Haaretz | Dec 27, 2009

By Ora Coren

Elbit's Viper robot, capable of crawling through tunnels, entering buildings, turning around and broadcasting images.

With self-detonating grenades, thinking bullets and robot warriors, humans on the frontline could soon be a thing of the past.

When armies clash in the not-too-distant future, remotely-operated robotic weapons will fight the enemy on land, in the air and at sea, without a human soldier anywhere on the battlefield.

The first robotic systems are already being used by the Israel Defense Forces and other armies across the world, and only budgetary constraints seem to be keeping science fiction from becoming reality.

In places where there is no choice but to send in troops, constantly improving broadband technologies, developed from the civilian communications industry, will serve as an essential part of the infrastructure for all modern military forces.

A helicopter that spots suspicious movement on the ground will, for instance, be able to relay a command to a drone aircraft to photograph the site and transmit the picture in real time to troops on the ground and to the command posts in the rear.

Soldiers will be able to mark their target by its coordinates and with lasers, allowing missiles launched from dozens of kilometers away to be guided by global positioning systems, ensuring accuracy and destruction of the target.

The systems will be coded to prevent enemy interception of the operation. Spy satellites that today weigh several tons will be shrunk down to anything between one and 100 kilograms or less, with engines the size of postage stamps. Infantry rifles will be computerized and fire “smart” rounds telling them when and where to explode. New rockets will also be able to think by themselves to enhance their accuracy.

Israel’s military industries, already world leaders in arms technology, are hard at work developing weaponry for the 2020s. Development of new weapons for the IDF is generally carried out with assistance and in cooordination with the Defense Ministry?s research and development arm.

The Israeli military’s demands are the cornerstone of the local weapons industry, and they can be summed up in two words: miniaturization and accuracy. The former will enable the troops in the field to carry their weapons or communications equipment more easily, and the latter will help avoid civilian casualties.

Military censorship prevents disclosure of the Israeli arms industries? most exciting and futuristic devices, but a good picture of what can be expected can be compiled using what is already in the public domain.

Pin-point accuracy

“The Protector, which we are already marketing, is a vessel that sails all over in all kinds of places without a living soul on board,” says Roni Postman, vice president for R&D at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. “It can get close up to a terrorists’ boat, address it through a loudspeaker, and open fire at it. In the past, a thing like this required a boat with seven or eight crewmen who were in constant danger. This type of remote control is one of the clearest characteristics of the future battlefield. It will be a battlefield devoid of troops, with vehicles doing what soldiers have done until now.”

Unmanned boats, land vehicles and aircraft will be either controlled remotely or will function autonomously, pre-programmed to carry out a mission from start to finish, such as reaching an enemy bunker, transmitting a photograph back to a command post, launching a projectile at it, and returning, or blowing itself up to destroy the target and the people inside it.

Another characteristic of weapons now undergoing development is pin-point accuracy for urban warfare, especially in a world that has become less accepting of “collateral damage.”

“Whereas up to a decade ago, planes would drop bombs that destroy everything within a 20 or 30-meter radius without any restraints in order to hit a certain target, that’s all over today,” Postman says. “We are working on capabilities that will make it possible to place a missile launched 70 kilometers away through a specific window of a certain house. It is also a question of costs. Armies will pay a lot for a missile only if they are sure that it will hit the target head-on.”

On top of these requirements, the weapons of the future will also be more efficient in terms of the ordnance delivered to the target. No longer will the same bomb or missile be used to deal with a man on a bike and a three-story building.

Forces will be equipped with what they need to deal with certain objectives and not simply with “the lowest common denominator,” says Postman.

On the other hand, Rafael is also developing cross-platform systems for armies looking to cut down on costs. For example, one goal is a missile that can be fired from a helicopter, a fixed-wing plane, a boat, or a land vehicle and that can destroy tanks and above-ground structures and bunkers.

“The miniaturization trend that has taken hold of the civilian market enables the introduction into military systems of things we couldn’t even dream of before, because of their size, weight and volume,” says Postman. “This is a worldwide tendency and future battlefields will be full of weapons and other items that are much smaller than they have been until now. For example, something that is today a square meter will be reduced to five square centimeters. This is especially useful in unmanned air vehicles, whose weight-carrying capacity is limited by the size of their engines, the amount of fuel they must carry and the altitudes they have to attain. Every gram counts. If they are loaded down with heavy systems, they won’t be able to carry out their missions.”

