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  • Fearsome sawblades spinning, Pretty Hate Machine menaces the competition at Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. Organized by Marc Thorpe, a former Industrial Light and Magic model builder, the cybernetic slugfest spawned a six-week BBC-TV series and many similar events. Pretty Hate Machine is a middleweight-class machine; two wheelchair motors power a Rube Goldberg assembly of rods, rubber belts and saw blades. A real crowd-pleaser, Pretty Hate Machine was one of the few walking robots in a competition dominated by wheeled or tracked machines. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 200-201.
    USA_rs_396_qxxs.jpg
  • Hanging from a network of cables, Brachiator III quickly swings from "branch" to "branch" like the long-armed ape it was modeled on. (Brachiator refers to "brachiation," moving by swinging from one hold to another.) The robot, which was built in the laboratory of Toshio Fukuda at Nagoya University (Japan), has no sensors on its body. Instead, it tracks its own movements with video cameras located about four meters away. Brightly colored balls attached to the machine help the cameras discern its position. Brachiator's computer, which is adjacent to the camera, takes in the video images of the machine's progress and uses this data to send instructions to the machine's arms and legs. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 87.
    Japan_JAP_rs_272_qxxs.jpg
  • Jackie Ray Clem operating a Joy Continuos Reach mining machine at the Stillhouse 2 Coal Mine, in Harlan County, Kentucky. The Joy Continuos Reach mining machine cuts an eleven foot wide swath of coal.
    USA_080501_076_xw.jpg
  • Sidling along the edge of a reservoir outside Boston, MA., Ariel the crab-robot moves with a slow, steady, sideways gait. A machine with a serious purpose, it is designed to scuttle from the shore through the surf to search for mines on the ocean floor. Ariel was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and built by iRobot, a company founded by MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks. Inspired by research on crabs at Robert Full's lab at Berkeley, Ariel takes advantage of the animal's stability and improves on it. But despite its abilities, the technician in charge of the machine, Ed Williams, supervises Ariel's excursions with great anxiety. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 100.
    USA_rs_307_qxxs.jpg
  • Pistachios harvested by machine.  The harvester machine passes through the pistachio orchard and shakes each tree so that the ripe pistachios fall into an apron. A conveyor at the bottom brings them up to a loading bin after they pass through a blower to remove leaves and debris. Kern County, California. USA.
    USA_AG_NUTS_06_xs.jpg
  • Painted pink to give competitors a false sense of its harmlessness, Mouser Catbot 2000 has two deadly sawblades in its nose and tail and a hidden flipper on its back for overturning enemy robots. Built by Californians Fon Davis and April Mousley (left to right), the machine deftly trounced Vlad the Impaler, a larger machine with a hydraulic spike that shot from its snout  at Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 205.
    USA_rs_397_qxxs.jpg
  • Ariel the crab-robot moves with a slow, steady, sideways gait. A machine with a serious purpose, it is designed to scuttle from the shore through the surf to search for mines on the ocean floor. Ariel was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and built by iRobot, a company founded by MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_rs_337_nxs.jpg
  • Being carried along the edge of a reservoir outside Boston, MA by iRobot technician Ed Williams, Ariel the crab-robot is able to move with a slow, steady, sideways gait. A machine with a serious purpose, it is designed to scuttle from the shore through the surf to search for mines on the ocean floor. Ariel was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and built by iRobot, a company founded by MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 101.
    USA_rs_338_qxxs.jpg
  • Just below the surface of a reservoir outside Boston, MA,  robot Ariel, built by the Massachusetts firm iRobot, walks sideways like the crab it is patterned on. A machine with a serious purpose, it is designed to scuttle from the shore through the surf to search for mines on the ocean floor. Ariel was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and built by iRobot, a company founded by MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks. Inspired by research on crabs at Robert Full's lab at Berkeley, Ariel takes advantage of the animal's stability and improves on it. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 84-85.
    USA_rs_306_qxxs.jpg
  • Jackie Ray Clem operating a Joy Continuos Reach mining machine at the Stillhouse 2 Coal Mine, in Harlan County, Kentucky. The Joy Continuos Reach cuts an eleven foot wide swath of coal.
