ExerciseBOts Personal Trainer Robot Promotes Healthy Lifestyle and Healthier Weight 0

Presented at ICSR 2011 design award, Gymbot Personal Trainer Robot drew attention from many practitioners. Massimo Battaglia has come up with interesting scenario for the year of 2020 where obesity in developed countries would still be a big issue. Adults and young people do not maintain good balance between their body and food, they don’t actually care about their well being regardless they are aware of the problem. They don’t have the willpower to at least try to regain control of their lives, they prefer to use shortcuts which in the end are usually proven ineffective. Overweight is not only a health problem, it can also be an issue when it comes to social and working relationship.

There are solutions that promise you instant result, however nothing beats the strong will to have a healthy lifestyle. You will need a trainer that help you to control and correct your bad behaviors, give you the courage to keep your exercise routine to stay healthy and fit.

Designer : Massimo Battaglia

In the future, thank you to electric automotive industry, there will be great improvements in lithium batteries. They will be a lot smaller, durable and economic, thus making the robotic technologies become more advanced and affordable. Gymbot Personal Trainer Robot stays with you, 24 hours a day to teach you how to take a good care of yourself, on both food and physical side.

When you feel lazy, Gymbot Personal Trainer Robot will encourage you to do physical activity, just like a real personal trainer. This robot tracks your health record to tailor a physical activity program that suit you best, this robot will show you how to do the exercise properly. This robot is more than just your personaltrainer, Gymbot evaluates your pulse and health in real time to prevent any undue stress.

Gymbot Personal Trainer Robot has the ability to quantify your progress and is able to understand what and how much you should eat in order to give advice on proper diet. This robot is an innovative approach to prevent many health issues, it can help you to tackle your laziness, it corrects your bad habits.

Click above image for bigger view

Click above image for bigger view

Gymbot Personal Trainer Robot technical description:
Gymbot is a humanoid robot with articulated joints that mimics any human movement with ease, speed and precision. Behind its helmet-viewer there’s a 3D video camera with scanner function and thermal camera. Using a directional microphone, this robot can measure heart rate, and consequently blood pressure.

Fat mass index is calculated using two sensors of electrical impedance present on the hands of Gymbot. On the chest there is a touchscreen through which Gymbot can show the exercises to be performed, the results achieved and whatever else you want.

Gymbot Personal Trainer Robot is voice activated and can interact smoothly in different languages. It has a dynamic design to evoke its function of personal trainer, the humanoid form was an obvious choice because Gymbot must be able to perform any movement when accompanies the user during exercises.

Nike+ FuelBand Fitness Track 0

Now, it’s possible to measure your progress toward your goals with Nike+ FuelBand Fitness Track. It doesn’t matter if you are at beginner or advance level, athletes at all levels of fitness would be able to take advantage of this cool gadget to compare their progress with other people. This innovative device tracks movement on daily basis, it’s been designed to motivate and inspire its users to be more active by combining physical and digital worlds. Just like Nike’s motto, each of their products has always been about inspiring athletes and this gadget will motivate them in a cool, fun and intuitive way.

Nike+ FuelBand Fitness Track captures your progress and displays four different metrics: time, calories, steps and NikeFuel (this is the new metric that will become the ultimate measure of your athletic ativity). How NikeFuel works? It utilizes Nike’s patented technology to measure your activity through the movement of your wrist, there’s a score that motivates you to do more activities or movements in order to compete with other athletes. The more you move, the more NikeFuel score you earn, you can play basketball, running or maybe just throwing a Frisbee. Just do it.

From : Nike

The NikeFuel algorithms are designed with the help from world’s top experts in science and sports, they are based on oxygen kinetics. They won’t be the same as calorie counts which vary based on someone’s gender and body type, the algorithms of NikeFuel reward you equal scoring for the same activity regardless your physical structure.

When you wear Nike+ FuelBand Fitness Track, your movement will be translated into NikeFuel, so that each day, you can set a goal for activity and NikeFuel level you want to achieve. You’ll know if you are getting closer to your goal as the 20 LED lights on this gadget will go from red to green, it motivates you to keep up the good works to hit your goal and even exceed it. All your experiences won’t end on your wrist because all these data from Nike+ FuelBand Fitness Track can be synchronized to Nike+ website through its built-in USB or wirelessly through Bluetooth to a free iPhone app that will record your progress.