Israel Aerospace Industries, for example, has developed the Mosquito, a UAV with a 40-centimeter wingspan and a silent engine, that can be launched from the shoulder of a single soldier. Even this device may be shrunken down, if the military so requires.

The soldier of the future

What will the next war look like? Will it be waged on land, tank against tank, like previous wars? Will it be waged against terrorist organizations? Or against the threat of long, medium and short-range missiles?

“From the point of view of Elbit Systems, life is complex and a response must be found for Iran, for terrorists in Gaza and also for Syria,” says Haim Rousso, vice president for technological and engineering excellence at Elbit. “Intelligence will always be necessary, in both peace and wartime, so we at Elbit are constantly working on developments in the sphere, from satellites to tactical systems on the ground.”

He says that the systems are evolving in the direction of giving real time information, with analysis and application capability, making it possible to respond immediately.

To cope with the challenges emanating from Iran, Syria and Lebanon, Elbit is working on perfecting its multispectral camera, Rousso says.

“In the security world what they look for is camouflaged targets; they want to be able to distinguish between what is real and what only looks like a target, to find things that are buried under the ground,” he says. “So we do not ask what the eye can see, but rather what is the color or the combination of colors that is being sought. The great challenge is to build a camera with a reasonable size and price tag that can be carried on an uncomplicated platform and which we can tell precisely which colors to find – first color A, then color B. Another challenge is to build a bank of targets, to understand what we are interested in, and what is the spectral signature of the target. This involves research, collection and construction of databases, because colors change in different weather conditions, for instance. This camera will be able to see things that no other instrument today can see. We expect this to be a key element of the future battlefield.”

The defense establishment’s demand for products that are light, small and not too expensive is a function of the nature of land warfare, which will continue to keep military forces occupied for years. It will require miniaturization in optics, electronics and power supply.

“We want to give every soldier the capability to identify targets and other objects, and to communicate with the whole world, and when such large quantities of equipment are involved, the price becomes a significant element,” says Rousso. “Everyone in the world – the United States, Europe, Australia – is busy working on the soldier of the future. In the war on terror, a low-intensity conflict, the individual soldier is given a great deal of weight. He needs the means of talking to the system, to get a picture and to transmit data. Technologically speaking, each soldier is a sensor and a platform.”

Rousso says nanotechnology is on its way.

“It was not developed for the military but the anticipated evolution of the next decade could cause a revolution. That’s why we are studying the technology and its military applications. Also of interest to us are the mini-robots that can get into tunnels or buildings and move around mapping the interior and transmitting pictures. It already exists, but in the long term it will be honed and use of it will increase. Elbit has developed the Viper robot, and we are already speaking of a family of smaller robots. In the sphere of unmanned aircraft we are also talking about ongoing upgrades in the construction materials, the aerodynamics, the ability to stay longer in the air at higher altitudes and better maneuverability.”

In addition to their UAVs, both Elbit and Rafael have developed sea-faring drones, and Elbit and IAI have developed unmanned land vehicles that carry out pre-programmed missions, as distinct from remotely-controlled robots.

The goal is to give the vehicles a degree of artificial intelligence that will enable them to react like human drivers in cases where they encounter unanticipated obstacles on the way, such as large puddles of water. These vehicles will also possess an attack capability.

“It will apparently take many years before these things are actually built,” says Rousso. “But today we already have intelligent systems that know how to identify dangers and to think what has to be done to cope with them. An investment in the technology of artificial intelligence, in computerized vision and accurate navigation is required.”

The threat from afar

IAI is currently aiming to give soldiers on the ground capabilities that are today available only to the air force, says the company’s vice president for R&D, Dan Peretz, adding that IAI has moved over from producing traditional weaponry to advanced comprehensive systems.

GPS is being used for the first time, through miniaturization, for the next generation of smart rockets, making them more accurate.

“Accuracy is no longer a function of range. The same degree of accuracy can be had at 250 kilometers as at 10 kilometers.” says Peretz. “And when I have an accurate system, I don’t need a large warhead anymore, because I hit the target right on the nail. There are already some accurate missiles, but they are expensive. The introduction of GPS into warfare has already begun in the United States in the sphere known as Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. It enables forces under fire to return fire without calling in air support, as the Americans did in Iraq.”

The Tzayad (Hebrew for “hunter”) system in use in the Israeli army, developed by Elbit, enables a commander in the field today equipped with a handheld computer to get a picture from a UAV and to call in helicopter fire. The new IAI system will be able to mark the target’s coordinates, making it possible to hit it from the rear with smart rockets.

