Robytes
by Jeff Eckert
Chatty Cathy Reincarnated
learning phrases like “robot puts stick
on cube.” Prof. Dautenhahn noted,
“iCub will take us a
stage forward in developing robots as social
companions. We have
studied issues such as
how robots should
look and how close
people will want them
to approach and now,
within a year, we will
have the first humanoid
robot capable to developing language skills.”
The next challenge will
be to make it shut up
and go to bed.
Classic Chatty Cathy (photo courtesy of www.
joyndolls.com) vs. iCub (photo courtesy of RobotCub).
The concept of a mechanical
talking adolescent isn’t exactly new,
with the terminally cute Chatty Cathy
dating back to 1960. But while Cathy
— at her peak —could only speak 18
phrases, the iCub, designed by the
RobotCub Consortium ( www.robot
cub.org), may soon be generating
complex conversations on its own.
An international group, led by
the University of Plymouth ( www.ply
mouth.ac.uk), began its Integration
and Transfer of Action and Language
Knowledge in Robots (ITALK)
program on March 1. ITALK seeks to
teach iCub to speak by employing the
same methods parents use on their
children (presumably skipping over
“goo goo” and “dah dah”). The
training will include “experiments
in human and robot language
interaction to enable the robot to
converse with humans.”
According to Profs. Chrystopher
Nehaniv and Kerstin Dautenhahn of
the University of Hertfordshire,
typical experiments will include such
activities as inserting variously shaped
objects into corresponding holes,
stacking wooden blocks, and aligning
cups. iCub will then be asked to
name the objects and actions, thus
Robots to Replace Animals
speed automated screening robots to
analyze suspected toxic compounds
“using cells and isolated molecular
targets instead of laboratory animals.
This new, transagency collaboration
is anticipated to generate data more
relevant to humans; expand the number of chemicals that are tested; and
reduce the time, money, and number
of animals involved in testing.”
Full implementation is probably
years away, so you won’t run into
many lab rats in the unemployment
line any time soon. But when the
proper procedures have been validated
and put in place, it should be possible
to test thousands to hundreds of
thousands of chemicals per day to
assess their possible toxic effects.
More info is available from the
National Human Genome Research
Institute ( www.genome.gov).
A new chemical safety test
program was recently announced
by the National Institutes of Health
(NIH, www.nih.gov) and the
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA, www.epa.gov). It aims to
employ robots to reduce researchers’
reliance on animal testing and
improve the overall process. The
collaborative effort will use the NIH
Chemical Genomics Center’s high-
Automated Octopus Balls
Proving again that industrial
robots can be programmed for more
creative activities than welding
automobile fenders, a recent exhibition
at the Osaka Museum of Creative
Industries revealed a Toyo Riki (www.
toyoriki.co.jp) robot that was set up
This robot from Switzerland’s Stäubli Group is part of an
NIH/EPA program to improve toxicity testing.
8 SERVO 05.2008
