21/04/2012 Click


21/04/2012

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Did you think you were in charge of the machines? Not any more. Now,

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This week, Click is in Liverpool at the art exhibition designed to test

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our relationship with robots and each other. But are you ready to

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become a digital been? As a rapper Tupac is resurrected for one final

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peak, we show you how this holographic effect was achieved. --

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gig. And a side that has control of your online mutterings in Webscape.

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Welcome. It is pretty certain that in the future, we will all be

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talking to each other more and more using technology. Communicating

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with people who are a fair distance away, as if they were in the same

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room. Now, I am not just talking about video calling your mother.

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There are many more ways in which you can make your presence felt and

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feel that of somebody else's from afar. That is why we have come to

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this exhibition which explores some of those ideas. It is called Robots

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and Avatars. Part art, part technology, this is

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a collection of works exploring ways in which we made few others

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and ourselves as digital beings. -- view. The artists have pondered

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questions like how do we feel about seeing ourselves on screen? How

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would it feel to look more of our lives in virtual bodies? And how

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would it feel to let machines take more control over our real bodies?

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This work, for example, called Base 8 invited to transform your hand

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into a virtual one to experience the feeling of handling non-

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existent particles. As more and more devices become controlled

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using gestures, we may have to get used to moving things around which

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we cannot actually feel. Maybe manipulating particles in a virtual

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chemistry lab or remotely controlling that will hand from

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thousands of miles away. You may instead want to use your phone to

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control a bop -- A Bott, bot's voicebox. This is a daunting figure

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designed to give a voice to others who may otherwise be lost in the

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crowd. He certainly is hard to ignore. Some of robotic

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interpretations are far more tenuous. Take a leader - a giant

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globe covered with pieces of coal and filled with a mixture of you in

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bed to make it floaty. Aida has been described as an analogue robot.

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Something that is remote controlled by quite a few people at one time.

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But in no way did Italy. The point, does it say something about what

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happens when people try to be cholate -- created at once? Maybe.

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And from the physical to the emotional. Some of the works are

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designed to capture our feelings. The electronic man is a website

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which sources emotions from users around the world. If the project

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gains momentum, it could provide a guide to the happiest places on

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earth and the most stressful. If crossing continents is not your

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thing, you now have many ways to talk to people on the other side of

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the world. If you years ago, Second Life was briefly all the rage. A 3D

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space in which your avatar could build a home, the business and

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relationships with others, no matter where their flesh and blood

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fissions decided. Although the buzz around it has died down, its ideas

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live on. This project, Visions of our Communal Dreams, attempts to

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show how a virtual world may blend with the real one. Not only can you

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fly your avatar around this island, meeting and interacting with others

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virtually, but it can also see and talk to real people as well. Fly to

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one of several portals of the island and you will find a window

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to a particular place in the real world. Cameras and projectors allow

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real and virtual people to converse across the physical and virtual

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divide. More of this later. And finally, something much more

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unnerving. It is designed to test out trust in technology. Will we

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ever reach a point where we let the robot drive us about? How easy

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would it be to give over physical control to a machine? I am about to

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find out. World! -- I do not have much choice

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about which way it wants me to go. This frightening looking beast is

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called Compass and has the ability to spin you around. It has its own

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ideas about the route you should walk and, specifically, it will not

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let you walk into the rectangles of light. It is guided by a small

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magnetic field under the carpet and gets its talk by spinning

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heavyweights in the opposite direction.

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This is kind of awesome but it is not very nice. The Compass is

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really insisted on where it wants me to go and where it does not want

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me to go. It is really strong. It is very difficult to resist when it

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turns you. I guess this is what it We are back with Ede, the giant

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inflatable robot/avatar. And our guest, Professor Noel Sharkey. --

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aider. Welcome to Click. Is there anything you and your profession

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can learn from this? Quite a lot. I love working with artists and

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designers because they explore domains we do not look at. We are

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good at Engineering. But if you want real beauty and an exploration

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of new ideas, this is the way to go. I would recommend we do this kind

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of arts in our schools. And we are teaching robotics. There has been a

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lot of talk about how a i is getting better. What Aires is it

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particularly good at? And for what parts of simulating real life? --

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areas. There has been a lot of talk since the 50s. In the 70s, we would

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have all household Tours does. One thing we are good at is making

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false predictions. -- tours. The areas we are good at his robotics.