The system included GPS-guided or laser-homing rockets.

“I put a laser dot on a target, and a laser sensor in the rocket head can home in on it,” says Peretz. “There are systems today that work on laser detectors – the smart, accurate missiles. Now there will also be laser-guided rockets.”

Lev Tahor (“pure heart”) is a smart mortar shell. It carries a GPS computer and can do what until now only missiles could do, but it is 10 times smaller.

“We are the first in the world who have taken a laser detector system to rockets, the first in the world to fire mortar shells that are guided by GPS,” says Peretz. “We are developing the ability to hit targets with the first shell, without hitting the wrong target.”

Peretz says IAI is collaborating with the American company Raytheon to sell the systems to the U.S. military, with the first demonstrations due in 2010.

“In five years’ time, this technology will be taken for granted,” he says.

Another development that miniaturization has made possible is Refaim (“ghost”) which involves fitting a tank’s fire-control system onto a rifle, enabling it to gauge the range of a target and to order the projectile that it fires to explode where it will do the most damage.

For example, a grenade could be told to explode at a point above enemy personnel hiding behind a wall.

“The Refaim system will include a 40mm round that contains a computer and I can command to explode in the air at a certain range, to explode on contact, or to explode after contact. If I want to shoot into a room, I would tell it to explode three meters after going through the window, in order to kill the people inside. It can also self-destruct, so as not to leave dangerous explosives on the ground if it doesn?t hit its target.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often mentions the threat facing Israel from afar, or the “third circle” of enemies not inside or bordering Israel, like Iran.

The IAI is continuing to develop unmanned aircraft and is going on to new tasks defined for it by the defense establishment, including handling the third circle.

Moreover, the unique radar that penetrates fog and dust will be miniaturized in the future so that it will have more applications and be more accurate and able to identify the sources of fire within the first and second circles, in all weather conditions.

Sources in the defense establishment say that the IAI is directing much of its resources to address the threats of the third circle, first and foremost an advanced Arrow system for the accurate interception of long-range missiles. The Arrow will leave the Earth’s atmosphere and enter outer space, employing innovative technologies to locate its target and destroy it.

In facing far-reaching enemies, the defense establishment must develop lightweight and accurate ordnance that can be carried by small aircraft or on the American F-35 jets now under development, which has outstanding stealth properties but is relatively small.

The Israel Navy is not being left out of planning for the future, and its vessels are to be equipped with a new anti-aircraft missile system that IAI is developing in collaboration with India, integrated with advanced radar and fire control systems. Submarines will also have a key role in future wars, and they will be equipped with technology enabling them to stay underwater for longer periods and with new attack capabilities.

Full Story

The UK MoD’s ‘Novel Air Concept’ robot stealth jet/copter notion. Credit: Defence Science

You have to wonder just what urban areas in “defended air space” the MoD has in mind for its stealthy robot jet/chopper to penetrate.

Bids for droid tail-sitter with pop-out chopper

Register | Nov 10, 2009

UK to build robot stealth raygun jet/copter

By Lewis Page

Aerospace firms are competing for a “classified” UK MoD contract to build a robotic military stealth aircraft which would be able to hover like a helicopter or fold its rotors and fly as an aeroplane. The “novel air concept” would be able to operate “within urban canyons” and deploy radical new weapons such as microwave or laser rayguns.

News of the commercial bids comes from Aviation Week & Space Technology, which names UK-headquartered arms globocorp BAE Systems, Euro missile alliance MBDA (partly owned by BAE) and British uni spinout Cranfield Aerospace as competitors to build the Novel Air Concept prototype.

The MoD’s Defence Science organisation had already released some details on the Concept. Specifically, the military boffins would like to see:

A more cost-effective means of achieving the effects currently provided by manned aircraft and cruise missiles by using new concepts in unmanned air vehicles (UAVs)/unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs). The specific effects under consideration are the delivery of novel payloads over remote hostile territory and, specifically, within the urban environment.

Pop-chopper: Good for hovering in urban canyons as well as VTOL

This is seen as being delivered as “a flying demonstrator within 3 years” (that is by 2012), which is to have the following abilities:

A reusable uninhabited air system with a radius of action of 1000km and able to survive defended air space. Capable of being launched and recovered from land, sea and air with the emphasis on ship based operations. The vehicle is to be able to operate within the urban canyons inherent in the major city landscape.

