June 28, 2012
Behind The Toothbrush, A Human Being
This week, while heading down the stairs to the coffee stand, I ran into this lady cleaning the stairs.
As I excused myself to her and got the nod to run past, I realized she was cleaning each stair not with a machine, or a mop, but with with a hand utensil that was basically like a toothbrush.
And as you can see, she was cleaning more just a couple of steps, but rather a whole staircase like this.
I had to take a second-take at this whole notion--I could not believe she was cleaning each step--one at a time--step by step--from one side to the other--bent over like this with this little tool-like toothbrush.
I wanted to stop and ask her about it--why she had to do it this way? But I was too embarrassed and more important didn't want to embarrass her.
I took this photo discretely not to shame anyone, but to point out the plight of workers in our society.
No one--NO ONE--should have to bend over a staircase or floor or anything like this and clean inch by inch--with a toothbrush!
When I think about it--it is shameful--no, it is enraging--that anyone would treat other human beings like this.
Let's face it--this is not done to get the stairs clean--there are machines and more appropriate hand tools--scrubbers, steamers, scrappers that can do that. Heck, I'd bet that we can modify a iRobot Roomba to eventually do it.
So this is not just about getting the job done, but perhaps about power, degradation, servitude, and even an element of abuse.
I felt terrible for this lady--I almost wanted to tell her to stop, but I assume, she has a family to feed too and has to do what she has to do.
But whoever is employing her and making her do this back-breaking work this way, as my grandmother used to say--G-d sees everything!
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
June 1, 2012
We're In It Together
This is a cool vision by Tom Clancy of the "future soldier" from the Ghost Recon game series.
The mixture of advanced weaponry, high-tech reconnaissance and surveillance, drones and robotics, future combat uniforms, and cloaking technology is just super.
If you have time and interest, there is another longer video here with footage that is particularly good starting at about the 3:40 marker.
Like Star Trek paving the way for real-life advances in technology and space exploration, Clancy's future soldier will be another example of life imitating art.
When we marry the vision and creativity of our entertainment industry, with the technical skills of our scientists and engineers, and the risk-taking of our entrepreneurs, we can do truly awesome things.
"No one can do everything, but everyone can do something"--we're in it together!
We're In It Together
May 26, 2012
Hey, Gesture Like This!
This new gesture-recognition technology from Leap Motion is amazing.
"For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimension with your natural hand and finger movements."
The closest yet to get us to the vision in the movie, Minority Report.
"Leap is more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard, and more sensitive than a touchscreen."
Scroll, pinpoint, pan, play, shoot, design, compose, fly--just about everything you do onscreen, but more in sync with how we generally interact with our environment and each other.
I like when the guy in the video reaches forward and the hands on the screen reach right back at him!
I'd be interested to see how this can be used to replace a keyboard for typing or will it be augmented by a really good voice recognition and natural language processing capability--then we would have an integration of the verbal and non-verbal communications cues.
In the future, add in the ability to read our facial expressions like from a robot and then we may have some real interaction going on mentally and perhaps dare I say it, even emotionally.
According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek (24 May 2012), the Leap is just the size of a "cigarette lighter that contains three tiny cameras inside" and costs just $70--"about half the price of a Kinect."
The Leap is so sophisticated that it can "track all 10 of a user's fingers and detect movements of less than one-hundredth of a millimeter."
At their site, I see you can even preorder these now for estimated shipping at the end of the year.
I think I'll put this on my holiday gift list. ;-)
Hey, Gesture Like This!
April 20, 2012
Robot Guard Thyself
The Asian Forum of Corrections in South Korea has developed this 5' tall robot for patrolling prisons.
But rather than restraints and weapons, this prison guard carries a suite of technology:
- 3-D Cameras for monitoring safety and security
- Recording devices for capturing activity
- 2-way wireless communications between corrections officials and prisoners
- Pattern recognition and anomaly detection software for differentiating normal behavior from problems
While this sparks the imagination for where this might go in the future, I'm not quite sold on this.
Firstly, how well can these robots really recognize and interpret human behavior, especially from those who may be fairly adroit at hiding or masking their activities, day-in and day-out.
And maybe more importantly, without some serious defensive and offensive tricks up its robot sleeve, I have a feeling that many a prisoner with a two by four, would put this million dollar robot in the junk yard pretty fast, indeed.
I'd rate this as not there yet! ;-)
Robot Guard Thyself
March 23, 2012
Helping The Disabled Get Their Groove Back
I love this evolving technology using bionics to help the paralyzed stand and walk again.
This technology for exoskeleton suits with motors, sensors, and external power supplies was first developed for the military to run farther, lift more, and so on.