    USA_080501_050_xw.jpg
  • Irrigation: Tenneco West, Rosedale Ranch, Kern County, California.  The agricultural fields are irrigated as the automatic pumping and sprinkling machine rolls through the field drawing water from the small canal below. USA.
    USA_AG_IRR_02_xs.jpg
  • A vending machine selling votive candles in the cathedral in the town of Pals, Costa Brava, Spain. Pals is a medieval town in Catalonia a few kilometres from the sea in the heart of the Bay of Emporda on the Costa Brava.
    SPA_070627_134_xw.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_723_120_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_703_120_xs.jpg
  • Harold Cohen, former director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), is the author of the celebrated AARON program, an ongoing research effort in autonomous machine (art making) intelligence. Cohen is seen looking at his creation, a robot "artist" that painted the picture in the background. California, USA
    Usa_rs_700_120_xs.jpg
  • Leaning over the glass-topped workbench in the spare bedroom of his Los Alamos, NM condominium, where he builds most of his robot creatures, Mark Tilden shines a flashlight on what will become the head of Nito 1.0. Many of the components scattered over his desk are simple, cheap, and (by contemporary standards) primitive; many are ripped from junked tape decks, cameras, and VCRs. Nito will be Tilden's most ambitious creation yet. (The name stands for "Neural Implementation of a Torso Organism.") When complete, he says, this easily built machine should interact in a simianlike fashion in its world. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 121..
    USA_rs_212_qxxs.jpg
  • A family owned wineskin workshop in Pamplona, Spain. This old bota (wineskin) workshop called Botería San Fermin is operated by three brothers-Pedro, Victor, and Juan José Echarrí-the third generation of this family business. Their grandfather started the business 115 years ago. They've been in the present building 30 years and started learning the workmanship involved when they were young children. Originally the botería was in their home. They had three floors for living and one for the workshop. Victor is pictured. Process: They turn the stitched hide inside out, beat it on a machine to soften it (they used to have to do this by hand by beating it on a rock) and then put tar on the inside goat fur.  Navarro, Spain.
    SPA_261_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_705_120_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_704_120_xs.jpg
  • Shot-putting Urbie over a two-meter chain-link fence, Alan DiPietro, a staff researcher at iRobot of Somerville, Mass., shows how soldiers might use this remotely operated robot in urban warfare. Intended for surveillance, Urbie is a low-profile, remotely operated machine that crawls over obstacles on bulldozer-like tracks, beaming images of what it sees to its operators. The robot is intended to be exceptionally durable, capable of flipping over and surviving shocks that would destroy most other robots. But the company still has a ways to go, one of Urbie's caterpillar tracks shattered when DiPietro threw it over the fence. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 146.
    USA_rs_334_qxxs.jpg
  • Christian Ristow's bulldozer-tracked, raptor-clawed robot, called Subjugator, fires its flame thrower during a test run for his apocalyptic show of mechanical mayhem at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. A former Columbia University architecture student who is now an artist in Los Angeles, Ristow stages mechanical performances in which his constructions fight each other and destroy designated sacrificial targets. With typical bravado, he called his Burning Man show, "The Final Battle of the Twentieth Century Between Man and Machine for Ultimate Supremacy on the Earth." From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 198-199.
    USA_rs_326_qxxs.jpg
  • Robosaurus prowls the parking lot of a Las Vegas, NM, casino, showing off its ability to breathe fire and crush cars in its mighty claws. The machine can be rented as a destructive attraction for car and air shows. Like a huge transformer toy, Robosaurus folds itself into a tractor trailer that is pulled by a large truck. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, pages 10-11.
    USA_rs_1_qxxs.jpg
  • Not long before going to Antarctica, William L. "Red" Whittaker took a rare moment off from his busy schedule to accompany Nomad, his meteorite-hunting robot, on a practice run. The robot spent Antarctica's summer of 2000 on the ice, hunting for meteorites. With its onboard instruments, Nomad found and classified five. It was the first time that a machine autonomously made a scientific discovery. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 138-139.
