

On the silent long street, a middle-aged, lean-faced scholar suddenly appeared. Wearing a blue long robe and white pants, he slowly strolled by. His face appeared to be very relaxed, but his pupils shined with wits.

Folding his hands behind his back, he slowly walked to the front of the inn gate, and cast a glance up.

“What an excellent horse! Excellent indeed! It’s a pity that your owner is so ruthless and brought grievance upon you,” he sighed.

He suddenly waved an arm behind his back, and the flying long sleeve swiftly created a wave of strong wind.

The white horse was startled. Letting out a long neigh, it sprang off the gate eaves.

The middle-aged scholar reached out his hands and somehow caught the falling horse by its stomach. He gently placed the horse on the ground and gave it a light pat in the stomach.

“Go back to carry your owner here. Just say a good friend of his is waiting here.”

The white horse seemed to actually understand these words, and immediately galloped away.

The middle-aged scholar casually pulled the golden ring out of the stone wall by the gate and began entering the inn. He gave a gentle smack to the flagpole as he walked by. The eight sabers immediately fell down at the same time.

The middle-aged scholar swept his long sleeve again, which caught and wrapped around the eight sabers.

“Where’s the Flag-Master?” he asked solemnly.

All of a sudden, a thin and small figure darted out from inside the inn and climbed atop the flagpole like a monkey, reaching the top of the flagpole within seconds.

A large flag suddenly spread out from the tip of the flagpole.

On the snow white flag embroidered a rampant jet-black dragon, so lively as if it would break through the clouds and fly away any moment.

---

[1] The first four lines in a long poem written by Li Bai (701-762), a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty.

[2] Wind-Cloud implies unpredictable and unstable situation. It is often used to describe the trend of the times.

Now support the translator Lanny by following my blog and leaving comments! :)

Video of the Day:

To demonstrate how durable their SD cards are, Samsung dropped paper airplanes from the space with the SD cards embedded. Read more at the project web site.

Robot of the Day: Vgo Telepresence Robot Lets Texas Student Attend School as a Robot

Vgo is a telepresence robot developed by Vgo Communications.It has a very simple design: a wheeled mobile base, a video camera at the top, and a small monitor with speakers and microphone. Although many people have built their own telepresence robots of a variety of forms, Vgo is one of the few that actually commercialized it as a product. Although the company has mainly targeted business customers and promoted using Vgo for tele-conferencing and business meetings, it had become famous recently for helping a Texas student to attend school as a robot.

Baty drives Vgo around school to attend classes (photo credit: CNN)

Lyndon Baty, a young man who suffered from a polycystic kidney disease, could not attend school because his immune system has been severely weakened from his treatments.But thanks to Vgo and technology-prone school officials, he can now happily attend classes every day at his high school in Knox City, Texas, as a robot! Like his classmates, he would switch between classes, and even chat with friends in the hall way during break time. For a boy who has spent much of his life in isolation, this robot has really set him free. Especially for teens who are used to social interactions through technologies such as Facebook, Skype, Baty, represented by Vgo, fits right in. Look at that big smile on Baty's face in the following video.

As great as the story sounds, the robot Vgo is definitely not cheap, with a retail price of $6000 plus a $1200/year service contract. I could probably throw a Netbook on top of a Roomba (or Create) and achieve similar effects for roughly $450. Also Vgo doesn't have any arm, so it always required extra help when it comes to opening doors (as you can see from the video above). Will people be willing to pay the big bucks for such telepresence capabilities? Will robotics companies like this one survive and become profitable?

It's worth noting that telepresence robots also might raise many additional concerns. For example, the video camera on the robot can record and reproduce everything it sees, and the video stream might even be hijacked, thus invading people's privacy. The robot might also be remotely hacked and taken over, thus enabling ill-intentioned foul play. But one thing we can all be sure: these robots are coming into our lives and we'll only see more and more of them everywhere as time progresses.

Video of the Day:

I can't find anything more appropriate than this video below for today's Video of the Day. The Big Bang Theory: The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon-bot. Enjoy!