However, the application has been expanded to those who have had strokes, accidents, or otherwise have lost use of their limbs and movement.
Additionally, there is potential for industrial workers to use these robotic suits to do their work with less effort and more impact by augmenting their movement with hydraulic and battery power.
What Exso Bionics seems to have really gotten right is that the suit looks almost perfectly sculpted for a human body, appears to go on the person with relative ease, and helps the person move in a balanced and controlled fashion.
While these suits are still pricey and according to Fast Company (April 2002) cost approximately $130,000, Exso is looking get the rates down to between $50,000 and $75,000 retail.
Further, the article notes that other companies are building competing devices, such as Argo Medical of Israel that offers the ability to climb stairs and that activates by gesture without a therapist pressing buttons. Similarly Rex of New Zealand offers a device that is controlled by a simple joystick.
I think the future for these bionic suits for the military and industrial use will be truly transformative in terms of providing superhuman speed, strength, and stamina to advance our capabilities and increase our productivity.
Moreover, the use of these exoskeletons by people who are elderly, frail, or sick is compelling and provides hope for people to live with greater mobility, self-reliance, and human dignity.
Helping The Disabled Get Their Groove Back
March 10, 2012
Robots, Coming to An Agency Near You Soon
While sort of humorous, this is also amazingly incredible--through robotics, IT and telecommunications, we are able to close the gap in time and space and "be there," even from a half a world away.
The QB Anybot robot is life size, rolls around on 2 wheels like a Segway, and has glowing blue eyes and a telescreen for a forehead on a long skinny cylindrical body that can be controlled remotely and costs only $9,700.
While this is the story of a robot "becoming the life of the party," I believe that we are at the cusp of when robots will be reporting for duty at our agencies and organizations.
The function of robots in workplace has been tested with them performing everything from menial office tasks (like bringing the coffee and donuts) to actually representing people at meetings and around the office floor--not only keeping an electric eye on things so to say, but actually skyping back and forth with the boss, for example.
As robots become more dexterous, autonomous, and with better artificial intelligence, and abilities to communicate with natural language processing, we are going to see an explosion of these in the workplace--whether or not they end up looking like a Swiffer mop or something a little more iRobot-like.
So while we are caught up in deficit-busting times and the calls for everything from "Cloud First" to "Share First" in order to consolidate, save, and shrink, maybe what we also need is a more balanced approach that takes into account not only efficiencies, but effectiveness through innovation in our workplaces--welcome to the party, Robots!
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Robots, Coming to An Agency Near You Soon
November 1, 2011
Replacing Yourself, One Piece at a Time
Replacing Yourself, One Piece at a Time
October 2, 2011
Robots Are Not Just For Fighting
Robots Are Not Just For Fighting
September 21, 2011
Shalom Rotundus
Shalom Rotundus
September 11, 2011
Cleverbot Proposes Marriage
Cleverbot Proposes Marriage
August 19, 2011
Robot Fighters Coming Soon
Robot Fighters Coming Soon
March 12, 2011
Saved On The Battlefield By A BEAR
The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) developed by Vecna Technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Army's Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Centre (TATRC) is no teddy bear.
The Economist (10 March 2011) says this it is "a highly agile and powerful mobile robot capable of lifting and carrying a combat casualty from a hazardous area across uneven terrain." And when BEAR is not saving wounded soldiers on the battlefield, it can perform "difficult and repetitive tasks, such as loading and unloading ammunition."
The BEAR is a tracked vehicle that can travel up to 12 mph and has 2 hydraulic arms for lifting and carrying. It is controlled with a set of wireless video cameras and joystick control either embedded on the grip of a rifle or with a special glove that can sense the wearer's movements.
This is great concept and I imagine this will be enhanced over time especially with the advances in telemedicine, so that at some point we will see the BEAR or its progeny actually performing battlefield medicine.
One thing, however, in my opinion, the bear face on this robot undermines the seriousness of mission that it performs and it should be changed to look like a medic, it’s primary function.
Saved On The Battlefield By A BEAR
March 6, 2011
Meet ATLAS
Meet ATLAS
February 19, 2011
Technology and The Workforce Seismic Shift
The Wall Street Journal this week (17 February 2011) had a scary and thought-provoking editorial called “Is Your Job an Endangered Species.”
The thesis is that “Technology is eating jobs—and not just obvious ones like toll takers and phone operators. Lawyers and doctors are at risk as well.”
The notion is that while technology creates opportunities for some, it is a major threat to many others.
