ABOUT FACTS NET Computer/Robots

Sometimes you really have to wonder why this country does or doesn't do certain things. We seem to be throwing so much money around that we can't print it fast enough. But with all this money being tossed about, are we funding all the programs that we should be or are we just sending much of the cash down the waste pipe of big business through favoritism?

One of the most important projects for the future of technology is robotics. Every country is getting into it and the Japanese have made some outstanding advances in that area. We fund military applications of robotics along with space robotics but that is as far as it goes. You would think that someone in this government would be smart enough to see that we need to fund industrial robotics to stay competitive Recently a professor at The University of Southern California stated the need for this funding and stated that the U.S. has been falling behind in this area for over a decade and doesn't even have a coordinated program for robotics research. He states that now Asia and Europe have outpaced us and it just keeps getting worse.

PC Bots are a new entry into the robot theatre. The bots will patrol your home but they are not limited to only that function. Each bot is a full fledged computer containing a VIA Mini-ITX motherboard. They have DVD drives and CD burners, hard drives and anything else you would expect from your home computer. The bots are said to be very useful and can run errands. They contain web cams and if you are away you can watch them doing their patrols. The bots can be upgraded with any off the shelf hardware that a normal computer would use. They are made by a company called White Box Robotics. The robots look like a fat tall tower case on wheels. They are not in full production yet, but the company is taking reserve orders. I don't know what the price will be, but I wouldn't mind having one of these babies. One problem is that I don't think my dog would care for it too much.

As I watch medical research take more and more advantage of mechanical parts, I am led to believe that this research may ultimately lead to a human type robot. The reason I say this is that artificial limbs are attached to human nerves and muscles and improved over the years, it is just a matter of time before someone decides to study this research and substitute an advanced computers for the human, thus being able to take advantage of devices that were developed to function very human like.

Remember the space elevator project? In case you don't, here is what it is all about. Basically it is an elevator that would lift people, supplies and parts into orbit. The first part of it has been successful. A tether over 1,000 feet long has been climbed by a robot. The tether was attached to a balloon. The space elevator will have a tether attached to a stationary satellite. Robots will control the elevator when it is built and take the elevator up and down the 100,000 km tether Wow, talk about a ride, this has to be the ultimate trip. The space elevator is designed to save all that fuel that is used to get into orbit by getting you up to a point with much less will be required. I am sure that someday people will laugh at this concept as they blast into space using antigravity drives and such that will eliminate the worry about rocket fuel.

The Chinese have shown off a new robot on 18 September 2005. The remarkable machine is called the Huitong robot. It can see, hear, talk, sense force and has a sense of balance. It can shadowbox and is proficient with a sword. Asian robots are just getting more advanced every day. Someday we may wake up and find a robot army has been sent against us, of course if this happens then we would have to send up our robot planes to fight them.

One of the things that I find truly amazing are the robot soccer teams. They also have been getting better and better. The University of California has decided to create a robot soccer team to compete against the other robotic world teams. What a lot of people see when they watch these robots perform is some great robotics. What they don't see is the great artificial intelligence at work. These soccer robots are on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence and every advance they make can be applied to AI (artificial intelligence) in other fields. A soccer robot has to work in a team setting. Their eyes are tv cameras and they communicate with each other via computer. These robots are acting on their own, there is no human control except for retrieving the ball from the goal. There is even a cup for the champions called the RoboCup. It is believed that within ten years these robotic soccer players will look and walk like humans.

A robot was used to discover one of the world's most famous missing treasures. Treasure hunters used a scanning robot that scanned below the surface of Robinson Crusoe island and found it. The treasure is believed to be worth about ten billion dollars. It consists of gold and jewels. The treasure is thought to have been taken from South America by Spanish sailors about 300 years ago. The island of Robinson Crusoe is also know as Juan Fernandez Island and is off the coast of Chile. The island got it's name because the original character that Robinson Crusoe was taken from was stranded on this island. Well that's one treasure that won't be looked for anymore.

The Pentagon is offering a two million dollar prize for the best, strong, intelligent and self driven robot. They are looking for the soldier of the future. It seems the entire world is seeking the same thing. Can you see it now, the terminator scenario, the robots decide that they are superior and that humans are just in the way and they unite to get rid of us? It sounds crazy now, but who knows what the future holds as these machines get smarter.