Uncanny Valley Authority

We had a wonderful time opening the temporary office, located at 21 Grand in Oakland CA! Thanks to everyone who came out last night, for the November Art Murmur. Special Thanks to Darren Jenkins and Sarah Lockhart of 21 Grand, Kimric Smythe and our CTO Kriss De Jong for making this opening memorable and fun.

If you are in the Bay Area, please come by during office hours over the next month - 4-8 thursday, 4-6 friday, Saturday and Sunday 2-6 pm. Other times by appointment! schedule via email at rii@uncannyvalley.net. 

From Boing Boing via Modern Mechanix

The BBC is running a report about a robotic hand

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8313037.stm

This is an excellent compendium of uncanny valley activity in television and film. We appreciate the effort that tvtropes put into tracking the effect of the phenomena here.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyValley

Da Vinci's automatons shouldn't be forgotten either.

Conan O'Brien jokes about prostate exams and C-3P0 in opening monologue tonight.

According to Alan Winfield, a professor at the University of the West of England, scientists are spending too much time developing artificial intelligence and too little on robot safety.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6736130...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/08/yamahas-singing-robot-quietly-trolls-...

Harvard's getting some notice for this project

The project description:

INSPIRED by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behavior ...

we aim to push advances in miniature robotics and the design of compact high-energy power sources; spur innovations in ultra-low-power computing and electronic “smart” sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines.

SARCASTIC ROBOT MONOSPACED HANDWRITING

Here's a new twist for a fixed-width font. How about a monospaced handwriting specimen, one that looks as if it was written by a robot with a sense of humor and humanity? Yeah, it's a bit odd, and a whole lot geeky, but the SARCASTIC ROBOT font is now ready for you. It's only free for about a week, so come get it now: www.chank.com/shop/detail/4/fonts/56/sarcastic_robot/