The MoD’s graphic seems to indicate a sort of mini stealth jet able to deploy rotors from its nose and hang vertically from them, setting down perhaps on its back end like the “tail-sitter” VTOL prototypes of yesteryear. The concept of large rotors, rather than a small propellor or even narrower jetpipe, makes sense in the context of the “urban canyon” requirement. A large heli-style vertical-thrust disc is required for an aircraft which is going to hover for any length of time without burning up all its fuel and probably melting its engines to boot.

As to the “novel payloads”, again the graphic offers a clue. The mysterious green cabinets between the conventional missiles have something of the look of phased-array antennae, perhaps capable of emitting focused, directable beams of microwaves – most probably for “soft” electronic-warfare purposes, but conceivably as active weapons able to permanently fry enemy circuitry.

It’s all very shiny, but you have to wonder just what urban areas in “defended air space” the MoD has in mind for its stealthy robot jet/chopper to penetrate. And you definitely have to wonder whether it would really be more cost-effective than comparatively simple one-shot cruise missiles, whose price is now falling through the few-hundred-k$ range: and which on their own can eliminate most air-defence networks possessed by non-nuclear powers.

There’s a definite air of seed-money about this, rather than of something that will actually be much use. We’ll be hoping that Cranfield gets the pork in this case – BAE and MBDA have already had more than their share.

We asked for comment from the MoD – after all, they weren’t shy about unveiling the concept to begin with – but hadn’t heard back as of publication. If we hear any more we’ll let you know.

Researchers use distributed computing and robots to create programmable matter

Computerworld | Nov 12, 2009

By Sharon Gaudin

Imagine a day when you can make your cell phone smaller to fit more comfortably in your pocket, then make it larger so you can text more easily.

Those scenarios could be real in the not-so-distant future, according to researchers at both Intel and Carnegie Mellon University.

Scientists are using distributed computing and robotics to make shape-shifting a reality. In essence, they’re working to take millions of millimeter-sized robots and enable them, through software and electromagnetic forces, to take on various shapes and sizes.

Nearly two years ago, Seth Goldstein, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told Computerworld that he was working with a team of scientists at Intel and the U.S. Air Force Research Lab to create programmable matter. This week, Goldstein and Jason Campbell, a senior staff research scientist at Intel’s research lab in Pittsburgh, say they now are able to demonstrate that the physics they’ve been talking about are real.

“It’s been pretty hard but we’ve made a lot of progress,” said Campbell. “Optimistically, we could see this in three to five years. It will take us longer…. We’re not there yet, but we see a path.”

The programmable matter is called claytronics and the tiny robots are called catoms. Each catom will have its own processor. Think of each catom as a tiny robot or computer that has computational power, memory and the ability to store and share power.

Expanding on the idea of distributed computing, researchers are working to program millions of catoms to work together, much like a swarm of bees or a flock of birds.

Goldstein explained that researchers hope to write one program that will engage the entire system of catoms, instead of trying to write code for each one. Developers are focused on creating software that will focus on a pattern or overall movement of the system of tiny robots. Then each robot will be smart enough to detect its own place in the pattern and respond accordingly. If, for instance, a catom, or robot, detects that it has only one other catom beside it, it will know that it’s on an end and can act according to what the end piece should be doing.

“Generally, people learn how to program a single machine,” said Goldstein. “Think of the ensemble as the system.”

Part of the scientists’ research is creating new programming languages, algorithms and debugging tools to get these massive systems to work together.

And the shape-shifting efforts go beyond being able to change the size or shape of your cell phone. Goldstein explained previously that it could mean being able to better use the space in a small apartment by being able to change a dinner table into a poker table for a party and then into a bed at the end of the day.

It also could mean that instead of looking at images on a screen, gamers could have animated figures running around their houses. And instead of calling your co-worker to discuss something, a 3D facsimile of him or her could sit in your office and discuss a new project or the next year’s budget.

The rich could all be cyborgs in the future.

“Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.”

- Bertrand Russell, “The Impact of Science on Society”, 1953

The super-rich may evolve into a separate species entirely in the future due to enhancements in biotechnology and robotic engineering, American futurologist Paul Saffo has said.

Telegraph | Oct 25, 2009

By Amy Willis

Mr Saffo, from San Francisco, says in the future people will be able to grow their own replacement organs, take specially tailored drugs, and use genetic research tools to alert them from any possible hereditary health dangers.

He adds that tomorrow’s world will be a fusion of biology and technology, where robots do the chores, cars drive themselves and artificial limbs are better than real ones.