Aero Neumatic Transport Systems 0

Alex Marzo has envisioned our future long-haul transportation with Volvo Ants, an aero neumatic transport systems. Through extensive research in biomimicry, this industrial designer has come up with transportation system inspired by ants. It implements ants behavior as a cohesive system as you know their ability to communicate with each other, distribute food, and all responsibilities in their community is intriguing. The overall concept starting from its models, systems, processes and elements take inspiration from ants in order to solve our problems.

Designer : Alex Marzo

Volvo Ants implement idea to lease micro-containers to multiple companies, in this way they can ensure that they are always filled to capacity. Their container union is flexible, therefore allowing better articulation in navigation and avoid jack knife accidents.

The airport of 2050 its almost perfect::::::::::: 0

I think we all know that air travel is getting a little more uncomfortable every year, and I think we all know that is going to get worse.

In fact, a recent statistic has shown that it will increase from 6.5 million passengers per day to 44 million per day by the year 2050. Fortunately, aerospace giant EADS is teamed with a European tech consulting firm Altran to create a more efficient airport.

It was recently shown off at the Paris Air Show, and the video after the jump shows off the new system, the “friend-lean”. Yes, that seems to imply that we are leaning on each other, but this is not how they are hoping to resolve the coming problem of airport overcrowding.

The solution is re-creating airports and combining them with train stations. There is no more getting lost in between flights, as these miniature pods take passengers directly to the gate. Personalized schedules on mobile devices are also going to be big, and apparently, a passenger could arrive 10 to 15 minutes before the flight to the airport and get on board. I guess getting through airport security will be faster too.

In fact, there is even plans to have one of these mini-pods come to your house and take you to your plane. I suppose that we will see by the year 2050.

Mercedes-Benz Aero Trailer Concept : Drastically Reducing Wind Resistance and Fuel Consumption of Semitrailer Tractors 0

Mercedes-Benz Aero Trailer is a design study from Mercedes-Benz to develop a new generation of aerodynamic trailer that features 18% less wind resistance and reduce fuel consumption by 5%. The objective of this design study is to show to the world that it is possible to further reduce the already low consumption and low CO2 emissions of state-of-the-art trucks.

Designer : Mercedes Benz

In collaboration between Mercedes-Benz and Commercial Vehicle Design department, they have managed to apply the same principles used in Mercedes-Benz Actros to bring wind resistance level down to 12 to 15 percent lower. The new Mercedes-Benz Aero Trailer front airdam reduces the distance to the tractor unit, thus lowering the wind resistance by one percent. The other contribution comes from the side trim panels design which contributes to 8 percent improvement. The overall design of this trailer is slightly draw-in at the front and characterized by an opening at the rear, in this way, it steers the air in the direction of the striking rear diffuser. The diffuser has the shape of a parallelogram and links up with the underbody paneling. This improves the wind resistance by one to two percent. The rear end taper design improves wind resistance by further seven percent.

By lowering the wind resistance level, Mercedes-Benz Aero Trailer provides great reduction in fuel consumption to almost 5 percent in real-life road traffic. Although the wind resistance level has been reduced, the fundamental load compartment design remains intact, the dimension remains unaffected. The only limitation would be the fact the this truck’s length measurement go over current permissible limit by almost half a meter. Therefore, it’s important to propose changes in legislation to permit Mercedes-Benz Aero Trailer to travel on the road.

Fleet Street Motorcycle Is A Combination of Super Bike, Cafe Racer and Naked Bike 0

The Fleet Street motorcycle is a hybrid between naked bike, super bike and cafe racer. It cannot be contained in any known category. The Fleet Street motorcycle has been designed for every day travel to work, with its powerplant, it is capable of producing high torque and speed. The body of this motorcycle is beautifully handcrafted from stainless steel and carbon fiber components. The classic v-twin engine is incorporated in a hi-tech minimalistic light frame, which is designed for two types of engines, classic and electric. The demand till now was mostly for classic engines, but it is designed to take an electric engine in the future.

Designer : Nejc Brezovšek

Future Tractor for farming 0

Valtra Ants tractor is an enhanced version of our traditional tractor. This concept tractor has been designed for Valtra, a company that specializes in delivering customized tractor for its customers. Following the same principles from Valtra, Ants tractor delivers innovation tractor design which offers you customized power source, flexibility, environmentally friendly system, optimum versatility. The design of Valtra Ants tractor allows you to operate this tractor on wider range of future farming needs.

