Scientists in Japan have taught a human-sized robot to imitate the steps of a dancer. They say the prancing “dancebot” could be used to record the movements of traditional dances that are being lost as their performers die off.
To demonstrate the robot’s prowess the team programmed the 1.5 metre tall machine to imitate the graceful sways and whirls of the aizu bandaisan, a Japanese folk routine. To prove its accuracy, the robot can perform alongside a human dancer. And despite its Terminator appearance, the robot is remarkably lifelike.
Shin’ichiro Nakaoka and his colleagues at Tokyo University taught the dancebot — named HRP-2 or Promet — using video capture techniques to record human dance movements. According to New Scientist magazine, these w ere converted into a sequence of robotic limb movements and fed into Promet’s processors.
“They have got it to directly copy human movements. That is very difficult because the joints of the robot are very different from the joints of a human,” said Noel Sharkey, a robotics expert at Sheffield University in the U.K. The advance would allow robots to perform human-like movements on factory production lines.
Although its rendition of the mainly upper-body aizu bandaisan dance is impressive, the robot — produced by Kawada Industries — has difficulty with complicated leg movements. Any step more demanding than lifting a foot is likely to result in the 58 kg automaton losing its balance and falling over. The team published its results in the International Journal of Robotics Research.
Despite Promet’s lifelike appearance and fluid movements there is a long way to go to a truly intelligent robot butler or soldier. “It is not a thinking intelligent robot. What you have got is a set of processes that translate human movement into joint movements for a robot. That is it,” said Professor Sharkey. “It is not going to start copying people doing other things or doing anything really advanced.”
Friday, August 10, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Pencil removed from woman's head 55 years after accident
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
A 59-year-old woman who has suffered blinding headaches since she was four years old has finally had an 8cm long pencil removed from her skull.
Margaret Wegner underwent the risky procedure in Berlin at the weekend to remove the pencil, which showed up on a computer brain scan.
When she saw the image of the white pencil, snapped in two places, she recalled an accident in the town of Dessau when she was four.
"I remember tripping over and the pencil I was holding disappeared," she said. "I had a pain in my head the pencil, it seems, had penetrated the skin and bored straight into my skull."
The pencil missed an artery and nerve endings in the brain by a whisker. Doctors at the time deemed it too risky to operate. That remained the consensus among many doctors over the years but the large part of the pencil was finally removed.
The 2cm tip is still embedded. It has been overgrown by nerves and blood cells which are too dangerous to cut through.
China blacklists 54 trading companies for smuggling
Beijing, Aug. 9 :
Chinese customs has named on its website 54 trading companies to be closely monitored for their alleged involvement in smuggling and 195 companies for abiding by rules and regulations।
The companies, including 19 in southern Guangdong Province and 16 in east China's Shanghai, were either charged with smuggling, or convicted of smuggling goods worth at least five million yuan (USD 667,000), or received administrative sanctions for smuggling twice in a year.
They will also be highlighted in the General Administration of Customs clearance system, which will alert Customs officers to any items they try to take through any port।
Goods from blacklisted companies would be inspected box by box, and the filing of new processing trade contracts would be rejected, a customs official was quoted as saying.
The GAC has also put 195 law-abiding companies on its favoured "red list" for their observation of laws and regulations in the business, taxation, foreign exchange, and banking sectors.
The companies on the "red list" can be fast-tracked through Customs, the report said.
Since 2004, the GAC has been publishing annual "black and red lists". Till date, 240 companies have appeared on the blacklist and 542 on the "red list".
Chinese customs has named on its website 54 trading companies to be closely monitored for their alleged involvement in smuggling and 195 companies for abiding by rules and regulations।
The companies, including 19 in southern Guangdong Province and 16 in east China's Shanghai, were either charged with smuggling, or convicted of smuggling goods worth at least five million yuan (USD 667,000), or received administrative sanctions for smuggling twice in a year.
They will also be highlighted in the General Administration of Customs clearance system, which will alert Customs officers to any items they try to take through any port।
Goods from blacklisted companies would be inspected box by box, and the filing of new processing trade contracts would be rejected, a customs official was quoted as saying.