Mr Saffo’s comments reflect claims by American scientist Ray Kurzweil who only a few months ago said immortality was only 20 years away due to the speed of advancements in nanotechnology.

But Mr Saffo says these improvements would only be affordable to the super-rich. And because of this, he says, advancements may lead to a divide between the classes and eventually could lead to the super-rich evolving into a different species entirely, leaving his not-so-rich counterpart behind.

“In the 1980s it was the personal computer – came out of the garage, changed the world. In the 1990s it was the web. The next big device to wander into our lives is robots,” he told the Sunday Times.

“We may find we are absolutely dependent upon these electronic insects and that we don’t even know we are dependent upon them until something breaks.

“I sometimes wonder if the very rich can live, on average, 20 years longer than the poor. That’s 20 more years of earning and saving. Think about wealth and power and the advantages that you pass on to your children.”

escapistmagazine.com | Oct 19, 2009

by Tom Goldman

iRobot’s flesh-like ChemBot will freak you out…

The ChemBot might look like something out of a bad dream, but it’s actually a multimillion dollar military project. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office contracted iRobot, creator of vacuum-robot Roomba, to design the soft, flexible, mechanical ooze last year. This video might be a little technical at first, but if you skip to the 2 minute mark you can see the results of iRobot’s work thus far.

iRobot is not a company that just makes house cleaning robots. It has been providing military and civil defense forces with helpful robots for a while now, including the iRobot Warrior, a “large and rugged robot designed to carry 150-pound payloads”, and the iRobot PackBot which has performed “thousands of dangerous search, reconnaissance and bomb-disposal missions” according to iRobot’s website.

DARPA’s main purpose for funding the ChemBot is to create something that can “traverse soft terrain and navigate through small openings, such as tiny wall cracks, during reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions.” The ChemBot should be able to do just that through a mechanism called “Jamming,” which allows for the transition between solid-like and liquid-like states with only a small change in volume. The first half of this video explains how “Jamming” works.

The ChemBot feels like the first step towards the creation of actual human-like robots similar to Battlestar Galactica’s new Cylons. The creepy part about the ChemBot is how it looks as if it’s alive and breathing. Wars could probably be won just by rolling out a few dozen of these things in front of opposing forces to scare the bejeezus out of them. I definitely wouldn’t want to touch a one, they look all gross and sticky.
_________

The Blob (1958) – Theatrical Trailer

ANI | Oct 17, 2009

London, October 17 (ANI): A technology company has developed a new military robot that resembles an oozy blob, which has the ability to squeeze through all manner of cracks and crevices.

According to a report in The Sun, the ‘ChemBot’, made by technology company iRobot, can ooze and pulsate across the floor.

This little robot is not just a fun gimmick, as the company were in fact given military funding to build the blob.

The idea is that the palm-sized machine can assist in reconnaissance or search and rescue missions by transforming to fit through tiny spaces.

Its secret is a process called “jamming” which sees material changing between a semi-liquid and solid state by increasing and decreasing its density.

The ChemBot, short for chemical robot, features compartments filled with air and loosely packed particles within its flexible silicon skin.

When the air is removed, the decrease in pressure constricts the skin and the particles shift slightly to fill the void left by the air, resulting in the solidification of the compartment.

Beneath the skin is an incompressible fluid and an actuator that can vary its volume.

Still at an early stage of development, potential applications for ChemBots include space exploration, military operations and medical devices
that can be implanted in the human body.

They might also prove useful for rescue operations in hostile environments such as subterranean or undersea mines and caves. (ANI)

US Dept of Defense – DARPA Program Brings Sci-fi Capability to Warfighters

ISRIA | Oct 16, 2009

Moviegoers were captivated as they watched a metallic assassin morph before their eyes in “Terminator 2.” The villain turned to liquid before assuming new forms capable of squeezing through narrow openings and transforming its arms into bladed weapons and solid metal tools.

Scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency were wowed too. Now they’re working to deliver that same kind of technology to support the good guys: warfighters on the battlefield.

Mitchell R. Zakin, program manager for DARPA’s Programmable Matter division, said he’s convinced the concept depicted for decades in blockbuster movies and comic books has real-life applications.

He’s leading up the effort to develop “programmable matter,” which he calls “the ultimate adaptable material.” It will be capable of changing size and shape and taking on new properties for one use, he explained, then adapting to a whole different form for another use.

Zakin clarified that he’s not out to change warfighters themselves, just the equipment they use, the clothing they wear and the loads they carry.