    USA_rs_109_qxxs.jpg
  • Intended for surveillance, Urbie is a low-profile, remotely operated machine that crawls over obstacles on bulldozer-like tracks, beaming images of what it sees to its operators. The robot is intended to be exceptionally durable, capable of flipping over and surviving shocks that would destroy most other robots. In a simulated rapid-deployment mission from the comfort of a car, iRobot researcher Tom Frost guides Urbie up a flight of steps in Somerville, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 147.
    USA_rs_87_qxxs.jpg
  • Borrowing from Star Wars, engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center, just south of San Francisco, CA, are developing a personal assistant robot that can hover over an astronaut's shoulder in space, or work at the direction of an astronaut in situations too dangerous for a human. Floating weightlessly, the machine could have many uses: patrolling corridors for gas leaks, reminding astronauts about the tasks on their to-do lists, or serving as a communication link when people are busy using both hands. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 124.
    USA_rs_411_qxxs.jpg
  • Like a dissected mechanical insect, the hand-sized walking robot Unibug 3.2 (left) reveals its fifty-component construction to the camera's gaze. Designed by Los Alamos , New Mexico, researcher Mark Tilden, Unibug uses simple analog circuits, not the digital electronics that are in most robots, to poke its way around an amazing variety of obstacles. Digital machines must be programmed to account for every variation in their environment, Tilden argues, whereas analog machines can minimally compensate for new and different conditions. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 116.
    USA_rs_487_120_qxxs.jpg
  • The most sophisticated machines don't necessarily triumph in the violent gladiatorial battles at San Francisco's Robot Wars, as shown when Tazbot (with turret), a simple, remote-controlled vehicle, forces a much more sophisticated, autonomously moving opponent to self-destruct. San Francisco, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 204 bottom.
    USA_rs_138_qxxs.jpg
  • Atsuo Takanishi of the Humanoid Research Laboratory, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, conversing with writer Faith D'Aluisio at his university laboratory. One of the leading researchers at Japan's Waseda University's long-term robotics project, mechanical engineer Atsuo Takanishi studied under the late Ichiro Kato, a robotics pioneer, and superb fundraiser, who made the school into the epicenter of the field. Continuing Kato's emphasis on "biomechatronics", replicating the functions of animals with machines, Takanishi now supervises the research group that produced WABIAN-RII (behind him in photograph). From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 18.
    Japan_JAP_rs_287_qxxs.jpg
  • Flames shoot from the jaws of Robosaurus, the human-piloted car-crushing entertainment robot. Robosaurus stands 12 meters high (36 feet), weighs 26 tons and its jaws have a crushing force of nine tons. It uses this force to crush and tear cars to bits for entertainment. Robosaurus was created by American inventor Doug Malewicki. Generally machines are considered robots if they are at least semi-autonomous or remotely controlled. Robosaurus is not. Nevada, USA
    Usa_rs_61_xs.jpg
  • Force-feedback is widely used in data gloves, which send hand movements to grasping machines. The robot hand, which was built by the students in Mark Cutkosky's Stanford lab, transmits the "feel" of the blocks between its pincers, giving operators a sense of how hard they are gripping. Stanford, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 137 bottom.
    USA_rs_474_qxxs.jpg
  • After the battle at San Francisco's Robot Wars, robot owners quickly repair what they can in the adjacent pit area . Full of machines being groomed for combat and surgically rescued after it, the pit is a sort of electronic fighter's dressing room and hospital emergency room. Video monitors above the pit give contestants a view of the action. At Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 204 top.
    USA_rs_398_qxxs.jpg
  • According to Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University, advanced manufacturing techniques will enable the creation of machines that will far surpass the dexterity of conventional mechanical manipulators and even human hands. Equipped with molecule-sized "nano-fingers," these devices will be able to create any physical structure, atom by atom. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 33.
