University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Do robots need emotions?
A new episode of the Human-Robot Interaction Podcast is available:
What roles do emotions, affect and moods play for humans and robots? We will discuss how robots can sense, reason and express emotions. Furthermore, we talk about if emotions make robots more human. I had the pleasure to talk with Rosalind Picard (MIT), Lola Canamero (CY Cergy Paris University), Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka University) and Douglas Campbell (University of Canterbury) about these exciting questions.
I am happy to announce that the fifth edition of the The Unofficial LEGO Color Guide is now available. The book is available as a paperback and hardcover from Amazon.com. An eBook (PDF) is available from Lulu.
An important update happened behind the scenes. In the past I exported the color database to Adobe InDesign and then create the catalog from there. This process was complicated, labour intensive and error prone. The database has now been changed to create the catalog pages directly. Unfortunately, not all the design tricks possible with InDesign can be replicated with the database. The visual design was therefore modernised and extended.
From military robots to beer commercials.
A new episode of the Human-Robot Interaction Podcast is available:
Boston Dynamics is the rock star of robotics. It recently featured in a beer commercial during the Super Bowl. How did a company that started as a military contractor become a novelty in beer commercials? Dwain Allan and Christoph Bartneck discuss the past, present and future of the company with Robert Cheek and Stephen Hickson.
We had a great forum on AI for Mobility organised by the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, which took place in December 2021.
How do people respond to robots that are better than them?
Dwain Allan and I gave a speech at the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence Speaker Series on “Perceived Threat Of Robots”.
