Say Hello to Your Robot Self
From: Globe and Mail (Canada) - 10/14/2006 -  P. F4
By: Tim Hornyak

Hiroshi Ishiguro is a pioneering robotics designer whose latest creation is a
robotic puppet that could actually serve as a stand-in for a real person.
Ishiguro, senior researcher at Keihanna, Japan's ATR Intelligent Robotics and
Communications Laboratories, has created a replica of himself, which can
perform eerily life-like gestures thanks to 46 air actuators. Using a
motion-capture system, movements, such as those of his own upper body and
lips, can be transmitted to the robot, known as Geminoid. He claims to have
had the idea because of his long commute, thinking that he could simply leave
the robot at his office to carry out his daily interactions by proxy. Rather
than simply projecting image and voice, Geminoid allows Ishiguro to convey
physical presence. Ishiguro calls the type of robotic work he conducts
"android science," an integration of robotics and cognitive science by which
human behavior can better be examined. "A robot is a kind of simulator for
expressing human functions," says Ishiguro. The human-looking robots he has
designed in the past can detect human presence and conduct conversations,
such an interview for a TV broadcast. "Robots are information media,
especially humanoid robots. Their main role in our future is to interact
naturally with people." Japanese culture embraces robots as helpful, friendly
companions that will play a large part in the maintenance of society and
economy in a country whose average age is growing rapidly as a result of a
low rates of birth and immigration. Ishiguro is currently planning cognitive
science experiments where the android will be placed in social situations to
help him gain insight into his driving curiosity: "why are we living, and
what is human?"  

Read the entire article at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061014.wrobots14/BNStory/PersonalTech/

Links:
Hiroshi Ishiguro - publications
http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigmod/dblp/db/indices/a-tree/i/Ishiguro:Hiroshi.html

Hiroshi Ishiguro builds his evil android twin: Geminoid HI-1
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/21/hiroshi-ishiguro-builds-his-evil-android-twin-geminoid-hi-1/

A Man and His Android
http://blog.wired.com/androidclone/

Say hello to your robot self
http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id=5995
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061014.wxrobots14/BNStory/Science/home?pageRequested=all&print=true

Android Science
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=30&articleID=000E16B9-8ADE-1447-8ADE83414B7F0101

Bot the difference
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2006/07/bot-difference.html

I'll send my android twin
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2006/02/ill-send-my-android-twin.html

Soon he'll be in two places at once
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/soon-hell-be-in-two-places-at-once/2006/01/31/1138590502278.html

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My Android Twin
From: New Scientist - 10/14/2006 - Vol. 192, No. 2573, P. 42
By: Ben Schaub

Japan, South Korea, and the United States are racing to produce life-like
robots, driven by recent advances in actuators, materials, and control
algorithms. ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories scientist
Hiroshi Ishiguro has built a remote-control android that replicates his
appearance, and to the best of its ability, his mannerisms as part of an
effort to cross what roboticist Masahiro Mori called the "uncanny valley,"
the point at which automatons become so freakishly human-like as to repel us.
"Our brain is designed for recognizing people, not for recognizing computers
or objects," Ishiguro argues. "Therefore I think androids would be an ideal
information medium." The importance of social mannerisms can be measured by
studying people's interaction with androids, and Ishiguro decided that a more
effective approach to this challenge would be to build a robot that could be
more fully controlled by a person, to make up for the robot's limited
artificial intelligence. There is hope that the androids Ishiguro and others
are working on will be more readily accepted than current machines as
companions and assistants. This is particularly important in Japan, which
faces a burgeoning elderly population. 

http://www.newscientist.com/