Day of the Robotic Tentacle

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist is reporting on a robotic tentacle developed thanks to funding from military agency DARPA. From the video it looks to have a lot of potential, I can almost feel it fastening around my ankle right now."

Forget about the army...

[Olix (812847)]

Think about the implications for the Sex industry!

Re:Forget about the army...

[foundme (897346)]

How appropriate! When you need it to perform, just feed it with some alcohol [slashdot.org] and the "muscle" will get powered up.

Tentacles indeed

[zephc (225327)]

DARPA: taking hentai in brave, new directions. Your tax dollars at work.

whoa whoa whoa

[by Anonymous Coward]

don't tell Japan! think of the children!

Re:whoa whoa whoa

[by Anonymous Coward]

don't tell Japan! think of the children!

Oh they will. They will.

Clever

[slusich (684826)]

Clever, though it seems to operate more like an elephant trunk or a prehensile tail rather then a tentacle. I would think it would perform it's job more effectively by using a vacuum system with selectable ports to help hold onto objects.

It does raise the interesting question about using design found in nature for robotics.
Personally I'm not sure if that's the right way to go, or if we could find better ways to perform these tasks using alternative designs that don't have a natural influence.

Re:Clever

[truthsearch (249536)]

So you're saying it should be able to vacuum my floors and wash my windows? I agree!

Re:Clever

[Orne (144925)]

So, you're saying that "Intelligent Design" may be better than "Evolution" after all?

(Yes, I had to go there)

GAs based on hardware

[Orne (144925)]

Actually, when I was back in college, genetic algorithms were the hot topic in one of our VLSI classes that year. What they did was apply the genetic algorthim process to a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA [wikipedia.org]) chip to solve a computation. An FPGA is sort of like a giant array of ANDs, ORs, and NOTs with a "control array" of flip-flops that allow you to control the routing of the inputs; you can just load in a new sequence and end up with different outputs using the same hardware. The genetic algorithm comes in by randomly generating the control array sequence. You then compare the output with the target output, then blend the successful solutions together until you have the final solution, all without any hardware design involved.

The story goes, some researchers did this to attempt to reproduce a non-linear equation, I think like a Fourier Transform. The plus side was, they were successfully able to demonstrate that the resultant chip configuration was able to provide the expected results. However, after analyzing the actually solution, the researchers found that the chip was actually creating resonance between different parts of the circuit in such a way that there was no direct path between the input and output signal.

The genetic algorithm had created an analog solution in digital hardware by incorporating the electromagnetic losses and field coupling of the FPGA wiring itself; if they had tried to tweak the "solution" by removing portions of the unused pieces of the FPGA circuit, or even using the same control sequence on a different FPGA, the "solution" would not work.

As a pastafarian...

[truthsearch (249536)]

As a Pastafarian I'm offended by this immitation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's a blatant mockery of all I find sacred. I demand reparations!

Re:As a pastafarian...

[scooter.higher (874622)]

But this is no mockery! This is an homage... a show of support from the scientific community that they too have been touched by His Noodly Appendage.

They just wanted to be touched more often :-)

Couldn't have called it a "robotic elephant trunk"

[by Anonymous Coward]

We couldn't have called it a "robotic elephant trunk", could we? Never mind that it more resembles an elephant's trunk than a tentacle, noooo. Never mind that TFA also mentioned that resemblance.

Oh no, we had to use the term that will cause 99.9987% of the posts to fixate upon the hentai aspects of this.

Just the beginning

[ch-chuck (9622)]

It's just a step toward the robotic cthulu.

Re:Just the beginning

[sgant (178166)]

Yeah, loved those movies that had Mecha-Cthulhu vs. original Cthulhu...but they're hard to watch because every time you actually see Cthulhu, you lose sanity points.

When can I take on spiderman!!

[haplo21112 (184264)]

I can't wait to get fitted with my backpack and start taking on the the streets of the city. I'll get that Masked web slinger if its the last thing it do.

What's wrong with Yankee nerd refs?

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

Lots of anime' jokes already, but no Doc Ock references. How disappointing. Support American scifi in-jokes!

One step closer to the abyss...

[Eric Smith (4379)]

"So raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water tentacle."

I for one...

[Null Nihils (965047)]

welcome our robotic tentacle overlords.


... I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist. :(

Hmmm....

[flyweight_of_fury (972871)]

Is that a Robotic tentacle [newscientisttech.com] or toothpase [aquafresh.com] ?

...I smell a lawsuit coming...

Day of the Robotic Tentacle

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

Completely OT:

I remember going to a big dinner for a family reunion. I told them all about this game I was playing, 'Day of the Tentacle'. It wasn't until I noticed that everybody had stopped eating and all eyes were on me that I realized I had said 'testicle'.

Source?

[sootman (158191)]

I can almost feel it fastening around my ankle right now.

Ankle? You must read different comics than I do.

Video = Slashdotted

[TubeSteak (669689)]

However, I found some other .edu website with video clips & info that are a bit more technical.

http://www.ece.msstate.edu.nyud.net:8090/~bjones/p rofessional/research/OCTOR/octor.htm [nyud.net]

The clips are at the bottom, but don't ignore the videos linked in the "Journal publications" section.

Coralized so as not to /. a second university.

I for one...

[jpellino (202698)]

... oh, you know the rest.

Uh oh

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves (236787)]

Schoolgirls all over Japan just felt an icy chill of fear whip through them.

Re:simple math

[Red Flayer (890720)]

Must be some kind of fuzzy math you got there. Sorry to disprove you, but:

Robot Tentacle + Tentacle Pr0n = Tentacle (Robot + Pr0n)

Since we all know that Octopi have 8 tentacles, lets go ahead and substitute.

Robot Tentacle + Tentacle Pr0n = 8 (Robot + pr0n)

We can, of course, substitute I for Robot, leaving us with

8 (I + pr0n)

Since that's a capital I, we know it represents an integer, and not an imaginary number. Given that the Romans were into tentacle pr0n, we can assume that's a Roman numeral, and substitute accordingly.

8 (1 + pr0n)

Now, we all know the emoticon 8(1 represents an unhappy glasses-wearing person with a scruffy asymmetrical beard, or an unhappy nerd. So via substitution we have:

Tenticle Robot + Tenticle Pr0n = An unhappy nerd + pr0n

As we all know, this is a logical fallacy, since a nerd with pr0n is never unhappy.

I figured, if you were going to posit that ax + ay = axy, I might as well take the fuzzy math a little farther.