High Masculine Tones

The MIT project page on sociable machines:

. . . an expressive anthropomorphic robot called Kismet that engages people in natural and expressive face-to-face interaction. Inspired by infant social development, psychology, ethology, and evolution, this work integrates theories and concepts from these diverse viewpoints to enable Kismet to enter into natural and intuitive social interaction with a human caregiver and to learn from them, reminiscent of parent-infant exchanges. To do this, Kismet perceives a variety of natural social cues from visual and auditory channels, and delivers social signals to the human caregiver through gaze direction, facial expression, body posture, and vocal babbles.

Kismet Home

Quicktime Video Clips [via lightningfield]


While we're in the neighborhood...


From McSweeney's: Warnings Affixed to Laboratory Doors at the Massachusets Institute of Technology

6. Do not have open containers of water in cold rooms: these cause excessive frost in the refrigeration system and lead to malfunction and temperature instability.

7. The contained atmosphere in environmental rooms and recirculation of most of the air creates a potential for retaining any aerosols that are formed during research procedures. This can lead to cross-contamination of research projects and personnel exposure. Keep these rooms as clean as possible.