MIT researchers released Boxie into different environments around the university where it would autonomously engage in interactions with people that were hanging around. People could either agree to participate in Boxie’s documentary about MIT by pressing a green button on one of its sides or they could a make sad-sounding Boxie go away by pressing a red button on its other side.

Making use of its interactive robotic camera, Boxie can be used as an autonomous method for capturing structured documentaries and, while story gathering was the bot’s most overt goal, researchers at the media lab were also viewing the project from another perspective. The MIT Media lab is known to carry out research that is often considered unorthodox. Usually it focuses in on the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life.

¨We hope that this type of interaction that we studied will lead to simpler systems that may be more symbiotic with people… using this simple emotional tie to create better systems and better interactions for people¨ Explains the MIT representative in the video above.

What makes people favour a bot like Boxie over one that displays cold mechanical mannerisms and where might robots with this kind of gentle of behaviour be most useful?

If you’re interested in finding out more about new kinds of social robots, check out the European initiative, Robot Companions for Citizens.

Business bot by Elys Dolan ¨He'll do your tax return and wear a tie but draws the line at shirts¨.

Robotic advancements are boosting existing industries and paving the way for entirely new ones.

In the business world, robots are basically placed in either one of two categories: industrial or service. Industrial robots are the ones that help us manufacture cars, process food and assist in a great many tasks where repetitive assembly is required.

Presently, the number of industrial robots greatly surpasses that of service robots. According to the World Industrial Robotics 2011 report, there were 1,035,000 industrial robots in place and working in 2010.  While industrial robots dominate the scene, service robots are rapidly becoming more abundant and the market for them is growing just as quickly. Applications for service bots include: agriculture, healthcare, domestic, space, security and surveillance, scientific research and entertainment just to name a few.

A number of robots that are used in some of the applications listed above have become so prevalent they might already be part of your everyday life. For example, a robot may have assisted your doctor during the process of a surgery or perhaps a roomba vacuum keeps your floors spic and span every afternoon.  Today, however, there’s room for robots outside of the ordinary and we’re not talking about Sci-Fi narratives. Start-up companies and research labs are starting create some seriously innovative products stretching from advanced prostheses to sophisticated multifunctional assistants. In fact, an increasing number of Industrial robot manufacturers such as KUKA and Bosch are beginning to shift into the service sector.

Forums such as Robobusiness 2011, which took place in Boston during November of last year, gather: scientists, engineers, users and executives for discussion on a wide range of topics pertaining to the industry of robotics . A common point separately mentioned by the CEOs of irobot  and Aethon  is that we need to make robots that matter. This means starting with a real world problem, engaging in robotics research,  seeking out industry experts, and doing what it takes to understand the needs of the customers who will be using the technology.

Robot Companions for Citizens is a European initiative which aims to drive  a vast range of integrated industries and services including: software manufacturing, transport and social security. More information HERE

The video above was presented by the Robot Companion for Citizens Flagship Initiative at a conference in Warsaw at the end of November. Robot Companions for Citizens is currently one of 6 research initiatives in the running to receive 1 billion euros funding from the European Commission over the next 10 years.

These initiatives are visionary, multidisciplinary and they must aim to generate waves of technological innovation and economic exploitation, ideally in a variety of areas and sectors, carrying an important societal impact.

The Robot Companions for Citizens initiative is on par with the overarching goal of the Flagship Program by bringing together robotocists, material scientists, psychologists, neuroscientists, social scientists and ethicists to create an entirely new robotic industry to benefit Europe. Watch the video above to find out more about Robot Companions for Citizens.

In September of 2010, the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council(EPSRC )  and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) held a Robotics Retreat which met to discuss robotics, its applications in the real world and the huge amount of promise it offers to benefit society.

Attendees of the retreat included experts in technology, industry, the arts, law and social sciences.  Delegates of the meeting have now drafted a set of 5 ethical rules treating issues relevant to today’s robotics-  as opposed to being a fixed set of laws, the document is intended to serve as a point of reference and a source of information for future debates.

1. Robots are multi-use tools. Robots should not be designed solely or primarily to kill or harm humans, except in the interests of national security.
2. Humans, not robots, are responsible agents. Robots should be designed & operated as far as is practicable to comply with existing laws & fundamental rights & freedoms, including privacy.
3. Robots are products. They should be designed using processes which assure their safety and security.
4. Robots are manufactured artifacts. They should not be designed in a deceptive way to exploit vulnerable users; instead their machine nature should be transparent.
5. The person with legal responsibility for a robot should be attributed.

In addition to these principles, delegates from the meeting have also included a set of 7 messages they believe are important to disseminate in order to encourage responsibility within the robotics research and industrial community.

Delegates stress that robotocists need to engage with the public, take responsibility for their public image and understand how people are perceiving their work. They also think it’s imperative to address legitimate concerns about the use of robots, emphasizing the need to  ¨figure out how to engage in conversation about the real abilities of our research with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds who will be looking at our work with a wide range of assumptions, myths and narratives behind them¨.

Paolo Dario, Coordinator of Robot Companions for Citizens, one of the FET Flagship Initiatives,  has investigated how current legal regulations impact on robot deployment in urban environments. Particularly, he has looked at some of the gaps in current legal systems which do not yet allow for proper legal qualification of autonomous mobile robots operating in our urban environments. Dario was one of the authors of a paper titled An Investigation on Legal Regulations for Robot Deployment in Urban Areas: A Focus on Italian Law which was one of 7 papers published as part of a 2010 special edition from  The journal of Advanced Robotics  titled Legal and Safety Constraints for Service Robots Deployment.

Held November 24-25 at the Warsaw University of Technology and the University of Warsaw.

The 6 FET Flagships showed off their stuff  at the midterm conference, involving about 250 European scientists and policy makers, who assessed the progress made by each of the flagships, reevaluating their goals and the possible impacts they will have.

In addition to presentations from each flagship consortium, the conference also included a dialogue between key political players who  framed the FET flagships in the context of current EU research policies. The conference also  shed some light on the bigger picture behind the flagship initiatives during a discussion about how these initiatives present an opportunity for Europe  to engage with international stakeholders. The role of civil society and ethics in the FET Flagships was another key issue that was examined.

Click HERE to find out more about the Robot Companions for Citizens flagship, an ambitious initiative which aims to sustain the welfare of Europeans through the assistance of sentient machines.