Designer : Lighthaus

Basically Valtra Ants tractor is available in two different versions hybrid electric or full electric drive train. Each of these tractors consists of two basic modules: the Soldier that features 100kW power and the Worker that features 200kW power. This is a good modular solution that you can choose according to your needs, you can choose to use each module individually or work together. Each of these machines wheels is connected to the chassis via a suspension beam where the stiffness and position of the beams can be individually adjusted. This design provides optimum driving comfort on any terrain while the height of the machine can be adjusted to work on different environment.

Sex and Marriage With Robots by 2050 0

Humans could marry robots within the century. And consummate those vows.

"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience.

Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it.

At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, "but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," Levy said.

Pygmalion to Roomba

The idea of romance between humanity and our artistic and/or mechanical creations dates back to ancient times, with the Greek myth of the sculptor Pygmalion falling in love with the ivory statue he made named Galatea, to which the goddess Venus eventually granted life.

This notion persists in modern times. Not only has science fiction explored this idea, but 40 years ago, scientists noticed that students at times became unusually attracted to ELIZA, a computer program designed to ask questions and mimic a psychotherapist.

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"There's a trend of robots becoming more human-like in appearance and coming more in contact with humans," Levy said. "At first robots were used impersonally, in factories where they helped build automobiles, for instance. Then they were used in offices to deliver mail, or to show visitors around museums, or in homes as vacuum cleaners, such as with the Roomba. Now you have robot toys, like Sony's Aibo robot dog, or Tickle Me Elmos, or digital pets like Tamagotchis."

In his thesis, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," Levy conjectures that robots will become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people will fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them.

"It may sound a little weird, but it isn't," Levy said. "Love and sex with robots are inevitable."

Sex in 5 years

Levy argues that psychologists have identified roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, "and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships. For instance, one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable. Another reason people are more likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that's programmable too."

In 2006, Henrik Christensen, founder of the European Robotics Research Network, predicted that people will be having sex with robots within five years, and Levy thinks that's quite likely.

There are companies that already sell realistic sex dolls, "and it's just a matter of adding some electronics to them to add some vibration," he said, or endowing the robots with a few audio responses. "That's fairly primitive in terms of robotics, but the technology is already there."

As software becomes more advanced and the relationship between humans and robots becomes more personal, marriage could result.

"One hundred years ago, interracial marriage and same-sex marriages were illegal in the United States. Interracial marriage has been legal now for 50 years, and same-sex marriage is legal in some parts of the states," Levy said. "There has been this trend in marriage where each partner gets to make their own choice of who they want to be with."

"The question is not if this will happen, but when," Levy said. "I am convinced the answer is much earlier than you think."

When and where it'll happen

Levy predicts Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize human-robot marriage.

"Massachusetts is more liberal than most other jurisdictions in the United States and has been at the forefront of same-sex marriage," Levy said. "There's also a lot of high-tech research there at places like MIT."

Although roboticist Ronald Arkin at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta does not think human-robot marriages will be legal anywhere by 2050, "anything's possible. And just because it's not legal doesn't mean people won't try it," he told LiveScience.

"Humans are very unusual creatures," Arkin said. "If you ask me if every human will want to marry a robot, my answer is probably not. But will there be a subset of people? There are people ready right now to marry sex toys."

The main benefit of human-robot marriage could be to make people who otherwise could not get married happier, "people who find it hard to form relationships, because they are extremely shy, or have psychological problems, or are just plain ugly or have unpleasant personalities," Levy said. "Of course, such people who completely give up the idea of forming relationships with other people are going to be few and far between, but they will be out there."

Ethical questions

The possibility of sex with robots could prove a mixed bag for humanity. For instance, robot sex could provide an outlet for criminal sexual urges.

"If you have pedophiles and you let them use a robotic child, will that reduce the incidence of them abusing real children, or will it increase it?" Arkin asked. "I don't think anyone has the answers for that yet — that's where future research needs to be done."

Keeping a robot for sex could reduce human prostitution and the problems that come with it.