The opinion piece says to “forget blue-collar and white-collar-workers.” Rather, think in terms of workers who are either “creators” or “servers”.
Creators—these are the innovators: programmers, researchers, and engineers. They are “the ones driving productivity—writing code, designing chips, creating drugs, and running search engines.”
Servers—these are jobs to service the creators: “building homes, providing food, offering legal advice,” etc. These jobs are ripe “to be replaced by machines, by computers, and by how business operates.”
These two categories of labor are similarly portrayed in the movie I. Robot with a vision of society by 2035 that has engineers (“creators”) from U.S. Robotics building robots and then masses of robots walking around side by side with people and performing everyday tasks from the delivering packages to caring for the sick (“servers”).
With manufacturing jobs continuing to move overseas to the “lowest price bidder” and service-based jobs at risk as we continue to make advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, there are a number of important questions that will challenge us:
1) Are the Creator jobs (augmented by the left-over service jobs that don’t go to robots or AI) enough to keep our population fully or even near fully employed?
2) Can almost everyone (no matter what their intellectual capability and curiosity) be expected to perform in the functional job category of creators?
3) Can we transition the preponderance of our society to be engineers and programmers and scientists and inventors—especially given our challenges in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and is this even desirable?
According to the WSJ editorial, there are a few givens:
- Momentous change in the job market is upon us: “Like it or not we are at the beginning of a decades-long trend” in changing employment prospects.
- Jobs are going to be destroyed: “There is no quick fix for job creation when so much technology-driven job destruction is taking place.”
- New jobs will be created: “History shows that labor-saving machines haven’t decreased overall employment even when they have made certain jobs obsolete.”
One of the major problems with the rapid pace of the technology boom we are experiencing is that job market has not had time to adjust—and the “legacy” labor supply is out of equilibrium with the emerging market demands.
Therefore, until new jobs and the associated education and training catch up to meet the demands of a changing society, we are going to suffer severe job dislocation and unemployment that will be enormously painful for many years yet to come.
In terms of what the gamut of new jobs will end up being in our society, surely it will involve areas of critical need such as energy independence, ongoing medical breakthroughs, necessary security advances, high-speed transportation, and so much more.
In all cases though, we can expect that those workers that bring innovation and modern technical skills “to the table” will have the distinct advantage over those that cling to jobs past their technological prime.
Digital natives will have the advantage here; digital immigrants need to adjust to the seismic shift to the employment landscape that is still only just beginning.
Technology and The Workforce Seismic Shift
February 2, 2011
Half Man, Half Machine
Half Man, Half Machine
January 17, 2011
3 Things A Robot Can Do That Your Employees Can't
(Robots pictured: HRP-4, PR2, and Anybots QB)
3 Things A Robot Can Do That Your Employees Can't
January 2, 2011
The Robots Are Coming
Forget waiters and waitresses, the new Japanese Hajime Robot restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand invested almost $1 million on 4 robotic waitstaff.
You order your food by touch screen computer, and there is a countdown on the screen for when the food is ready and the robot brings it out to you.
While the samurai clad robots are not the best looking—their huge eyes are a little cartoonish—they are certainly quite dexterous and able as they nimbly serve the food in this restaurant and dance for the customers in between courses without missing a beat.
Initially automation affected the jobs of blue-collar workers in manufacturing and mechanical work as robots displaced people on the “assembly line.” Now we see the trend continuing and expanding with automation entering the service industry and jobs involving customer interaction, entertainment, and retail being affected. This is happening not only in restaurants, but also elder care (like robot uBot5 being developed out of University of Massachusetts), and in major retail establishments such as in warehouse automation with Kiva Systems robots being employed by major companies like Gap, Staples, and Zappos.
Further, the expansion of robots into traditional human work is also happening in our military—think Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or Drones) like the Predators and Reapers, the robotics pack animals that can carry hundreds of pounds of gear (like Big Dog) and various bomb disposal robots. This is just the beginning.
We are witnessing the transformation of our workforce from traditional blue- and now even white-collar jobs to those with an emphasis on knowledge management (think engineers and technology professionals working at companies like iRobot, Intel, and Apple). This has obvious implications for selection of education pursuits and availability of professional opportunities in the future for our children and grandchildren.
The robots are coming. The robots ARE coming!
The Robots Are Coming
October 9, 2010
Is Technology Measured by Progress or Unrealized Potential?
Is technology progress measured by how far we've come or by what remains to be achieved?
The Wall Street Journal (9-10, October 2010) ran an interview with Peter Thiel, who in ranked #377 in Forbes 400 (2008) with a net worth of $1.3 billion. Thiel was a co-founder of Paypal. In 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 investment in Facebook for 25.2% of the company. Nice!
