Engineering TV has posted some interesting video of a new kit developed by QinetiQ, the company that makes the Talon robots. It’s called the ROCK Kit and includes everything you need to turn a Bobcat skid-steer loader into a teleoperated robot. The target customer is the military, who could save a lot of money by getting cheap, mass produced Bobcats and turning them into IED robots. According to Dr. William Ribich:

Other companies have roboticized individual pieces of earth-moving equipment, but until now, no one has created a universal kit that can quickly remotely control any Bobcat SJC-equipped loader used in the rough manner the military requires

Sure, it’s great for creating instant, low-cost telerobotics for handling oversized IEDs but we can think of all sorts of cool uses for a full sized robot like this. We’re guessing they aren’t planning to send us a review unit any time soon though.

RIKEN issued a press release about their joint research project with Tokai Rubber Industries to create a care giving robot. The 180kg robot, called RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) is the first that can safely lift a human weighing up to 61 kg from a bed into a wheel chair, or from a wheel chair into a bed. To make sure the human is comfortable, the robot is encased in soft urethane foam. The arms are also covered in 86 tactile sensors to give the robot information on the position of the human body. Doctors and nurses can guide the robot by touching the tactile sensors. In addition to the arm tactile sensors, the creepily cute robot has four more tactile sensors on the hands, 2 microphones, and 2 vision sensors. Each arm has 7 degrees of freedom. The head has 3 DoF and the waist 2 DoF. For more information, see the RIKEN-TRI Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research. Video after the break, or you can see several more videos of RIBAs movements on the RIBA Operation – motions webpage. Ok, and I can’t look at that photo without hearing Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” in my head; “So hold me, Mom, in your long arms, in your automatic arms, your electronic arms.”

US Navy’s Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming Robot
by steve

The US Navy is trying to save some money by making their ships more fuel efficient. Keeping a ship’s hull free of barnacles, oysters, algae, and other marine life can decrease fuel consumption by up to 40 percent and increase speed by 10 percent. To do the job of cleaning, or “grooming”, a vessel’s hull, the Office of Naval Research has developed the Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming (BUG) robot (PDF format). The BUG is an autonomous robot that uses negative pressure vortex regenerative fluid movement (which civilians refer to as “suction”) to stick to the hull of a ship. Four wheels drive it forward while sensors including biofilm detectors and flourometers allow it to avoid obstacles and plan paths that will take it toward fouled surfaces. The Navy hopes BUGs will be online by 2015, saving up $500 million in maintenance costs per ship while reducing the Navy’s carbon footprint. The robot could also be used on non-military ships and yachts. For more info, see the ONR news release.

Review: ‘Surrogates’ is a robotic retread
By Jake Coyle

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Surrogates” is itself a surrogate, a kind of stand-in for many of the sci-fi movies of the recent past: In it, you’ll recognize the ideas of “Blade Runner,” “Minority Report” and even “WALL-E.”

The Bruce Willis action flick opens with two murders — the first in years in a quasi-present day Boston. Technology has advanced enough so that nearly everyone has a surrogate — or “surry” for short. While reclining at home and plugged into a machine, people control a robotic version of themselves that safely maneuvers through the world in all of its slings and arrows.

The surrogates are a fantasy version of one’s self — cosmetically perfect, thinner, younger and sometimes of the opposite sex. (This means, most importantly, that we have a blond Bruce Willis on our hands.)

Yes, like James Bond, John McClane has gotten the Ken doll treatment. For an aging action star, the pseudo Willis is almost a pun, a wink at moviegoers’ need for stars that never age.

Willis is an FBI agent named Greer who, along with his partner (Radha Mitchell), is trying to solve the murders which, though committed on surrogates, also “liquefied” the brains of their human operators.

The police, too, have surrogates. When Greer — himself, not his doppelganger — rolls out of his bedroom after a long night as himself, the attractive surrogate of his wife (Rosamund Pike) sighs at the sight of her bald and wrinkly husband.

The surrogates are a clear metaphor for the virtual reality that’s already upon us. It’s a subject popular in Hollywood these days, given the recent Gerard Butler film “Gamer” and James Cameron’s upcoming “Avatar.”

Having a robotic stand-in has some obvious perks: Sexuality is less inhibited. If you fall, you don’t scrape your elbows. And if your helicopter crashes, you don’t die.

But this crime-less utopia is also a superficial wasteland, devoid of meaningfulness. As the investigation into the murders goes deeper, a plot to destroy the network becomes unfurled.

It has something to do with VSI, the company that created surrogates. (Its slogan: “Life … only better.”) One of the founders of VSI (James Cromwell) is having inventor’s remorse. Some also choose to live in human-only areas; the leader of these renegades is played by a dreadlocked Ving Rhames.

“We’re not meant to experience the world through a machine,” Rhames’ character announces.
It’s an ironic sentiment coming from a film projector beamed into a state-of-the-art movie theater.

“Surrogates,” directed by Jonathan Mostow (“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”), is adapted from a graphic novel by Robert Venditti. If anyone hasn’t noticed yet, graphic novels are — for better or worse — the new pulp fiction.

Like those hard-boiled novels of the `40s that Hollywood couldn’t get enough of, graphic novels are fueling what once would have been called B-movies. At its best, that’s what “Surrogates” is: a quality B-movie, pulpy and very much reflective of its times. The film isn’t shy about its feelings about technology — it’s time to unplug. It laments a culture that medicates pain away and has its head in virtual realms.

It’s hard to miss the message or the nihilistic glee the film takes in seeing a world of robot surrogates suddenly collapse — a Second Life apocalypse that effectively forces society to unplug and step outside.