    USA_rs_330_qxxs.jpg
  • Metallic flakes wafting from his hand, Kris Pister of the University of California at Berkeley demonstrates one possible offshoot of robotics research: Smart Dust. Miniature machines, each the size of a dust mite, may eventually saturate the environment, invisibly performing countless tasks. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 26-27.
    USA_rs_11B_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Casino near Regis, NY near the Canadian border
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  • Casino near Regis, NY near the Canadian border
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  • The tips of the gecko's toes are covered with corrugations of fantastic complexity. The corrugations are lines of tiny hairs. Flattened in the right way against a surface, the hairs lie so tightly on the surface that the gecko's toes literally form a kind of chemical bond with it. (In technical terms, the gecko takes advantage of van der Waals force.) This is a phenomenon that intrigues researcher Alan DiPietro, of iRobot, in Somerville, MA. Clinging to the glass wall of a terrarium opposite a real gecko, DiPietro's crude, 13-centimeter-long, 100-gram Mecho-gecko has sticky feet that let it clumsily cling to walls, at least for short intervals. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 92-93.
    USA_rs_342_qxxs.jpg
  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
    Usa_rs_5D_120_nxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_42_nxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_37_nxs.jpg
  • U.C. Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos describes his Personal Roving Presence (PRoP) as "a simple, inexpensive, Internet-controlled, untethered tele-robot that strives to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space." In other words, Paulos is trying to build a kind of avatar people could dispatch it to distant places to represent themselves in, say, business meetings. California, USA
    Usa_rs_443_xs.jpg
  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
    Usa_rs_429_120_nxs.jpg
  • Joseph Ayers, head of Northeastern University's Marine Research Laboratory, has been researching lobster locomotion for more than twenty years. Based on Ayers's studies, staff researcher Jan Witting is building a robotic lobster that will capture in detail the behavior of a real lobster. The project has enough potential for sweeping mines that it is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Nahant, Massachusettes. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 110-111.
    USA_rs_7_qxxs.jpg
  • Roboticist Rodney Brooks of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory shares a slinky moment with his creation, Cog (short for cognitive), the robot he has been developing since 1993. Brooks is less concerned with making it mobile than with creating a system that will let the robot reliably tell the difference between static and social objects; for instance a rock and a person. In the resolution of such apparently simple distinctions, Brooks suggests, is a key to understanding at least one type of human learning. Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 62-63.
    USA_rs_5A_120_qxxs.jpg
  • When the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania (no steam rising from the abandoned cooling towers on the left) failed catastrophically in 1979, the intense radioactivity in the plant prevented its owners from surveying and repairing the damage. Four years later, with conditions still unknown, Carnegie Mellon engineer William L. "Red" Whittaker designed several remote-controlled robots that were able to venture into the radioactive plant. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 140.
    USA_rs_477_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_44_qxxs.jpg
  • On a test run on Telegraph Avenue, a busy retail street near the UC Berkeley campus, Paulos controls the ProP (Personal Roving Presence) from a short distance away, via a remote link. One amused man in a wheelchair even stops and asks it for a light. Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos describes his (PRoP) as "a simple, inexpensive, Internet-controlled, untethered tele-robot that strives to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space." Berkeley, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 169.
    USA_rs_444_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_43_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_41_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_40_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_39_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_38_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_36_qxxs.jpg
  • By flexing his data-gloved hand, robotics specialist Fredrik L. Rehnmark controls the NASA robonaut as it reaches for a battery-operated power drill on a test platform. Black goggles on Rehnmark's head give him the view from the twin digital cameras mounted in the robot's shiny carapace. Next to Rehnmark, engineer Hal A. Aldridge tracks the robot's test results. In a cavernous adjacent room in the Johnson Space Center  in Texas is a life-sized mock-up of the robonaut's future home: the NASA space shuttle. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 132-133.
    USA_rs_362_qxxs.jpg
  • With its carapace not yet built, the mechanism inside the head of Cog is revealed against a photographer's lights. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, MA. So much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 59.
