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IBM Is Sending a Floating Robot Head to Space
[HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey] hasn't deterred Airbus and IBM from teaming up to develop CIMON (Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN), a floating robot the size of a medicine ball that is equipped with Watson AI technology.
Later this year, CIMON is set to become the first "flying brain" in space when it is deployed to the International Space Station (ISS) to work alongside astronauts.
CIMON will use its neural AI network, combined with its face and voice recognition technology, to assist astronauts during the European Space Agency's Horizons mission between June and October 2018.
Once the functional testing of the system has been completed, Gerst will work in Space with CIMON a total of three times: They will experiment with crystals, work together to solve the Rubik's cube and perform a complex medical experiment using CIMON as an 'intelligent' flying camera.
I → H
B → A
M → L
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @05:49PM (10 children)
Oh boy, I can't wait to hear people explain how useless this is while ignoring that it isn't the end goal.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 02 2018, @06:24PM (8 children)
Click on TFA. Now tell me: Do you want to spend six months in a confined space with that creepy smiling face hovering around ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @06:41PM
Who would turn down the opportunity?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday March 02 2018, @06:58PM (2 children)
Yes!
Please!
I'll go for a new record for time in space, if you want.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 02 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)
Did I write "in space" ?
Original point: if you spend millions building a human-interface gizmo, could you bother to make it neutral-to-good-looking, not creepy?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday March 02 2018, @08:32PM
Yeah... Creepy like a perv
Would rather just have a voice
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:26PM (1 child)
Does it look like Clippy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Friday March 02 2018, @08:31PM
"I see you're trying to mend a hole in your spacesuit before all the air runs out..."
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:48AM
I was hoping for something like Zardoz. I think they missed an opportunity by not building it in that form.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 05 2018, @04:01PM
You have a pretty low bar for "creepy". Seems more mundane than anything to me. Would have been cool, if they'd paid some anime artists or someone to do some nice face art. As opposed to something that screams industrial engineering.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:07AM
All these sorts of projects have awesome end goals. But they routinely don't have the means to reach those end goals.