Tickling Robots in Siena

“Under what conditions can we engage in a meaningful, expressive interaction with an electronic device?” Say, for example, by ‘tickling’ a robot? This question is examined in a new article by Patrizia Marti, assistant professor and senior lecturer at the Department of Communication Science, University of Siena, Siena, Italy, which features in the latest issue […]

Re-envisioning the Chess-bot

Robotic Chess Players are not new. But robots which play Chess via a touch-screen are. For this reason, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology has just received a US patent for their ‘Board Game System Utilizing a Robot Arm’. The emphasis on the ‘arm’ part is perhaps […]

Dogs meet DogBots

How might real dogs react to robotic dogs?  The Sony Corporation has been investigating. Researchers at its Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, which “… engages in fundamental research in cutting edge areas of science that are relevant for pushing the state of the art in computing.” tested the ground by exposing real dogs to AIBO […]

Polite Robotic Posturing

Should robots behave politely? Because, to some, it’s a given that in the not-too-distant future large numbers of people will be interacting with robots (domestic, public, corporate and perhaps even law-enforcement/military) on a frequent basis. Professor Tatsuya Nomura at the Department of Media Informatics of Ryukoku University, along with colleagues at the ATR Intelligent Robotics […]

Improbable Research