Expressiveness Maketh Man?

I was considering some of the more intangible elements that make robots acceptable to us as a human society. Some of it is obviously usefulness, but I believe much is based around the anthropomorphic qualities we can imbibe into our mechanical companions. The last blog entry 'Digital Comedy' touched on this and, in all reality, was the catalyst for my train of thought.

If we look to the work already being performed by the developers that are part of the Nao Developer Program, there are already some fantastic example of anthropomorphic behaviour being developed. A personal favourite is the reluctant video star at Carlitos Contraptions.
 

Digital Comedy?

There are many interesting things happening in the world of robots, but some of the most interesting, for me, are the studies and experiments into human/robot interaction. I am particularly impressed with the work being done to make robots interact and integrate more anthropomorphically into our everyday lives.

Thanks to Robots Dreams, Lem Fugitt's exceptional robotics blog, a TED video of Heather Knight came to my attention. Heather is the driving force behind the Marilyn Monrobot robotics lab in NYC and more about her and the projects they undertake can be found here. Heather is currently working on her doctorial research at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, and has done work with Nasa's JPL and with Aldebaran Robotics, the creators of the Nao.

So here is the first ever live audience appearance of Nao doing standup comedy, thanks to the work of Heather and Marilyn Monrobot.

Teleoperation of a Nao robot using Kinect and Wii controllers

Taylor Veltrop's video of the teleoperation of a Nao has been doing the rounds within the robotics community. It really is an amazing example of the integration of the Microsoft Kinect system, Wii controllers and the Nao into a single system. In case you haven't seen the video here it is.......