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Stanford University
Meet your new sword-swinging robot master. You can thank these Stanford students for sealing the fate of humanity.
A group of Stanford students have come up with a really great idea: they're using the Kinect motion-sensing video game controller to teach robots to fight with swords.
And by "really great idea" I mean ... what the hell are these people thinking? Have they not read Daniel H. Wilson's new novel "Robopocalypse"? Robots are out to get us! All of us!
The Stanford grad students thought it would be "cool" to teach a robot to fight like in the Star Wars movies. You know, like with lightsabers. So they created the JediBot (which I will henceforth refer to as the SithBot for improved accuracy.)
"We were recently at a conference in Shanghai and a company was showing two robots fencing," says Oussama Khatib, the computer science prof behind the madness. "This is easy because every robot knows exactly what the other robot is doing. The challenge here is how can you get a robot to understand what the human is doing?"
The answer to that challenge: Kinect. The SithBot uses Microsoft's full-body motion sensor to track its opponent's sword and adjust accordingly. Check it out in action:
Thankfully, the SithBot is ... slow. But it is strong with the Dark Side of the force and, as anyone can tell, it will soon step up the pace and lead an army of sword-swinging androids chanting "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Mark my words. Mark. My. Words!
(Thanks to Kotaku for the heads up.)
For more paranoid ramblings masquerading as news, check out:
- How to survive in a world ruled by robots
- The original Halo returns as a new one begins
- 'Uncharted' game movie gets new director, script, life
- Kylie Minogue suffers when you play too much 'Dance Central'
- Kinect inspires bionic vision for the blind
Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+. You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.
Leave a Comment:
Ok Berkeley, time to up the ante and have dueling robots (that don't know what the other is doing) for a death match challenge!
Go Bears!
It's isn't the slow robots with swords that bother me. It's the slow robots with miniguns, rocket propelled grenades and missle launchers that really bother me.
Armageddon, thy name is Kinect.
Thank goodness we spend out tax dollars on places like Berkeley....
That's rather short-sighted. Maybe you don't see the big picture, but using "seeing-eye" technology for simple tasks like sword fighting can lead to more complex, highly useful tasks like operating cranes and automated driving and other applications.
The budget for scientific research and development is dwarfed by nearly all other projects.
This was at Stanford. My post above was noting the longstanding rivalry between Stanford and Berkeley.
Awesome.
Bring on the Singularity.
(the girl at 2:00 is a hottie)
now they will be sued for using something they bought and own for what they want to use to for instead of what it was intended for.
that was the most ridiculous claim and lawsuit ever when video game manufacturers want to sue people for adapting something they bought and own to make it do something useful, only because they have imagination and technical skills.
if that was ever possible to sue someone like that, than many inventions would never have been invented or improved.
That's highly unlikely. While Sony does indeed sue (old PS2 systems were stripped for processor technology, so Sony changed to a proprietary system) Microsoft has contracts with the government, and allows reverse engineering of their hardware products so long as their within "cleared usage." The government is actually one of the largest purchasers of Microsoft products (they built a supercomputer from stripped Xboxes). I have a feeling they'll instead venture forward in collaborative efforts.
Forget the creepy orange "slinky" bot, I want to sword fight with that pretty young co-ed. Yeah baby!
But seriously folks, were you not paying attention to "I, Robot". Come the year 2100 it's going to be the Robots and the Apes battling for control of this planet and we're going to be toast!
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
I am the overlord and I will kick his little silver butt. Don't mess with the overlord.