Building the Real Transformers

[Rich Tate]

The New York Times has a very lengthy piece about MIT and their work in the field of robotics. This is a great read for any science junkie.

I was introduced to my first sociable robot on a sunny afternoon in June. The robot, developed by graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named Mertz. It had camera sensors behind its eyes, which were programmed to detect faces; when it found mine, the robot was supposed to gaze at me directly to initiate a kind of conversation.

 

[jmackay]

Omg that first youtube video with the face was funny... when the girl gave it her name the eyebrows dropped and it got all angry looking lol.

 

[Adisharr]

I wanted to see what the thing would do but it seems they couldn't manage to follow simple instructions. God help the robot programmers.