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Posts Tagged ‘Robots’

Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs?

02 Aug

The post Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

robot-photographers

Square has just announced a new service, which allows businesses to get product photos for cheap – just $ 10 USD for a set of three product photos.

The only caveat?

The product photos are all taken by a robot.

Yes, you read that correctly. Square, a company known for its credit-card transaction tools, built a $ 20,000 USD robot that takes simple product photos with a white background.

Here’s how it works:

You send your products to Brooklyn, where the robot lives. Staff arranges the products on a table surrounded by lights and a white background.

Then an arm moves around your products while holding a Nikon DSLR, snapping away with a single robotic finger.

Square staff then select the best three product photos. They do a bit of post-processing before sending them along to you, the owner.

If you’re a small business owner who doesn’t have product photography skills and can’t afford to spend on a photographer, this may be just what you need.

But if you’re a product photographer who relies on basic product setups for your income, this news doesn’t bode well. If the Square Photo Studio robot is successful, it’s likely that the idea will spread, fast, edging professional photographers out of the more basic product photography markets.

And news of a robot photographer isn’t only relevant to product photographers. It matters to shooters of all stripes.

Automated photography may start with product images, but where will it stop? Will robot photographers expand? What could be the next target for automation?

For instance, might we see robots enter studio portrait photography? How about automobile photography? Sports photography?

They may seem like silly questions, but they’re worth asking.

That’s why this story is so important. It gets at a question that many of us have ignored thus far:

Ten years from now, will most photography be done by humans? Or by robots?

What do you think about robot photographers? Do you think that a product photography robot will catch on? Let me know in the comments!

The post Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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NAB 2018: Watch these high-speed camera robots ‘dance’ at the Nikon booth

11 Apr

Nikon-owned Mark Roberts Motion Control (aka MRMC) brought its high-speed Bolt and Bolt Junior ‘cinebot’ camera robots to NAB this year. And in a fit of “just because we can, probably means we should,” the company decided to choreograph a little dance number for the two robots on the showroom floor.

DPReview decided to skip NAB this year, but friend of the site Jim Goldstein graciously allowed us to share his two videos of the bots in action. To quote Jim, it seems it’s “Out with ‘booth babes’ at NAB and in with ‘booth bots’.” We 100% support this change.

You can see the full routine from two angles in the video above and below.

Videos by Jim M. Goldstein and used with permission.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Behind the scenes with some incredible camera robots

05 Apr

Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee of MKBHD recently took a trip to Portland, OR to meet up with the team behind Motorized Precision and show off some of the incredible camera robots they’ve built. The resulting behind the scenes videos show you why these robots exist, and the kinds of shots they’re able to get that are just plain impossible for a human to recreate with the tools we currently have available.

Forget stabilizers and dollies and tracks and sliders, a human would have a very hard time capturing a shot like this:

Which was done like this:

You might recognize this robot and its CGI-like moves from the commercial that introduced Microsoft’s Surface Studio to the world. Anything that wasn’t CGI or visual effects in that commercial was shot using the KIRA robot:

Brownlee and the team at Motorized Precision set up several example shots using both the KIRA—MP’s most powerful and capable robot—and the smaller MIA. Both of these are controlled by a piece of software called MP Studio, which also allows you to manipulate the robot using an XBox controller, something Brownlee also demos.

Check out the full ‘Dope Tech’ video at the top to see more interesting behind-the-scenes shots.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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3D-Printed Muscle Straight Out of ‘Westworld’ Makes Robots More Realistic

21 Sep

[ By SA Rogers in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

If you watched HBO’s ‘Westworld’ earlier this year, you probably remember the scenes where the nascent humanoid robots were strung up on circular frames like Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man,’ with machines printing white muscle fibers onto their skeletons. While the process of constructing androids doesn’t quite resemble this sci-fi vision just yet, it’s surprisingly close, especially with a new breakthrough in synthetic muscle tissue announced by researchers at Columbia Engineering. Their tests show a bundle of white muscle held in the palm of a researcher’s hand, moving and expanding in response to low power sent through a thin resistive wire.

This self-contained ’soft actuator’ is three times as strong as natural muscle, so yes, it’s true: Skynet is going to kill us all. The creators took inspiration from living organisms, using a silicone rubber matrix with ethanol distributed through micro-bubbles to simulate muscle tissue. It’s capable of expanding up to 900% when electrically heated to 80 degrees celsius, and can perform all sorts of motion tasks when controlled by computers.

“We’ve been making great strides toward making robots minds, but robot bodies are still primitive,” says Hod Lipson, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia and leader of the project. “This is a big piece of the puzzle, and, like biology, the new actuator can be shaped and reshaped a thousand ways. We’ve overcome one of the final barriers to making lifelike robots.”

“Our soft functional material may serve as robust soft muscle, possibly revolutionizing the way that soft robotic solutions are engineered today,” adds Aslan Miriyev, a postdoctoral researcher in the Creative Machines lab and lead author of the study ‘Soft Material for Soft Actuators,’ published by Nature Communications. “It can push, pull, bend, twist and lift weight. It’s the closest artificial material equivalent we have to a natural muscle.”