    USA_rs_348_qxxs.jpg
  • When the Three Mile Island reactor failed catastrophically in 1979, the intense radioactivity in the plant prevented its owners from surveying and repairing the damage. Four years later, with conditions still unknown, Carnegie Mellon engineer William L. "Red" Whittaker designed several remote-controlled robots that were able to venture into the radioactive plant. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 141.
    USA_rs_24A_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Deep in the basement of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Omead Amidi adjusts the wing of the robot helicopter he is designing with Takeo Kanade, a Carnegie Mellon researcher who specializes in robotic vision. Several smaller versions of the project sit in his workshop. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 160-161.
    USA_rs_101_qxxs.jpg
  • Ground meat is processed into hamburger patties and other finished products at the Rochester Meat Company, where meat grinder Kelvin Lester works, in Rochester, Minnesota. (Kelvin Lester is featured in the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.)
    USA_080602_160_xw.jpg
  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
    Usa_rs_715_120_xs.jpg
  • A farmer prepares rice fields for planting in  Ha Tay Province, outside Hanoi, Vietnam.
    VIE_081220_676_xw.jpg
  • A farmer prepares rice fields for planting in  Ha Tay Province, outside Hanoi, Vietnam.
    VIE_081220_673_xw.jpg
  • A farmer prepares rice fields for planting in  Ha Tay Province, outside Hanoi, Vietnam.
    VIE_081220_819_xw.jpg
  • International Red Cross run Keysaney Hospital in Mogadishu, the war-torn capital of Somalia. March 1992.
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  • Colin Angle gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • In the East Bay suburb of Walnut Creek, near San Francisco, Will Wright and family collectively in their garage preparing their creation for "Robot Wars"(daughter Cassidy 11, nephew Patrick 14, and Will). Later that week, in a battle pit ringed by six-foot sheets of bulletproof glass and a sellout crowd, radio-controlled gladiators battle their robots to the mechanical death. Will Wright developed the Sims software games.
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  • In Death Valley, California, the team responsible for a Russian Mars Rover 'Marsokhod' tests its vehicle to see how it will handle its maneuvering along the similar rocky terrain. The Planetary Society sponsored the test. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_rs_650_xs.jpg
  • In Palo Alto, CA Gavin Miller and his wife Nancy test his robotic snake in the driveway of their home. Miller builds the snakes in his garage. Gavin's dog barks a the snake to the amusement of his wife, Nancy.
    Usa_rs_647_xs.jpg
  • To study the flight control behavior of fruit flies, a tiny fly is glued to a probe positioned in an electronic arena of hundreds of flashing LEDs that can also measure its wing motion and flight forces. By altering its wing motion, the fly itself can change the display of the moving electronic panorama, tricking the fly into "thinking" it is really flying through the air. The amplified humming of the fruit fly as it buzzes through its imaginary flight surrounded by computers in the darkened lab is quite bizarre. UC Berkeley, CA, USA.
    Usa_rs_619_xs.jpg
  • MODEL RELEASED. Kismet robot interacting with a mirror held by researcher Cynthia Breazeal. Kismet is a robot that responds with facial expressions to her actions. It has been developed for the study of action recognition and learning, particularly in children. Kismet has several moods, which it displays as expressions on its face. It responds to visual stimuli like a baby. When there are no stimuli, it shows a sad expression. When paid attention to, as here, Kismet looks interested. Like a child, Kismet responds best to bright colours and moderate movements. Photographed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA.
    Usa_rs_565_xxs.jpg
  • Burying his face in a 3-D viewing system, Volkmar Falk of the Leipzig Herzzentrum (Germany's most important cardiac center) explores the chest cavity of a cadaver with the da Vinci robotic surgical system. Thomas Krummel (standing), chief of surgery at Stanford University's teaching hospital, observes the procedure on a monitor displaying images from a pair of tiny cameras in one of the three "ports" Falk has cut into the cadaver. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 176.
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  • The product of a long quest, Robot III, an artificial cockroach built by mechanical engineer Roger Quinn (in blue shirt) and biologist Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, required seven years to construct. (Quinn directs the Biorobotics Lab at the university.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 102-103.