“Warfighters carry an incredible amount of stuff and they don’t have any more room to carry more,” he said. “Yet they are facing much more complicated battle spaces. They’re going into caves and working in cities. They need more sophisticated tools to deal with these environments, yet they can’t carry them.”

The logistical challenge of getting equipment to remote areas such as Afghanistan exacerbates the problem, he said.

Enter the concept of programmable matter, a convergence of the fields of chemistry, information, mathematical theory and engineering.

Zakin envisions a day when warfighters will be able to reach into their kit, pull out a lump of programmable matter and form it into whatever they need.

Think of it as carrying a paint can with a bunch of particles inside, he advises anyone struggling to understand how it all would work. The particles could be different shapes and sizes, be made up of different materials and have different functions.

Depending on the requirement, the warfighter would instruct the particles to become whatever was needed at the moment — a wrench, a hammer, a spare part. The particles would then organize themselves to form it. After using the device, the warfighter would return it to the bucket, where it once again would become a bunch of particles until instructed to become something else.

The same principle would work for uniforms, which could change their thermal insulating properties according to the climate: the deep freeze of the Afghan mountains, the blast furnace of summertime in the Middle East.

Fantastic as this all sounds, it’s on its way to becoming a reality.

Five university-led teams are participating in DARPA’s Programmable Matter program, and by the middle of next year, at least one is expected to emerge with a demonstration project. Halfway through the program’s second and final phase, all five teams are making convincing progress that it’s all possible.

The teams began the first phase of the program doing computer modeling, but got so excited by the project that they jumped headfirst into the second phase and began building actual prototypes, Zakin said.

By the end of the second phase, they’re expected to demonstrate that they can take a single set of building blocks and create five different geometric shapes with the strength of engineering plastic.

“Everyone is making progress toward meeting these goals in a very meaningful way,” Zakin said. “I’m confident that most, if not all the teams, will succeed.”

The ultimate benefit to warfighters would be mind-boggling. “Imagine the possibilities: an entire toolbox originating from a single material form, or flexible clothing or equipment that can adapt to the immediate and changing needs of the warfighter, perhaps even ’smart’ bandages embedded with diagnostic sensing capabilities,” Zakin said. “The possibilities are endless.”

In the simplest terms, programmable matter would bring warfighters “maximum capabilities with minimum carry weight,” he said. “It would give them the ability to carry a little amount of stuff and do a lot with it. It creates a whole new paradigm in flexibility for the warfighter.”

But the implications go far beyond warfighting, Zakin said. Aircraft wings built of programmable matter could change in flight to provide the best aerodynamic properties. Everything from computers to televisions to cars could be programmed to automatically update themselves with the newest features and configurations. Clothing could morph into the latest fashion styles.

In a nutshell, nothing would ever have to become obsolete.

“This is not fantasy, actually,” Zakin said. “Aspects of this already are being done in this project.”

Programmable matter also has the potential of turning the entire manufacturing process on its head. No longer would one design and one manufacturing process be needed for every single consumer product.

“Personal manufacturing” could take over. Consumers could go online, buy a blueprint for whatever they need, download the instructions, then feed them into a personal assembler that makes the product before their eyes, he said.

In some ways, Zakin said he’s been preparing for the Programmable Matter program since he first saw as a young boy the concept depicted in the 1950s sci-fi movie, “The Blob.”

“Most of my programs come out of the movies or comic books,” he said. “It’s what I do for a living.”

Decades later, he said, it’s gratifying to be at DARPA, where he’s on the leading edge of helping bring fantasy to life.

“It allows us to do something very, very important, and something no one else has ever done before,” he said. “It’s very DARPA-like.”

Scene from the 1927 film Metropolis where a woman is used by a mad scientist to create a robot replica to serve his evil plans.

Forbes | Oct 2, 2009

by Courtney Boyd Myers

Technology futurists love to talk about the Singularity as the point in time when technology starts to progress so rapidly that machine intelligence melds with and surpasses human intelligence. It is to futurists what the Rapture is to fundamentalist Christians.

Those who welcome or fear this eventuality are gathering this weekend in New York City for the fourth annual Singularity Summit. Speaking at the summit are some of the better-known tech soothsayers, including author and programmer Ray Kurzweil; Steve Wolfram, the founder of the novel search engine Alpha; and Aubrey de Grey, an expert on anti-aging science. Also giving talks are Australian philosopher David Chalmers, whose idea inspired the Matrix film series, and Pay-Pal co-founder Peter Thiel, who has donated in the six figures to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the organization putting on the event. Last year, the summit drew 1,000 curious academics and entrepreneurs in San Jose, Calif. (See our story on the 2007 Summit here.)