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There is a lot of work in robotics in things like farming, picking

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fruit, cleaning floors, a lot of cleaning tasks. The reason for this

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is until the 1980s, the big ambitions were to make a big

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thinking robot machine. That was almost impossible. Machines were

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moving so slowly. You could hardly see them moving. So we moved from a

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fast sensor type operation, stop trying to make multi-purpose

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machines. Now, there is one robot that will clean and sweep the floor,

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one that will market, and one that will clean the windows. That is the

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area where we are making progress. Single purpose robots. Also the

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area of telly robotics. That is becoming major. It has become

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really begin surgery, particularly in the US. It is robotic assistance

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for a surgeon. The surgeon moves the hand but the robot takes out

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tremors and so it is good progress. I have been told in the past that

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it is the sensors on any were bought or system that is still

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letting us down, the ability to in per -- interpret the world and act

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on it. Is that still the case? is but it is not the sensors

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themselves. They are becoming remarkable with nanotechnology. We

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are making incredible infrared sensors. Sonar sensors take out

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certain problems. But with vision, for example, back in the 1950s, we

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thought we would saw fit in ten years but we have seen little

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progress. We can classify a telephone or a cup, put the two

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together and you have a cup of a phone or something but it is poor.

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Thank you. There is a lot here and a sure it will fire your

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imagination. Get in touch. Next - this week's Tech News.

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Scientists at the University of Glasgow have pioneered a way to use

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3D printers to create drugs and other chemicals. The process

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involves a robotic we controlled syringe, building the drugs out of

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the gel based ink into which chemicals and catalysts are mixed.

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It is thought manufacturers, doctors and even the public could

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use the technique to download, pre- set recipes and Taylor medicines to

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individual's means. Greenpeace warns of the environmental impact

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towards the trend towards cloud computing. A new report breaks some

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of the biggest firms on how efficient they are data farms are.

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Google performed well while Apple and amazon were rated poorly. The

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canteen group says if the cloud was a country, it would be the fifth

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biggest polluter on the planet. Apple, which do not provide

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information for the report, disputed the figures and says it is

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currently building greener power supplies. Microsoft says its next

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operating system, Windows eight, will come in four flavours,

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including one designed for tablet. The Enterprise and professional

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versions are aimed at business -- businesses. This covert system

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would also work on Pat strain laptops and includes versions of

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Excel, PowerPoint and other operations. A US firm that asked

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the public for $100,000 to create a new type of what has raised more

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than $3 million in just one month. The what, which has a seven-day

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back to life, has an efficient display, links to the user's Apple

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or android phone, allowing them to -- alerting and e-mails or messages.

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It also runs cycling apps. It may even dispense cash at this rate!

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Of -- a window to a virtual world. At the moment, it does not look

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like anybody his home. But the ideas and technology behind this

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are now starting to bring more people together.

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Most of us associate avatars with gaming. A fantasy character we

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control in words -- worlds where we fight battles and without fantasies,

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even own Allam Ireland. Increasingly, the characters are

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not carrying swords. -- our own island. They wear normal clothes

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and look like us because the virtual world they are in a not

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fantasy but designed to mimic the real one. The most popular

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applications are virtual meetings with the number of five-10 persons

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for in 18. We have a virtual conferences where we have something

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like 20-30 people up to hundreds of participants in a conference room.

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And virtual trade shows where thousands of people visit a booth

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and so on. Instead of getting crushed in the hustle and bustle of

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trade shows, you can dig in and out from your desk or laptop. -- dip.

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And then there is the virtual classroom where student avatars

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respond to the real person's movements, picked up by the camera

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on their computer. Teachers can see who is paying attention by seeing

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which way they are looking for posing questions and asking

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students to raise their hands. Over the past few years, these spaces

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have become more simple to create. Now, you can even design want using

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a Facebook app. The use of avatars has several advantages over video.

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It tends to use less bandwidth, allow more people to get involved,

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with a little less personal There is nothing quite like seeing

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someone's face. Their ears. I think he has a bit more hair now. While

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many of us have become familiar with using services like Skype,

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tech giant Cisco is taking it to a new level that is high-definition

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with no light time. It is called telepresence. Because as humans, we

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understand much more than is being said. We have visual beans. 64% of

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communication is non-verbal. It is body language, the look in my eye,

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the tone of my voice. Eyeballing someone across the table is

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important. So rather than placing the camera that catches your image

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above or below the screen you're looking at, US firm DVE have

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managed to put it in the middle, behind the image of the person. The

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screen is semi-transparent plastic with a special metallic coating

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that reflects a projected image of those being beamed in. A Monday

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morning meeting at our offices. Not everyone has turned up but many

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existing the new conferencing systems would struggle to bring

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this many people together. That is no longer a problem. We may no

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longer have an excuse to miss it at all. Here, we had 60 people brought

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together using 19 different video feeds. Polycom says this system can

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support more than 1,000 individual video streams. They do not all need

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specialist kit. Chris is using an iPad here but he

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could be used in any one of a variety of smartphones or tablets.