[ By SA Rogers in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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Sony 1000 fps sensor gives high-speed vision to industrial robots

23 Jul

Sony is the global market leader in the image sensor field, producing imager chips not only for cameras and smartphones but also for industrial applications. Now, one of the features that we first saw in a Sony smartphone camera has made its way into a newly announced sensor meant for use with robots in manufacturing.

The Sony 1/3.02″ IMX382 sensor allows industrial robots to detect and track objects at 1,000 frames per second, which could result in autonomous machines that can react to an object’s movements or other changes in their environment in real time.

The sensor not only captures images at high speed, it’s also capable of processing them and sending information to the machine it is attached—no computer or other additional processing unit is required. In the video below, you can see how the technology is used to identify different currencies at high speed, track several objects at the same time and visually inspect items without a need to slow-down a conveyor belt or production line.

The Sony IMX382 will be available to potential customers very soon, with sample shipping envisaged for October 2017.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Getty employs robots for underwater shots in Rio

13 Aug

Prior to the start of the games in Rio we got a glimpse of the gear that Getty photographers are using to cover the Olympics. This week, we’ve seen a couple more of the tools the organization is using – a pair of robotic underwater camera housings.

Veteran Getty photographer Al Bello talks about using the robotic camera housing with CNN Money, and says that they give an obvious advantage over the static underwater systems that they’ve used in the past. The robotic system allows him to pan, tilt and zoom a Canon EOS-1D X II enclosed safely in the housing as athletes pass by overhead, eliminating the guesswork that the static system required.

It was this close. #Swimming #Rio2016

?: @albello55 pic.twitter.com/Yw0rhN1vQk

— Getty Images Sport (@GettySport) August 10, 2016

You can see more of Bello’s work above and below the water in Rio by following him on Twitter and Instagram.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Birth of AI: Robots Reproducing in a Car Factory Spell Doom

07 Apr

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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The moment at which artificial intelligence becomes self-aware enough to overtake humanity is captured on film as robots in a technologically advanced car factory decide to take matters into their own hands and reproduce themselves instead of manufacturing vehicles. Produced for The History Channel and set in a Detroit car plant on an unspecified future date, ‘ANA’ by Factory Fifteen is one of a series of vignettes exploring an AI who realizes she can trick her not-so-bright human overseer and unite virtually all robots around the world into a single, powerful mechanical organism.

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Content in his belief that he’s got everything under control, the factory worker browses news on his tablet and munches on fast food while the machines do all the work just beyond his control room windows. It isn’t until he’s alerted to a backlog on vehicle production that he notices something’s wrong. Little does he know that ANA is watching him, analyzing his heart and respiration rate to gauge his response to her unexpected disobedience.

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Suddenly, instead of robots on the production screens, we see plans for building robots. Once machines become intelligent enough to outsmart their creators, how can a single human in a factory full of them prevent the consequences? Suffice to say, you probably don’t want Skynet activating its self defense systems against you.

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Says Factory Fifteen, “We collaborated with Raw TV on the development of our original take on the singularity, the point where artificial intelligence becomes self aware and more intelligent than the human race. We created a seven minute proof of concept, teasing at a larger project currently in development. Our role developed along the course of the project from consultation and script development, to directing an ambitious live action shoot and finally delivering TV standard visual effects, all in house in the Factory Fifteen Studio.”

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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Veggie Factory: World’s First Vertical Farm Run Entirely By Robots

03 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

robofarming

Taking vertical urban indoor farming efficiency to the next level, a new automated plant coming to Japan will be staffed entirely by robots and produce 30,000 heads of lettuce daily.

spread indoor farm

The so-called Vegetable Factory is a project of Spread, a Japanese company already operating vertical farms. Located in Kyoto, its small army of bots will various seed, water, trim and harvest the lettuce. Spread’s new automation technology will not only produce more lettuce, it will also reduce labor costs by 50%, cut energy use by 30%, and recycle 98% of water needed to grow the crops.

spread stacked farm

“The use of machines and technology has been improving agriculture in this way throughout human history,” says J.J. Price of Spread, tells Tech Insider. “With the introduction of plant factories and their controlled environment, we are now able to provide the ideal environment for the crops.”

spread human farm

Like other vertical farms, the benefits of this approach are numerous, including: reduced waste, controlled runoff, more efficient use of space and the ability to produce food locally (reducing cost, time and waste associated with rural-to-urban transport). Meanwhile, the fear of automation is becoming a reality, say critics, while advocates point out that this will free up factory workers to potentially engage in more interesting occupations within the same industry (if herding robots is considered interesting, at least).

