Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Roombas do Pac-Man

clipped from www.engadget.com

Autonomous Roombas do Pac-Man right (video)

Autonomous Roombas do Pac-Man right (video)
clipped from pacman.elstonj.com
clipped from store.irobot.com
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clipped from pacman.elstonj.com


This is a video of Roomba Pac-Man in action. A few clarifications:

  • The red tape on the floor is simply so the user can visualize the map in the real world. The robots are unaware of the tape, and are rather constrained by a virtual boundary embedded in their programming.
  • The "dots" on the floor are pieces of paper the the Pac-Man Roomba must vacuum up to complete the map.
  • The ghosts actually autonomously search for Pac-Man, and when they get close enough to "sense" Pac-Man, chase him according to a set of probabalistic rules.
  • The human controller cannot force the Pac-Man to cross any boundaries, it will only allow inputs in valid directions.

  • This video demonstrates the capability of the onboard controllers to follow a operator specified waypoint plan.

    clipped from pacman.elstonj.com

    Hardware

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    Monday, November 9, 2009

    Airbag Defense

    clipped from www.youtube.com

    SCI Air Bag Armor

    Developed by Survival Consultants International, this new armor system uses lightweight airbags that depoy when the flash of a roadside bomb blast reaches the vehicle. The system absrobs the cuncussion and some shrapnel.
    clipped from www.popsci.com


    Armored Airbags to Protect Vehicles from RPGs and Roadside Bombs


    Airbags could prevent RPGs from exploding and neutralize the blast of improvised explosives
    clipped from defensetech.org

    Airbag Defense

    counter-ied-training

    The key to Dave’s airbag pro­tec­tion that dif­fers from Textron’s is that it detects the IED blast light, which arrives at the vehi­cle well before the blast does and gives the sys­tem time to deploy the airbags before the blast reaches the vehi­cle. I know that Israeli and some US so-​​called “active pro­tec­tion” sys­tems use radar to detect the object com­ing towards it, but with Dave’s sys­tem, the detec­tion is pro­jec­tile agnos­tic since it detects the light of det­o­na­tion (or launch?) and deploys at the speed of light (with fiber optics).

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    Friday, November 6, 2009

    Babies cry in their mother tongue

    Times Online

    Study shows unborn babies cry in their mother tongue

    Babies start to pick up language in the womb
    Now research carried out in Germany suggests that babies develop a capacity
    for language much earlier than was previously thought. “Our study shows the
    importance of crying for seeding language development,” said Professor
    Kathleen Wermke, who led the research at the University of Würzburg.
    clipped from www.livescience.com
    LiveScience
    Prenatal exposure


    Prenatal exposure to language was known to influence newborns. For
    instance, past research showed they preferred their mother's voice over
    those of others.

    Imitating Mom


    The way babies imitate melody patterns relies just on a command over
    their voiceboxes they had before birth, instead of the more advanced
    control of their vocal tracts they need for vowel sounds. As such, they
    can begin mimicking their mothers "at that early age," said researcher
    Kathleen Wermke, a medical anthropologist at the University of Würzburg
    in Germany.

    clipped from scienceblogs.com
    French_german.jpg
    clipped from www.cell.com
    Current Biology

    Newborns' Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language

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