Michael Vassar, the president of the institute, gives the Singularity just under a 25% chance of happening by 2040 and a 70% chance by 2060. When we do cross that line, Vassar says nothing will be the same. “Humans living in the post-Singularity world will be as powerless as jellyfish are in today’s world,” he says. His odds don’t take into account the chances of the world plunging into rapid technological decline due to a nuclear war or a worldwide collapse into barbarism.

Vassar’s six staffers at the Singularity Institute, including Kurzweil, publish papers with titles such as, “Uncertain Future Project,” “Global Catastrophic Risk Project” and “Economics and Machine Intelligence,” and have developed software that supposedly predicts technology’s trajectories and generates odds on the occurrences of global catastrophes like nuclear war and global warming.

Singularists fall into optimist and pessimist camps. Optimists, such as Kurzweil, look forward to living in an age in which human intelligence is enhanced by brain implants that extend our memories, enhance our senses and allow us to solve problems faster and with greater accuracy.

The pessimists, and Vassar is one of them, see threats to humanity from the rise of an unfriendly machine intelligence that will want to enslave humans (think The Matrix) and use our brain matter for endless computation, much as we’ve used computers in the past 60 years.

Vassar says he and his colleagues at the Singularity Institute are working on seeing that a Matrix-like future never happens. Institute research fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky coined the term “Friendly AI” to describe an AI that could be built to have a moral conscience. One of the institute’s chief goals is to encourage other scientists to create this Friendly AI. (Read “Vassar’s Machine Minds” in the AI Report.)

Many computer scientists and engineers remain very skeptical of the Singularity and the cargo-cult enthusiasm that surrounds it. They don’t believe in humanity’s ability to reach a point at which technology will be so complex as to render us inconsequential. It’s also likely that for economic reasons, technical progress and computer hardware performance will never accelerate at the speed required to reach the Singularity.

Will Wright, the creator of The Sims videogame series, has gone on record saying that machines will never achieve the kind of intelligence and creativity of which humans are capable. But he does believe that machines will one day be able to make themselves more intelligent, effectively reprogramming themselves until the first real AI achieves its own sort of sentience, one that is very alien to our own human cognizance.

Ariel Rabkin, a third year Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkley’s Computer Science program, doubts that many technical people take the Singularity seriously. “Human-comparable AI is really hard,” he says, “And we’re nowhere close to achieving it.” He adds, “I can tell you that nobody I work with at Berkeley or elsewhere has ever mentioned it. And just to be clear, I don’t just mean, ‘We don’t talk about it in courses.’ I mean, nobody mentions it, at all, ever. We don’t think about it.”

But the Singularity continues to pique the curiosity of the layman. Over the next 12 months, Hollywood will release several movies with trans-humanist themes, such as Jonathan Mostow’s Surrogates, James Cameron’s Avatar, Barry Ptolemy’s Transcendent Man and The Singularity is Near, with a script by Ray Kurzweil. In a time when the publishing industry is struggling, Better Humans LLC has just launched a new magazine called H+ covering the trans-humanism scene for fans of radical technological change.

It’s possible that because the Singularity is a relatively new idea, it’s embraced mostly by the youth and dismissed as a counter-cultural trend by an older generation of professors and scientists. “I’m the older side of the Singularists,” says Vassar, who is 30 years old.

The Singularity probably won’t destroy humanity in our lifetime, but it’s productive to keep asking the question of whether technology is serving us or if things are the other way around.

In Surrogates, Bruce Willis plays a cop who loses control of his robotic counterpart. Photo courtesy Disney

Wired | Sep 25, 2009

By Hugh Hart

HOLLYWOOD — Taken at face value, Bruce Willis’ new sci-fi thriller Surrogates sports a premise every bit as outlandish as the wig he wears during much of the movie. In the film’s near-future setting, humans have withdrawn from everyday life almost completely. Instead, they hole up in their homes and send robotic versions of themselves, called “surrogates,” into the real world.

The remote-control androids, which look vaguely like the robots from 1973’s Westworld, perform the operators’ jobs and interact with other surrogates. Willis stars as both a fresh-faced surrogate and its worn-out operator, who chafes at the lack of personal interaction in his life.

“In this movie, people stay at home in their underwear wired into this fantastic massagelike chair device for 16 hours at a stretch and operate this idealized version of themselves that they can control like a puppet,” said Surrogates director Jonathan Mostow as he previewed snippets of the film in his editing bay on the Disney lot last month.

