[Tyler]

Talking Robots: Cynthia Breazeal
     


As robots become more autonomous and intelligent they slowly move out of
their protected environments in research labs and assembly lines. First
signs include the tragic death of a municipal
worker killed by an industrial robotic lawnmower as well as the tale
of Zoltan and his robot
girlfriend.
Cynthia Breazeal,
founder and director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT's Media Lab, has developed a broad
range of robots that interact with humans, including the recently
released (and somewhat creepy) humanoid MDS,
the well-known humanoid Kismet,
the robot teddy Huggable™,
the anthropomorphic animal robot Leonardo
as well as the office lamp AUR.
As Breazeal points out, "robots push our social buttons more than any
other technology today". Nearly anything can have a social component
and, as Breazeal's work shows, the possibilities for interaction are
nearly endless. To see videos of her robots and find out where
human-robot interaction is headed check out the podcast.

   

http://robots.net/article/2518.html