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  • AeroVironment engineers (left to right) Marty Spadaro, Paul Trist Jr., Tom DeMarino, and Carlos Miralles cluster around the working prototype of the Mars glider, Otto. NASA sees an airplane as an important tool for exploring Mars early in the 21st century, and AeroVironment is seeking the honor of building the plane. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 158 top.
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  • The ghoulish host for Secrets of the Crypt Keeper's Haunted House, a Saturday-morning television show for kids, is an animatronic; that is, lifelike electronic-robot. Built by AVG, of Chatsworth, California, the Crypt Keeper can show almost every human expression, although it must first be programmed to do so. Larger gestures of head and hand are created not by programming, but by electronically linking the robotic figure to an actor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 207.
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  • Surrounded by the robots used in his Georgia Institute of Technology laboratory, computer scientist Ronald C. Arkin specializes in behavior-based robots, he's written a textbook with that name. Concerned more with software than hardware, he buys robots from companies and modifies their behavior, increasing their capacities. But outside such places, what Arkin calls "the physical situatedness" of the robot is "absolutely crucial" to its ability to act and react appropriately. Like many of his colleagues, he has been inspired by the way insects and other nonhuman life forms have adapted to their environment. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 153.
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  • Wielding a paint brush, a robot touches up its human master in this photo-illustration at the SARCOS robot company in Salt Lake City, UT. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 20-21.
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  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Seen here cutting his meat while having lunch with his girlfriend at a café in Halfway, Oregon.
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  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Here he is using a pitchfork to throw hay over the fence to his horses.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_03_xs.jpg
  • Eric Hvinden puts sound onto a Dinamation International Triceratops at the company's factory near Los Angeles, California. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
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  • Snarling at the rush-hour traffic, this new animatronic; that is, lifelike and electronic replica of an Allosaurus is returning from the paint shop to the Dinamation factory in Orange County, California. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_08_xs.jpg
  • The robot, called Kenta, (Ken means tendon in Japanese) has a flexible spinal column that resembles that of the human body; 96 motors; a five-joint neck; a 10 joint spine (each with 3 degrees of freedom); and fast-moving stereo vision that can track a flesh colored object. The neck and torso are coordinated to respond in concert with the eye's movement. Student researchers create movements for the robot in simulation and then feed the simulations back to the robot. Professor Hirochika Inoue thinks that developing robots with this structure of incredibly decreased weight and fewer parts will reduce the cost and the complexity of robots in the future for more widespread application. Inoue-Inaba Robotic Lab, University of Tokyo, Japan.
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  • Tomatoes: Tomatoes: Blackwelder tomato harvester, near Stockton, California, USA. The harvester has a scanner that sorts green from red tomatoes. Stockton, California, USA.
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  • Rice: Dick Harter (left), organic rice farmer with Richard Skillin (right), non-organic rice farmer. Butte County, Northern California, USA. MODEL RELEASED. 1990.
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  • Oil Well in the middle of an orange field, Central Valley, Southern California, USA.
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  • Napa Town and Country Fair. August. Napa Valley, CA
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  • A military parade of Somali National Movement units in a display of unity in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Forces usually stay outside town in barracks. Somaliland is the breakaway republic in northern Somalia that declared independence in 1991 after 50,000 died in civil war. March 1992.
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  • A military parade of the Somali National Movement marches in a display of unity in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Forces usually stay outside town in barracks. Somaliland is the breakaway republic in northern Somalia that declared independence in 1991 after 50,000 died in civil war. March 1992.
    SOM_69_xs.jpg
  • A military parade of the Somali National Movement marches in a display of unity in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Forces usually stay outside town in barracks. Somaliland is the breakaway republic in northern Somalia that declared independence in 1991 after 50,000 died in civil war. March 1992.
    SOM_68_xs.jpg
  • Foreign Aid workers (NGO's) on their day off go to the beach with armed guards.  Mogadishu, war-torn capital of Somalia. March 1992.
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  • One of General Aidid's tanks captured and disabled in a battle for Keysaney Hospital. Mogadishu, war-torn capital of Somalia. March 1992.