However, "in a marriage or other relationship, one partner could be jealous or consider it infidelity if the other used a robot," Levy said. "But who knows, maybe some other relationships could welcome a robot. Instead of a woman saying, 'Darling, not tonight, I have a headache,' you could get 'Darling, I have a headache, why not use your robot?'"

Arkin noted that "if we allow robots to become a part of everyday life and bond with them, we'll have to ask questions about what's going to happen to our social fabric. How will they change humanity and civilization? I don't have any answers, but I think it's something we need to study. There's a real potential for intimacy here, where humans become psychologically and emotionally attached to these devices in ways we wouldn't to a vibrator."

Levy is currently writing a paper on the ethical treatment of robots. When it comes to sex and love with robots, "the ethical issues on how to treat them are something we'll have to consider very seriously, and they're very complicated issues," Levy said.

Zero Helicopter[Future helicopter] 0

We’ve always dreamed that one day we can move from one place to another without having to deal with traffic jam. How bout flying from one place to another? Take a look at Zero helicopter concept by Hector del Amo. This single person vehicle is no ordinary chopper, well it’s not a private jet, but it does the job in a very cool way. We like the fact that this zero-shaped chopper looks more compact compared to mosquito helicopter but unfortunately not as portable as Libelula helicopter. Regardless, we still wish to see Zero helicopter make it into the real world.

Designer : Hector del Amo

Using Kon-Boot from a USB Flash Drive: Bypass those pesky Windows and Linux login passwords completely 2

Kon-boot is a Hacking tool you can download from http://www.mediafire.com/file/74qrm2h4oof17o7/kon-boot-all.zip that boots from a CD or floppy and modifies memory to let you login without knowing a local account password in both Windows (even up to Windows 7 32bit SP1) and Linux (not all distros). Kon-Boot is sort of a boot loader that let's you bypass having to use valid credentials when the OS finishes booting. Unfortunately, CDs are hard to put in your pocket, and many machines don't have floppies any more. What I needed was to be able to put Kon-Boot on my pico USB thumbdrive. I found some details online about how to get it on a thumbdrive using the floppy image and Unetbootin, but I had some problems with it doing an infinity loop when I tried to use Kon-Boot from a USB flash drive (worked fine on the same box from a CD). I read some of the comments on Raymond's blog, and someone pointed out the problem but did not really give the file changes to fix it (which I will give below). It seems when you boot Kon-Boot from a USB device, the USB device becomes hd0, but then Kon-Boot tries to pass on the booting process to hd0 (when the internal drive is most likely hd1 at that point) so you get the infinity loop or gray screen. I modified the syslinx.cfg to get it to work. Here are the steps to get Kon-Boot to work from a USB pen-drive:

1. Write the floppy image (NOT THE ISO YOU INBRED FELCH MONKEY!!!) to a USB flash drive using Unetbootin as seen in this image.

2. Extract the files in the following zip to the root of your thumbdrive:   

            http://www.irongeek.com/downloads/irongeekusbkonbootfiles2.zip

3. Tell your BIOS to boot from a USB drive (F12 on most Dell's brings up this boot device menu).

4. When the syslinux menu comes up, choose "1st Kon-Boot" first and step through it.

5. The 2nd time the syslinux menu comes up, choose the option "2nd try boot from drive C: as hd1".

6. If hd1 does not work, try hd2 and so forth until you get in. If you have a a multi-boot system you may get a boot error, but it still worked for me after I confirmed past it.

7. On Linux login as kon-usr at the terminal (not GDM/KDM/XDM). On Windows use any valid local user name and a blank password (or even gibberish, anything you type in as a password seems to work).

dOwnload floppy version
Download cD version

Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011: Computer scientist, Unix co-creator, C programming language designer 0

Computer scientist Dennis Ritchie isreported to have died at his home this past weekend, after a long battle against an unspecified illness. No further details are available at the time of this blog post.

Wikipedia biography here.

He was the designer and original developer of the C programming language, and a central figure in the development of Unix. He spent much of his career at Bell Labs. He was awarded the Turing Award in 1983, and the National Medal of Technology in 1999.

"Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible," James Grimmelman observed on Twitter. "His pointer has been cast to void *; his process has terminated with exit code 0."

The news of Ritchie's death was first made public by way of Rob Pike's Google+. 

Photo, below: Candlelight vigil for Dennis M. Ritchie. (thanks, Kevin)