Remarkable for someone who has made a fortune in technology, Thiel now believes, as the Journal puts it, that “American ingenuity has hit a dead end.”
According to Thiel, “people don’t want to believe that technology is broken…Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology—all (of) these (are) areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think.”
Thiel bemoans our inability to achieve the vision of The Jetsons, as he states: “We don’t have flying cars. Space exploration is stalled. There are no undersea cities. Household robots do not cater to our needs…” According to Thiel, we have reached and are stuck in a long-term stagnation.
Thiel’s theory of technology stagnation is completely contrary, I believe, to the reality that most, if not all, of us are living each and every day, where technology is constantly on the move and if anything, we as organizations and individual struggle to keep pace.
For me personally, the refresh rate for technology is 2 years or less, depending on available cash flow for all the new stuff constantly hitting the market.
In my experience, technology is as dynamic as ever, if not more so. In fact, I have seen no evidence that Moore’s Law has been overcome by events (OBE).
Across government, I am seeing the interest and rate of adoption of new technologies steady or on the rise in areas as diverse as cloud computing, mobile computing, social computing, green computing, knowledge management, business intelligence, and geospatial information systems, and more.
There is no shortage of technology investments to make, IT projects to work on, and new technical capabilities to bring to the business.
While we may not have achieved the full vision set out by Hollywood and other technology visionaries, yet—rest assured, we are well are on way and barring unforeseen events, we most certainly will!
I don’t know about Spacely Sprockets’, but I’d place a few good investments bets around on a future that looks pretty darn close to The Jetsons, along with a good dose of Star Trek ingenuity for measure.
Perhaps Mr. Thiel’s views are a result of frustration that we have not achieved all that we can, rather than a reflection that we have not gotten anywhere. In any case, I enjoyed reading his views and look forward to learning more.
Is Technology Measured by Progress or Unrealized Potential?
September 23, 2010
World 2020
Forbes Magazine (7 September 2010) has an interesting look ahead at the world over the next ten years.
There were some notable predictions that stood out in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly:
- 2011: The Terrafugia flying car goes on sales for $200,000. (GOOD—roads are congested)
- 2012: Oil prices skyrocket following Israeli raid on Iranian nukes. (GOOD—nuclear non-proliferation/ BAD—oil prices) Facebook IPOs at $40 billion. (GOOD—social media still sizzling)
- 2014:Marines deploy tens of thousands of HULC3 exoskeletons—robotic suits—to soldiers in Afghanistan. Lockheed Martin suits increases strength and endurance. (GOOD—“the edge” goes to our warfighters)
- 2016: First Internet balloting for U.S. President with 7% of votes cast online. (GOOD—the old ballot machines are so like “yesterday”)
- 2018: Trans Euro-Asia Express—world’s fastest train arrives in Paris from Bejing, break 300 MPH record. (Good—alternative to airlines)
- 2019: U.S. Life expectancy declines for first time in a century; doctors blame 55% obesity rate. (UGLY—“meaning really bad”—national health is in serious jeopardy)
- 2020: WalMart sales pass $1 trillion...now employs 5 million worldwide. (GOOD—low prices/BAD—low paying jobs) First privately owned spacecraft lands 6 men and 2 women on moon. (GOOD—Thanks Virgin Galactic; Star Trek is a closer reality: "To boldly go...")
Here are ten more predictions I’d like to see (from Forbes or others) in terms of what happens to:
- World peace (e.g. Middle-east)
- Cure for cancer (and other horrible illnesses)
- Economy
- Federal deficit
- Freedom and human rights
- Environment (including global warming)
- Osama bin Laden (and his terrorist henchmen)
- Everything new technology (insatiable appetite for this one!)
- Best careers (so I can advise the youngsters)
- Stock market (hey, wouldn’t it be great to know) :-)
World 2020
September 11, 2010
A Boss that Looks Like a Vacuum Cleaner
This is too much…an article and picture in MIT Technology Review (September/October 2010) of a robotic boss, called Anybot—but this boss looks like a vacuum cleaner, costs $15,000, and is controlled remotely from a keyboard by your manager.
So much for the personal touch—does this count toward getting some face time with your superiors in the office?
With a robotic boss rolling up to check on employees, I guess we can forget about the chit-chat, going out for a Starbucks together, or seriously working through the issues.
Unless of course, you can see yourself looking into the “eyes” of the vacuum cleaner and getting some meaningful dialogue going.
This is an example of technology divorced from the human reality and going in absolutely the wrong direction!
A Boss that Looks Like a Vacuum Cleaner