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  • Foreign aid workers (NGO's) on their day off go to the beach with armed guards.  Mogadishu, war-torn capital of Somalia. (1992).
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  • A young man with a gun overlooks the old port area destroyed by fighting in the old Arab quarter in Mogadishu, war-torn capital of Somalia. March 1992.
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  • An armed guard in a food warehouse. The port was looted after a firefight the night before, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people. Mogadishu, war-torn capital of Somalia. March 1992.
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  • A micro-loan recipient stitches net bags destined for Dhaka  at her home in  the village of Bari Majlish, an hour outside Dhaka, Bangladesh. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.)  Each bag sells for 1.2 taka ($0.02 USD). In order for a seamstress to make the equivalent of $1 (USD), she must sew 1,000 bags. She received a micro-loan from the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), which provides micro-loans to village women making mesh bags.
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  • A woman sews mesh bags for sale in the village of Bari Majlish, an hour outside Dhaka. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80  Diets.) The  Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), has provided micro-loans to village women making mesh bags.
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  • A busy day at the Ananta apparel factory where Ruma Akhter works as a seamstress.  (Ruma Akhter is featured in the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The factory is located on Elephant Road, downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh.  While nearly half of Bangladesh's population is employed in agriculture, in recent years the economic engine of Bangladesh has been its garment industry, and the country is now the world's fourth largest clothing exporter, ahead of India and the United States. Dependent on exports and fearing international sanctions, Bangladesh's garment industry has implemented rules outlawing child labor and setting standards for humane working conditions.
    BAN_081215_323_xw.jpg
  • Ruma Akhter, a seamstress and one of over 6,000 employees at the Ananta Apparels company  in Dhaka, Bangladesh with her typical day's worth of food. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food for a typical day in December was 1800 kcals. She is 20 years of age; 5 feet tall; and 86 pounds. While nearly half of Bangladesh's population is employed in agriculture, in recent years the economic engine of Bangladesh has been its garment industry, and the country is now the world's fourth largest clothing exporter, ahead of India and the United States. Dependent on exports and fearing international sanctions, Bangladesh's garment industry has implemented rules outlawing child labor and setting standards for humane working conditions. MODEL RELEASED
    BAN_081215_095_xxw.jpg
  • Cutting fabric at the Ananta apparel factory where Ruma Akhter works as a seamstress. (Ruma Akhter is featured in the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets) The factory is located on Elephant Road, downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh. While nearly half of Bangladesh's population is employed in agriculture, in recent years the economic engine of Bangladesh has been its garment industry, and the country is now the world's fourth largest clothing exporter, ahead of India and the United States. Dependent on exports and fearing international sanctions, Bangladesh's garment industry has implemented rules outlawing child labor and setting standards for humane working conditions.
    BAN_081215_031_xw.jpg
  • A busy day at the Ananta apparel factory where Ruma Akhter works as a seamstress.(Ruma Akhter is featured in the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets) The factory is located on Elephant Road, downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh. While nearly half of Bangladesh's population is employed in agriculture, in recent years the economic engine of Bangladesh has been its garment industry, and the country is now the world's fourth largest clothing exporter, ahead of India and the United States. Dependent on exports and fearing international sanctions, Bangladesh's garment industry has implemented rules outlawing child labor and setting standards for humane working conditions.
    BAN_081215_023_xw.jpg
  • Ruma Akhter, a seamstress and one of over 6,000 employees at the Ananta Apparels company  in Dhaka, Bangladesh with her typical day's worth of food. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.)  MODEL RELEASED
    BAN_081215_095_xxw.jpg
  • Silicon Valley, California; Intel museum; Santa Clara, California. Clean room display A "clean" room display at the Intel Museum at Intel's corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, California. 220 Mission College Boulevard, Santa, Clara, CA 95052. Tel (408)765-0503. The museum has hands on displays to teach about computers and chip-making. Model Released (1999).
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  • Rod Brooks gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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Peter Menzel Photography

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