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by: Faith D'Aluisio  List Price: $35.00 Amazon.com's Price: $28.00 You Save: $7.00 (20%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 629.892 EAN: 9780262133821 Edition: 1st ISBN: 0262133822 Label: The MIT Press Manufacturer: The MIT Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 240 Publication Date: September 01, 2000 Publisher: The MIT Press Studio: The MIT Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: If you believe the children are our future, you're only half right. Photographer Peter Menzel and journalist Faith D'Aluisio traveled around the world interviewing researchers who want to jump-start our evolution by designing and building electrical and mechanical extensions of ourselves--robots. Their book, Robo Sapiens, takes its title from the notion that our species might somehow merge with our creations, either literally or symbiotically. The photography is brilliant, showing the endearing and creepy sides of the robots and roboticists and feeling like stills from unmade science-fiction films. D'Aluisio's interviews are insightful and often very funny, as when she calls MIT superstar Rodney Brooks on his statement that we ought not "overanthropomorphize" people. Brooks is an interesting study. Having shaken up the robotics and artificial-intelligence fields with his elimination of high-level intelligence and dedication to tiny, insectoid, built-from-the-ground-up robots, he now works on large, human-mimicking machines. But hundreds of other researchers, in Japan, Europe, and the United States, are working on various aspects of machine behavior, from the eerily lifelike robotic faces of Fumio Hara and Alvaro Villa to the monkeylike movement of Brachiator III; each of them casts a bit of light on the future of their field in their short interviews. Though it's clear that we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for a robot butler, Robo Sapiens suggests that much cooler--and stranger--events are coming soon. --Rob Lightner Product Description: Winner, Science Category in the 2001 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) presented by Independent Publisher Magazine. Around the world, scientists and engineers are participating in a high-stakes race to build the first intelligent robot. Many robots already exist—automobile factories are full of them. But the new generation of robots will be something else: smart machines that act like living creatures. When they are brought into existence, science fiction will have become fact. What will happen then? With our prosthetic limbs, titanium hips, and artificial eyes, we are already beginning to resemble our machines. Equally important, our machines are beginning to resemble us. Robots already walk, talk, and dance; they can react to our facial expressions and obey verbal commands. When they take the next step and become fully autonomous, what will they do? Will we be partners or rivals? Could we meld into a single species—Robo sapiens? In Robo sapiens, Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio present the next generation of intelligent robots and their makers. Accompanying brilliant photographs of more than one hundred robots is an account of the little-known, yet vitally important scientific competition to build an autonomous robot. Containing extensive interviews with robotics pioneers, anecdotal "field notes" with behind-the-scenes information, and easy-to-understand technical data about the machines, Robo sapiens is a field guide to our mechanical future. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - AMAZING BOOK--Race to build first intelligent robot.....story ofA totally amazing and beautiful book-- I know some reviewers were turned off by the cover which is totally realistic and a bit bio looking for some...but the robots are coming and many are going to be in the biotech area to start with so I think the cover is appropriate...anyway....of course robotics is part of our life and most of our products and services anyway - from the black box in your car to auto factories where they do precision work over and over 24/7/365 to the next generation of prosthetic ... Read More Rating:  - Image on the cover has to go, Covers works by Garis, Pister, Brooks, Inoue, Hirose, Furusho, SchaalHugo de Garis (Artifical Brain) Books: Artificial Brains, Artilect war, Evolution of Neural Network Modules: ATR's Artificial Brain Project, Evolutionary Design by Computers, Evolution of Neural Structures Based on Cellular Automata, Hybrid Intelligent Engineering Systems, Fuzzy Logic-Neural Networks-and Evolutionary Computation, Brain Building for a Biological Robot, Towards Evolvable Hardware, Machine Learning : A Multistrategy, Brain Building : The Genetic Programming of Artificial Nervous Systems ... Read More Rating: - Terrible fears and high hopesIn Karel Capeks 1920 play "R.U.R." a factory populates the world with worker robots, meant to relieve humans from the hardships of work. But unfortunately the robots end up revolting against their masters, finally wiping out the human race. Somehow, it seems that this theme has never left us. From the Robosaurus machine that prowls a parking lot of a Las Vegas casiono, showing off its ability to breathe fire and crush cars in its mighty claws, to Arnold Schwarzeneggers Terminators - robots are ... Read More Rating: - Very InspirationalThis book won't tell you how electronics work or advise which microcontroller to use. I found that it does succeed in inspiring the reader to create better robots through the colorful images and the design philosophies of the robot builders. Rating: - Nothing quite like itThey can climb stairs, juggle balls, open a door, smile engagingly, hear and see, swing like a monkey, crawl like a crab and swim like a fish. Who? Why the robots, of course. This startling picture book explores the amazing scope of robot capabilities. The photographs of the robots and their creators provide a unique picture of the dawn of these intelligent machines. The narratives are brief and to the point, explaining just enough but always remaining as support for the pictures. As I thumbed through this ... Read More 
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