During the Wired.com video interview above, Mostow expounds on surrogate technology and elaborates on the human/machine dynamic in the PG-13 film, which opens Friday. “If your brain waves say, ‘OK, raise your hand up like this,’ then that’s what the robot does,” he said.

Human-machine interfaces have been explored before in movies, from Sleep Dealer’s node workers, who jack in to a network to operate machines remotely, to The Matrix’s humans-as-batteries paradigm.

Pure sci-fi, right? Not entirely. Chad Cohen, science producer for Discovery Studio’s upcoming Discovery Channel series Curiosity, says Surrogates draws from real-world technology to sell its central concept.

“There is certainly a lot of research out there relating to neural interfaces that would help audiences make the leap and buy the premise,” he said. In fact, as the movie starts, it uses news clips citing real scientific experiments to set up its story line.

Case in point: Last May, University of Pittsburgh scientists implanted a monkey with electrodes that empowered the subject to move a mechanical arm and grab food using willpower alone.

“It’s almost like Luke Skywalker using the force to grab his lightsaber,” said Cohen. “From there, it’s not such a stretch to think that one day researchers might help paralyzed people control prosthetic arms.”

Another real-world example of brain-wave-activated robotics comes from Duke University Medical Center scientists, who wired a rhesus monkey with electrodes. When the monkey strode on a treadmill in North Carolina, its cortex prompted a 5-foot humanoid in Japan to start walking.

“We can read signals from the motor and sensory areas of the brain, decode them, and send them this bipedal robot that actually starts walking like a monkey,” Duke neuroscientist Miguel A. L. Nicolelis told Scientific American.

And not unlike Surrogates‘ humans who operate their robotic counterparts from the comfort of home, Hiroshi Ishiguro has built a neuromechanical replica of himself that lets him engage the real world by proxy. Ishiguro’s doppelgänger, dubbed Geminoid, gives lectures in venues thousands of miles from the scientist’s Osaka home office.

The type of advanced remote-control robots imagined in Surrogates likely won’t materialize in the real world for decades, if at all. Yet on a metaphorical level, Mostow, who earlier delved into big-screen robotics when he directed Terminator 3, believes people have already become overly attached to technologies that threaten to make in-person face time obsolete.

Pointing to the near-addictive quality of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Mostow says: “What this movie is really about is what it means to live in a digital age where we’re connected to all these machines, yet we’re also so isolated from each other.”

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Surrogates – Official Science Fact Teaser

Tourism futurologist Ian Yeoman, from New Zealand’s University of Wellington, gave an preview of what the world could be like in 2050, shaped by global warming.

Future tourism may include robot sex

AAP | Aug 17, 2009

Robot "prostitutes'' would make an appearance / Reuters

IT sounds like science fiction, but robot bar staff, hotel rooms that change colour, cruise ships as big as aircraft carriers and even robot sex are part of the future for travellers, a tourism conference has been told.

Tourism futurologist Ian Yeoman, from New Zealand’s University of Wellington, gave an preview of what the world could be like in 2050, shaped by global warming, an older population, food, water and jet fuel supply problems and technological advances.

Dr Yeoman said the future may see a more controlled society with a return to mass tourism spawning a range of new indoor tourism products.

Indoor artificial ski centres, circuses, zoos, golf courses and recreated landscapes, as well as giant cruise ships, could be among the new attractions.

As costs for basics such as electricity and food increased, tourism operators could turn to robots as cheap labour, Dr Yeoman said.

Robot waiters at cocktail bars, remote-controlled camera-carrying guard dogs in hotel lobbies and self-cleaning hotel rooms were all likely, Dr Yeoman said.

“Robotics will become important, because you’re going to have labour shortages in the future,” he said.

“You’ll have some sort of interaction in terms of robots doing certain types of mundane activities.”

Even robot “prostitutes” that would not pass on diseases such as HIV could make an appearance, he said..

“But you’re talking about extreme futures,” he said.

Dr Yeoman said technology would also revolutionise hotel bedrooms, with beds that sensed a guest’s comfort needs and chemical wallpaper that could change colour to suit a guest’s mood.

Of course, special pills could override a traveller’s need for sleep.

“If you look at some of the research from the US army research centre, what they do at the moment, when soldiers go into battle, they’re given sleep deprivation tablets,” he said.

“To a certain extent you could replicate that into travel and tourism, taking a tablet to do a 24-hour experience.”