The GAC has also put 195 law-abiding companies on its favoured "red list" for their observation of laws and regulations in the business, taxation, foreign exchange, and banking sectors.
The companies on the "red list" can be fast-tracked through Customs, the report said.
Since 2004, the GAC has been publishing annual "black and red lists". Till date, 240 companies have appeared on the blacklist and 542 on the "red list".
Monday, August 6, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Japan bans pork imports from Britain after foot-and-mouth outbreak
Tokyo, Aug. 4:
Japan has banned British pork imports following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in southern England, the Agriculture Ministry said Saturday.
The ban was imposed in response to a notice from the British government of the outbreak earlier Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.
Japan imported just 5 tons of pork from Britain in the year to April 2007, according to government figures, and the impact of the ban is expected to have a limited impact on Japanese consumers.
Japan consumes about 1.6 million tons of pork each year, half of which comes from imports, according to the Agriculture Ministry. The U.S., Denmark and Canada account for 80 percent of the import total, the ministry said.
The highly infectious disease was confirmed Friday on a cattle farm southwest of London. It affects cows, horses, sheep and pigs, but does not harm humans.
Japan has already banned beef imports from Britain since the outbreak of mad cow disease in that country.
Japan has banned British pork imports following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in southern England, the Agriculture Ministry said Saturday.
The ban was imposed in response to a notice from the British government of the outbreak earlier Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.
Japan imported just 5 tons of pork from Britain in the year to April 2007, according to government figures, and the impact of the ban is expected to have a limited impact on Japanese consumers.
Japan consumes about 1.6 million tons of pork each year, half of which comes from imports, according to the Agriculture Ministry. The U.S., Denmark and Canada account for 80 percent of the import total, the ministry said.
The highly infectious disease was confirmed Friday on a cattle farm southwest of London. It affects cows, horses, sheep and pigs, but does not harm humans.
Japan has already banned beef imports from Britain since the outbreak of mad cow disease in that country.
Foot-and-mouth disease detected in Britain
London, Aug.4:
Britain today imposed a nationwide ban on movement of livestock including cattle and pigs, hours after detecting foot-and-mouth disease in cattle in Surrey to prevent a repeat of the 2001 epidemic.
Vets began culling of around 64 cattle at a small farm near Guildford in Surrey after the animals tested positive for the disease.
All livestock within a 3-kilometre radius of the farm were being tested and a 10-kilometre surveillance zone was put in place last night.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn cut short their summer holidays to travel back to London to take stock of the situation.
Brown held an meeting of the Government's emergency committee, Cobra, by video conference last night, as officials discussed measures to deal with the outbreak.
Ports in Northern Ireland were closed to all animal movement from Britain. The rest of the European Union countries were also expected to block imports from here.
Officials are desperate to avoid a recurrence of the disease outbreak in 2001, when more than 6.5 million animals were killed that cost eight billion pounds to the economy.
Many farmers believe that a three-day delay in halting the movement of cattle last time was responsible for the outbreak's devastating effects.
Farmers said they were "hoping and praying" that this was an isolated incident and that the lessons of 2001 had been learned.
Britain today imposed a nationwide ban on movement of livestock including cattle and pigs, hours after detecting foot-and-mouth disease in cattle in Surrey to prevent a repeat of the 2001 epidemic.
Vets began culling of around 64 cattle at a small farm near Guildford in Surrey after the animals tested positive for the disease.
All livestock within a 3-kilometre radius of the farm were being tested and a 10-kilometre surveillance zone was put in place last night.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn cut short their summer holidays to travel back to London to take stock of the situation.
Brown held an meeting of the Government's emergency committee, Cobra, by video conference last night, as officials discussed measures to deal with the outbreak.
Ports in Northern Ireland were closed to all animal movement from Britain. The rest of the European Union countries were also expected to block imports from here.
Officials are desperate to avoid a recurrence of the disease outbreak in 2001, when more than 6.5 million animals were killed that cost eight billion pounds to the economy.
Many farmers believe that a three-day delay in halting the movement of cattle last time was responsible for the outbreak's devastating effects.
Farmers said they were "hoping and praying" that this was an isolated incident and that the lessons of 2001 had been learned.
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