Robot has Massive backend
Posted September 14, 2007 
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Breakthroughs often arise from convergent technologies. ..
Zeno appears to be more than the sum of its parts - a child of excellence from best-of-breed progenitors. But his smarts come from an unlikely relative.
Modern films with rendered animation or human actors in stunning computer-generated effects often produce an eerie feeling they might have a life of their own.
Films and books are laborious works of art, yet ultimately are simple artifacts, no more ‘living’ than celluloid, paper, ink, and silicon wafers, that carry the message. Nor is their fabrication by magic. It is sheer effort, every step a manually-dependent progression, every stage needing input from artisans.
In a sense movies, and before them novels or even oral history, do come alive .. in the human mind, and until recently that’s where this argument ended.
In the last two decades computers have blurred the huge, refined, and repeatable process used to weave such intricate illusions. Consequently this stillborn structure we know as “a movie” is starting to suggest signs of a ghost in the machine.
Computer-generated movies increasingly feed off themselves during production. As incredibly labor-intensive as the modern film is, the human element is disappearing from .. well, maybe it’s better to say film-making is moving into the virtual realm, out of the physical layer, gradually and inexorably out of human control.
This is more than simple automation. While ultimately answering to physical laws, complexity (as in everything) leads to unpredictable outcomes. Automation is no longer simple mechanical cause and effect but increasingly a self-referenced decision-making system.
Computer games have pushed this divide for twenty years, engendering ideas of a complex future simulation in which its inhabitants gain sentience - thus begging the question “are we also simulations?”
The movie Tron did some anthropomorphic musing in a bold metaphor: a virtual world within the computer where programs (artificial life) spoke of beings outside the system called ‘users.’ As John C. Lilly observed, we humans have similar views but call these mythical beings ‘angels.’
Film-making and computer gaming have effectively converged to virtual reality, which might or not model the real world. Modeling is one thing. What about a thinking modeling?
For most, our only experience with artificial intelligence is talking to a primitive syntax engine. Rapidly disappointed with inevitably stupid answers to enquiries like: “what color is a blue car?” we find we’ve been talking to a syntax engine, a database of Q&A, not a semantic engine or anything like we envision ‘AI.’
And so the philosophical argument goes, that whatever the complexity will a computer/robot ever be truly smart? Will AI that ‘understands’ speech truly understand it or merely apply the test of millions of rules like a chess robot.
Can anyone prove humans don’t just do this?
Invention and discovery has a way around philosophical ‘objections.’ A groundbreaking idea has sneaked up on us - though it’s been there since day one - that of a physically adept robot “moving around in” virtual reality and generating its own script with AI.
Virtual-reality is now eerily mated with hardware, in real time, by introducing Hanson Robotics’ sophisticated automatons via a wireless link to the open-ended complexity of Massive Software’s AI simulation engine, the software driving modern film-making.
The idea is rather exciting imagining both a leading-edge automaton and a supercomputer. Despite such grandiose possibilities our little fella Zeno is sadly aiming low, at mere consumer toy status.
Yet still it’s a fine achievement.
Hanson supply a robotics platform including “voice recognition and conversational AI” while Massive supply “vision and decision-making components” for Zeno to react to his world (his VR?).
Zeno is the name
In his (or her!) virtual mind, the real world (our world) plays out like a simulation.
Zeno is:
the world’s first complete character robot … vision, speech, speech recognition, animation, artificial intelligence and artistry define the integrity and underlying character of Zeno. This in turn allows him to exist as a fantasy character that moves and communicates with you with true personality traits.”
How can it, how does it, work?
The vision and decision making components in Massive Software give Zeno the ability to navigate, make facial expressions, and move his body based on what he sees in his physical environment. The video coming in from Zeno’s eye camera is fed into the Massive Software part of his brain so that he can move appropriately and respond emotionally to what is going on around him.”
Wait, there’s more. Hanson adds to the mix:
.. a character engine with voice recognition and conversational AI for language reasoning so that Zeno can recognize and remember both voices and faces and interact accordingly. The robot is highly articulated with over 28 built-in servos (specialized motors) in its legs, torso, arms and face.
Zeno is an intelligent character robot that can show emotions with his very flexible expressive face and perform stunts with his agile and self-balancing body. He can lie down, get up to standing, gesture with his arms, smile, make eye contact, open and close his eyes, mouth ..”
And, God forbid, might it think!? [No scoffing in the speculation room]. In development Zeno could barely stand and needed considerable computer grunt enabling it to smile, frown, or express anger.
What inspired David Hanson? You’ll not be surprised to know it was Spielberg’s fine interpretation of Brian Aldiss’ Sci-fi story in the film Artificial Intelligence that inspired Hanson on this project.
It’s a representation of robotics as a character animation medium, one that is intelligent,” explains Hanson. “It sees you and recognizes your face. It learns your name and can build a relationship with you.”
Texas-based Hanson Robotics is well known for “expressive, intelligent, conversational character robots, like P.K. Dick and Einstein.
Massive Software is a leading creator of artificial intelligence-based animation systems employed in recent films like Lord of the Rings, Happy Feet and A Night at the Museum. The system has been ported to a Microsoft Windows PC-based application as a back-end for Zeno - his cortex, you might say.
Zeno is in prototype, featuring pre-release at Wired’s NextFest 2007 as I scribe (September). Aimed squarely at the consumer market, based on current faire Zeno would have to strike out at a coupla grand.
But Xena Zeno wouldn’t sell at such prices and Hanson Robotics hope to sell Zeno for only a few hundred dollars.
At that price, I hope it’s not a clockwork lemon.
Go salivate at these links:
*** DANGER Will Robinson!!
The Massive Software website will massively irritate your Internet Explorer browser, aggressively attempting BHO adware install on your PC - uninvited, it seems. It will arm-wrestle, then crash a patched & secured IE7.
While Internet Explorer crashed repeatedly, Massive Software website opens normally in FireFox 2. Be warned: while I doubt it’s a malicious website it sure behaves as one.
Though one component attempting install is everyone’s favorite nagware QuickTime, the anti-SpyWare on our base PC trapped some adware also (screenshot below) while several other MS Windows PCs in the lab shrugged it off. The website does get a green flag from SiteAdvisor, so perhaps the adware was a transient attack.
This link may is assumed safe, a press page about Zeno on the Massive website.
Should you click back to their ‘Home page’ this might be your fate:
Ok, Joe. That’s reason enough for me to trot out this iconic 40 y/o classic cartoon comment by Ron Cobb (for which no excuse is too weak :0).
Lego is a name we (usually boys) are fondly familiar with, and the truly ancient of you might silently mouth the name "Meccano" with reverence. 
All-new NXT Intelligent Brick with 32-bit microprocessor, more memory and FLASH 
And the face the Mindstorms Nxt pictured above reminded me of ? 
WowWee PR blathers: 