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-- using. Does that mean employees could be

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forced into conferences at any time of the day like some are expected

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to respond to e-mail now. There is the ability now to work from

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anywhere. Bosses might transfer -- translate that in to an ability to

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work any time. Of course, the work- life balance is something that

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might be a challenge for everybody but there are other mechanisms

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available. As telepresence becomes more realistic so our systems that

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show more of the body and at a more useful visual tools. One of the

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useful things is being able to gesture and use your hands as well

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as your face and the whole body to communicate. We get to the point

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now where through the connection of telepresence with other

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technologies like software that allows you to move virtual objects

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around, this enables a haptic interface to happen. Virtual 3D

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technology is already being used to create effects like holograms on

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stage. Most notably used last weekend at this performance between

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a pre-recorded Tupac and Snoop Dogg who performed live next to him. One

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of the companies behind the performance showed us how it was

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done based on an old Victorian Peter Aleutian called Pepper's

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Ghost. -- Theatre allusion -- illusion. You have a projector here

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and you move the screen here and across that space at a 45 degree

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angle we have our patented foil which reflects the image up into

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the consumer's face. There is a lot of backstage tinkering to get the

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realistic effect. The performer and the image on the right can see and

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hear each other, allowing the onstage artist to interact with the

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projected one. That project is shooting imagery up that way and

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going to the boil that way. I can see where I am and where Lucinda is

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and I can interact. Musion makes its money from the Ming

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performances live to theatres or stadiums globally. Another small

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company thinks this is the way telepresence will be done in the

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future. This system does not rely on a complicated stage set-up.

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Using projection, you can go right up to this image and a holographic

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all volumetric effect is maintained. -- or volumetric effect. To get

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right up close, you might need to ditch the avatar and take the form

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of a robot instead. A French firm but to inside of one, giving you a

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physical presence in the room. Other things apart from your image

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might be communicated. In the future, we will start to get

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interfaces which deal with our breath, heartbeat, and touch

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sensations. At the moment, telepresence is focused on the

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visuals but as other things are added, one day we could literally

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make our presence felt. In this increasingly virtual world,

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it is not uncommon to have close friends you have never actually met.

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Our very own Kate Russell is one of those friends. She never leaves the

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studio and I only ever see her on wine. So, for one week only, we

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brought her with us. She actually exists! Virtual pokes only if you

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don't mind. I have a managed to escape my studio to cut here and

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look at a few websites and apps related to this exhibition and

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Liverpool itself. Replicants is the first of the

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exhibition site I want to show you. This project lets you create a

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posting but for Facebook or Twitter which will simulate your online

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activity. By linking with your other social streams and adding key

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words are vital interests, the bottom will analyse the kinds of

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content you like in oddities and the size and online persona or that

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:20:38.:20:38.

is an extension of who you are. Once it is installed, you are

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encouraged to activate the Klout app to track any increase in your

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popularity. I have been running this for about a week and it has

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been very pro active posting music suggestions. The first video it

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posted on my behalf was this. I have to say it is probably the best

:20:59.:21:09.
:21:09.:21:10.

thing I have ever posted on That said, my Replicants soon went

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a bit mutant, posting all sorts of random things from my Twitter feet.

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:21:24.:21:26.

So I eliminated it. -- Twitter feed. Next up from reports and avatars, a

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Naked on Pluto. You click on the reports and linked to your social

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streams to turn them into a virtual world populated with people and

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places you know. It is like a text- based adventure game. It creates a

:21:43.:21:53.
:21:53.:21:55.

simulation of your friends based on what it has learnt about you. This

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gain is taxed based and I have a feeling it will have limited appeal.

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An interesting passing curiosity nonetheless. Here is at an unusual

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search tall. The results are not extensive but they are compiled

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into a media with a robotic voice narrating. Here is what it told me

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about this exhibition. Robots and Avatars is a programme of events

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and educational activities which explores how young people will work

:22:28.:22:34.

and play with your representations of physical form. Since we are on

:22:34.:22:39.

location, it was a great excuse to turn out -- try out some location

:22:39.:22:46.

based apps. Most cities have an events listings site like Liverpool

:22:46.:22:51.

Live, where you can Plan A night out and buy tickets. A growing

:22:51.:22:55.

number of these sites offer a free smartphone app so you can organise

:22:55.:23:04.

things on the move. Many places have Birchall to work out that will

:23:04.:23:12.

shake you are a sight to the city might not otherwise have found.

:23:12.:23:16.

LiveTour Liverpool maps out a five mile road starting at a train

:23:16.:23:19.

station and leading the past historic buildings and other

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interesting landmarks, including legendary live music venue the

:23:25.:23:32.

cavern where the Beatles first made their name. It sucks the life out

:23:32.:23:42.
:23:42.:23:48.

of your battery at an alarming rate. That's all we have time for.

:23:48.:23:58.
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