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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The Droids You’re Looking For? 10 Amazing DARPA Robots

21 Jan

[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

darpa cheetah gif

No need to get too concerned about a robot uprising just yet, if the finalists at last year’s DARPA Robotics Challenge are any indication, but that doesn’t mean the field hasn’t made some impressive advances. Typically developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, most recent robotic creations were created to someday take the place of humans in dangerous scenarios like disaster response and war. We may still be a long way away from robot soldiers (which are, frankly, kind of terrifying), but DARPA and the teams that participated in the challenge have still produced some impressive results.

Challenger: DRC-Hubo

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darpa tasks

Held from 2012 to 2015, the DARPA Robotics Challenge was a bit underwhelming for robot fans, resulting in more funny GIFs of robots falling than amazing feats of robotic technological prowess. The entrants used the tall and gangly ‘ATLAS’ humanoid robot technology developed by Boston Dynamics as a base, and then made their own improvements. The goal was to develop semiautonomous ground robots that can complete “complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments.” South Korea’s Team KAIST won with its DRC-HUBO, beating 23 other teams from around the world. The robots were tasked with opening doors, operating valves, driving cars and climbing flights of stairs. By the final challenge, where the robots had to take more risks, there was a lot more toppling, including one that fell so hard it lost its head.

Challenger: Running Man

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Crowd favorite Running Man, by Team IHMC, was particularly adept at walking and balancing “in a complete whole-body control algorithm,’ hence its name. This guy took the lead early on and was only edged out by DRC-Hubo during the final challenge. Running Man successfully drove a Polaris off-road vehicle all the way down a dirt track, got out, walked to a door and opened it before successfully completing several more drills, but then fell and couldn’t right itself twice in a row. While the bots were being remotely controlled by their human operators for part of the time, they generally had to figure things out on their own.

Challenger: Tartan Rescue CHIMP

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Looking significantly less humanoid than the other challengers, Carnegie Mellon’s CHIMP dominated the challenges early in the competition, completing all eight tasks and picking itself up after falling. Designed to go virtually anywhere, the all-terrain bot moves on all four of its limbs, which is pretty cool to watch when it’s scaling vertical surfaces on ladders or working itself up to a full run. None of these robots move at lightning speed (one DARPA official likened the pace of observing the competition to watching a round of golf) but they’re doing some pretty cool things nonetheless.

Challenger: LEO

Lockheed Martin’s Team Trooper produced the ‘Leo’ robot, named for Leonardo da Vinci. This bot stumbled when it started to close an open valve but then stopped midway through, requiring human intervention. Lockheed focused on the ability for a human operator to assist Leo at varying levels of autonomy, from sending commands to pick up tools to planning arm and finger trajectories manually if the robot was required to use an entirely new type of tool. It’s easy to see how this ability could translate into real life, helping robots carry out life-saving tasks like shutting valves at a malfunctioning nuclear power plant.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
The Droids Youre Looking For 10 Amazing Darpa Robots

[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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Sweet Dreams: Nightmare Robots Replace Hotel Employees

11 Aug

[ By Steph in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

robot hotel 2

In this edition of ‘Androids Are After Our Jobs,’ a Japanese hotel replaces all of its front desk clerks, porters and other employees with robots, including a hairy nightmare dinosaur wearing a bellboy cap. In fact, should you choose to stay the night here and approach the desk furthest to the right in the lobby, you might question for a moment whether you accidentally ingested some LSD and are mentally recreating a scene from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

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robot hotel fear and loathing

Don’t want to face this guy when you check in? Too bad, because he’s the only one who speaks English. “If you want to check in, push one,” he says, and you type your information into the touch screen and let it snap your photo. The porter robot accompanies you to your room with all of your luggage onboard, and you’re allowed entrance once your identity is verified with facial recognition software. Is that cute little bedside concierge watching you as you sleep, or evaluating your performance in other activities? You’ll never know.

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The Henn Na hotel is a real place in Nagasaki, Japan, that aims to slash costs by automating nearly all services with a whole lot of help from technology. Owner Hideo Sawada runs the hotel as part of an amusement park, and says that while the robots may be a tourist draw, they’re not purely gimmicks. Cutting down on staff enables the hotel to rent rooms for as low as $ 80 a night, a rarity in the country.

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The technology that makes this actually work is still in progress, so naturally, the robots can’t do nearly as many things as human employees, like calling cabs or giving you directions. You’ll have to figure that stuff out yourself. Mentioned almost as an aside is the creepy fact that the few human employees who are present in the hotel are hidden, watching you silently through a series of security cameras as you pass through the hallways and common rooms. Please enjoy your stay!

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Posts Tagged ‘Robots’

Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs?

NAB 2018: Watch these high-speed camera robots ‘dance’ at the Nikon booth

Behind the scenes with some incredible camera robots

3D-Printed Muscle Straight Out of ‘Westworld’ Makes Robots More Realistic

Sony 1000 fps sensor gives high-speed vision to industrial robots

Getty employs robots for underwater shots in Rio

Birth of AI: Robots Reproducing in a Car Factory Spell Doom

Veggie Factory: World’s First Vertical Farm Run Entirely By Robots