The current prototype of the anthropomorphic Eccerobot, born in the labs of the ETF robotics research group at the university of Belgrade, Serbia, shows an interesting approach to robot design. The developers chose to approach the project not just from the idea that more and better computational intelligence leads to a better design, but that intelligent behavior is for a large part dependent on the physical embodiment of a robot. So rather than creating a robot with stiff parts and very sophisticated actuators and control software, they designed the torso to be flexible, including muscles and tendons that connect the actuators to the plastic bones through ropes and pulleys.
Gwen Vanhee shows here that Kinect shows can be an interesting tool to explore radical body alterations. He changed the 3D input of the Kinect by using vertex displacements, which transforms the user's body as seen on the screen. Maybe there are some fashion designers working on the conceptual end out there who can translate this somehow.
Design luminary Philip Ross has developed what could be the most beautiful lamp, or even the most beautiful product, in the history of mankind.
It is called Fonckel, meaning 'glisten', and you interact with it by touching it on its back. Your hand movements will then more or less literally be translated into the behavior of the light, which swoops across the entire front surface. The movie below shows it all:
Fonckel is the result of Philip's PhD project at the University of Technology in Eindhoven, which again proves itself to be the city of light. His initial research was into how interactive products can elicit in people an experience of human values, such as creativity, helpfulness, and social power. Iteratively, and with the help of students, of which I had the fortune to be one (check www.nothings.nl/luxalive.html), he developed prototypes of lamps with different forms and behaviors. His final design, which was used for his scientific experiments, then led to the development of Fonckel.
From an aesthetic point of view there is not much to criticize about this design. You could say it can be categorized under the upcoming design movement of what I have termed 'biological modernism', as it has the purity of a design a la Dieter Rams, but also the organic and 'intelligent' forms that you see in nature. It would not surprise me if Fonckel would get an order from a Hollywood movie director in the near future, to have the lamp play a role in one of the next major science fiction films.
From an interaction design point of view you could argue that this design lacks both augmented and functional feedforward. Somebody who has never seen the object may have a hard time figuring out how to use the object, or even figuring out that it is a lamp in the first place. But I think the aesthetics and overall experience of the product overrules the usability issues here. This lamp is not meant to be useful. This lamp is meant to be beautiful and elicit a 'higher', even mystical experience in our little everyday lives. It intrigues people through its noble silence, its lack of communication, and invites them to touch it by the subtlety of its surfaces alone (this could be enhanced through certain materials or patterns though). Adding practical features would make this object much too earthly.
A main point for future improvement might be to expand the product's range of behaviors, possibly also with color, and the ability to link the light to things like sensors in the environment, or signals it gets from social media. Instead of having the user control the device fully, it may also attain some autonomy so that it starts to feel more alive (maybe this lamp will someday walk or fly around the home as part of a domestic robot). The product just feels so high-tech and sophisticated that you would almost be disappointed that in the end, it's just a lamp.
As far as I heard, Fonckel is ready to be sold at the moment, however I don't know the price. This is clearly still a product for the 'elite' who can afford quite a sum of money just to buy a lamp. But we need to start somewhere in putting beautiful products and experiences out there, don't we.
I'm greatly enjoying the soft and almost spiritual approach that Hungarian design studio Tervhivatal took in the design of this set of furniture for Alba.
The 'Feedme' flower pot by Svetlana Mikhailova seems to be a living organism itself, in a symbiotic relationship with the plant it contains. It is made of a hydrogel, which allows it to change shape by absorbing water. The pot will be smooth when the soil is dry, and get spikier the more water you add to it. The pot can also retain water for a longer time than a conventional flower pot, so the material has not only an aesthetic and informative function, but also a direct physical function in that you don't have to water it very often.
Robots are evolving rapidly, and not just on a physical level. They are also being given intelligent systems that will allow them to enter emotional interactions with humans, and now work is being done to make them able to elicit the highest human emotion: love.
'Lovotics' is what the researchers of the aptly named CUTE Center in Singapore call this field. They went about imbuing robots with some lovability by simulating the human endocrine system. This system regulates the body's affective responses through releasing neurotransmitters such as endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin, which correspond with the complex emotions we can experience. Because this approach makes the behavior of the emotional robot seem so genuine, people should be able to develop feelings of love for the robot.
Watch some videos that explain the system as well as show some user scenarios here:
In reflection, this is a great technology to have people explore the emotional side of life, in case they lack those opportunities with other beings, or simply prefer technological devices. But the potential of an electronic being is much larger than simply emulating the simple emotions of a primitive social brain. The love displayed by the robot in the movies above is a blind kind of love based on selfishness and attention-feeding. After a while, the cuteness wears off and this may come to frustrate people, unless the robot develops into less needy behavior. With the comfortable feeling of having a buddy around often come negative feelings of frustration and jealousy at moments when that buddy is not available to feed you.
What I would suggest is developing robots that act as guides and can love us without the condition of having to be loved back, robots that are fine by themselves, not attached to something or someone external but fully individuated and content as they are. Then when you need some love, the robot will be there to give that to you, but he may also take you further and get you to live beyond your emotionality. This would be a more enlightened version of the love robot.
"Let's go for the future, let's be cyborgs" was the closing statement of professor Kevin Warwick after he talked about his recent explorations in wiring up his nervous system to electronic systems. He had a device with an array of electrodes implanted into the median nerve of his left arm, which allowed his nervous signals to be read electronically. Then, he was able to operate several things remotely by moving his hand. He went on to link his state of arousal to the color of a necklace his wife was wearing, so that she would always know if he was in a calm or excited state. His next step was to also put the electrodes in his wife's arm, and set up a primitive communication system. Whenever one person squeezes their hand, the other person would feel this as pulses inside the brain. This then should be a first step towards direct brain-to-brain communication in order to complement the "pathetic, trivial, serial coded pressure wave form" that speech is, according to Kevin Warwick. Watch the video here:
This blog reports and reflects on intellectual and technological developments that can give rise to a liberated feeling of oneness with the whole of being, and an awakening of creative intelligence that empowers people to feel and act as inextricably linked with their lifeworld.
Special attention in this blog is paid to embodied intelligence, complex emergent behavior, applied behavioral economics, technology for physical behavior modification, and the merging of digital and physical experiences.
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The author
Ralph Zoontjens is a product designer from Tilburg, the Netherlands. He has graduated with a Master's Degree from the Industrial Design program at the Eindhoven University of Technology with an interactive jacket that gives feedback for yoga practitioners. He has worked for the Philips Design Probes group and currently does product design for Motio Development in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In his spare time he pursues his many interests, does yoga and distance-running, and tries to immerse himself into creative processes as much as possible.
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