They dance, play, swear and beg you to touch them. They may even let you snog someone on the other side of the planet. Meet the robots of tomorrow
A bedside table on wheels is practising three-point turns around the room, rising up and down and cheekily cocking its head as it glides, while a furry white creature emits plaintive mews from the room next door, flapping its flippers for attention. Nearby, hundreds of wiry insects buzz about on a glass tray like angry cockroaches awaiting their lunch, while a team of drones whirs to life in the corner. You have to watch your step in the basement lab of Sheffield Robotics, where even the furniture has a mind of its own.
“We were wondering what would be an appropriate way for a table to talk to you,” says Tony Prescott, the centre’s director and a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, as the balletic bedside table comes to a halt, like an obedient dog called to heel. “But it might actually be better if it didn’t talk and just got on with its job. Maybe your table doesn’t need to have a personality.”
Related: SociBot: the 'social robot' that knows how you feel
Continue reading...via The iCubs are coming! How robots could teach our kids and do our dirty work
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