Word: get
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Kismet is able to engage in the kind of purposeful human interactions that cousin Cog could not. Kismet calls people toward it. And when they get too close for its cameras to see them well, it protects its personal space and pulls away. When an object suddenly appears in front of it, Kismet quickly withdraws and flashes a look of bewilderment. Most winningly, the robot is able to engage in a babbling "conversation" with humans in its midst. When it "talks," it takes turns with its human interlocutor, a decent representation of a conversation between an adult and an infant...
Walk into room 922 of the artificial intelligence lab at M.I.T., and you may notice a winsome robot in the corner trying desperately to get your attention. When Kismet is lonely and spots a human, it cranes its head forward plaintively. It flaps its pink paper ears and vocalizes excitedly in a babylike patter. Kismet's handlers call this an "attention-getting display." You would have to have a heart of stone to ignore this cute little aluminum...thing...
...problem is, robots have fewer opportunities than babies to learn from their environment. Humans spend a great deal of time talking to and nurturing young people. Robots do not get that kind of attention and outside stimulation. "We don't learn in impoverished educational environments, but that's what we expect the robot to do," she says. Breazeal has tried to provide Kismet with the tools to engage in this kind of socially situated learning...
...these inventions and the philosophy behind them, it's hard not to get a sobering sense of the impending death of traditional, text-based linear narrative. Will generations to come ever know the delights of picking up a good book and reading it from start to finish? Or will they rather skim through it on their tablet PCs, Speeder Reading what the computer has predetermined to be the best bits based on their previous preferences, choosing alternative endings, letting the robot dog finish it for them...
...aspect of digital cameras but find the rest just too newfangled, Kodak may have the camera for you. When you shoot a picture with the new Kodak Advantix Preview ($299), it takes a regular old picture on film and captures a digital image at the same time, so you get a sneak peek at the shot you just snapped. That way, if you make that goofy face again, you won't have to wait for the prints to find...