The Internet, though, is here to stay. Dreams of a computer-less society are as much fantasy as a blond Bruce Willis.

“Surrogates” is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene. Two stars out of four.

MotorTrend Auto Blog & News – Wide Open Throttle

Nissan Develops Fish-Inspired “Anti-Collision” Biomimetic Robotic Cars
by Nate Martinez

Nature may play an even more influential part in the design of vehicles if Nissan eventually produces these “anti-collision” robotic cars that navigate instinctively and intelligently away from obstacles.

Called the Eporo concept cars, they were developed to act in much the same way bumblebees and schools of fish travel smoothly and without collision in their respective environments.

“We, in a motorized world, have a lot to learn from the behavior of a school of fish in terms of each fish’s degree of freedom and safety within a school and high migration efficiency of a school itself. In Eporo, we recreated the behavior of a school of fish making full use of cutting-edge electronic technologies,” said Toshiyuki Andou, Manager of Nissan’s Mobility Laboratory and principal engineer of the robot car project. “By sharing the surrounding information received within the group via communication, the group of Eporoscan travel safely, changing its shape as needed.”

Ultimately, Nissan hopes to develop the technology into a widely used “Safety Shield” system that allows for a group of vehicles to cohesively travel together in an environmentally friendly manner with less traffic congestion.

The biomimetic system of road going movement, as well as the Eporo cars, will debut at next week’s Createc Japan convention.

Source: Nissan

Jill Dando – The Murder of the BBCs Sunshine Girl

By Rachael Bell
Sparks of Hope

On December 10, 1999, The Sun newspaper interviewed a man working on the film “102 Dalmatians” who had found a strange object on the shore of the Thames during an afternoon stroll. Wrapped in newspaper, the man discovered a black 9mm automatic Beretta, believed to have been similar to the gun used in the Dando shooting. The gun was discovered on the same day police revealed that Dando was most likely not murdered by a professional killer, although it had not been totally ruled out. Police further revealed that during the weeks leading up to her murder, two men at different occasions showed a fixation with Dando. On one occasion a man attempted to place his name on Dando’s electricity bill, and on another, a man attempted to have her telephone changed to his name. Weeks later, detectives revealed that there was a third incident in which a man attempted to access Dando’s private documents. It was unclear whether the men were one and the same or were two or three different people. This new evidence led police to speculate that Dando’s murder was most probably carried out by a stalker.

The Psychopathology of a Stalker

Katherine Ramsland in her article, “Stalkers: The Psychological Terrorists,” presents the definition of a stalker, which is according to U.S. legislation, a person who “willfully, maliciously and repeatedly follows or harasses” another person and who threatens the safety of that person or their immediate family. Recently stalking has gained a great deal of media attention due to several high profile cases in which celebrities have been murdered or assaulted by obsessed stalkers. The problem has often been believed to have been one suffered exclusively by females, especially those who are continuously in the public eye. According to Dr. Phillip Resnick of Case Western Reserve University, one in 12 women is stalked by either sex at one time throughout her life. However, stalking is not a phenomenon to which only celebrities or females alone fall victim. Both stalkers and their victims are represented by both genders. Dr. Ramsland points out the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that one in 45 men are stalked at sometime in his life and that “90 percent of women killed by their husbands or boyfriends had first been stalked.” However, on average women are more likely than men to be the victims of a stalker.

Dr. Reid Meloy, author of several books on stalking and a leading expert on stalking behavior, stated that stalkers are mostly middle-aged men who develop pathological attachments and usually follow a predictable pattern of behavior. He describes the progression of a stalker in his book The Psychology of Stalking, as one which begins with infatuation-like feelings, eventually followed by contact with the person of interest. Contact with the person often ends in rejection, which Meloy states, “triggers the delusion through which the stalker projects his own feelings onto the object: She loves me, too.” He further explains that the stalker hides his shame with anger, leading to the desire to control or injure the person being stalked. Often, the stalker will attempt to fulfill his fantasy by devaluing the person and controlling the individual through violence.

Dr. Ramsland describes the F.B.I.’s four distinct types of stalkers:

1. Non-domestic stalker, who has no personal relationship with the victim
2. Organized
3. Delusional
4. Domestic stalker, who has had a prior relationship with the victim and feels motivated to continue the relationship

Ramsland says stalkers tend to be, “unemployed or underemployed,” and more intelligent than other criminals.

Therefore, stalkers are more likely to be middle-aged, unemployed, obsessed, psychopathic men. However, one can not and should not myopically view all stalkers as such. Stalkers and their victims are not limited to any particular gender, age, sex, race or culture. Thus, anyone at anytime or anywhere can be stalked. Ramsland does state that although many stalkers do threaten their victims, only a “small percentage carry out their threat.” Unfortunately, there is no way to differentiate between those who make idle threats and those who actually follow through.

Suspect of Many Identitites

Police photo of the suspect (BBC News)
Police photo of the
suspect (BBC News)
After one year and many appeals made by police for information into Dando’s murder, a 40-year-old suspect was arrested in connection with the crime on May 25, 2000. The suspect, whose name was initially withheld from the public, was held in police custody at the London police station for 84 hours. He eventually appeared at the West London Magistrates Court on May 29, 2000. Police had asked the judge for an extension to hold the suspect in custody three times in order to question him more extensively before he was formally charged for the crime.

Police had begun to focus on the suspect following an interview with him concerning Dando’s murder. He was one of more than 2,000 people listed as potential suspects in the investigation. Before his arrest, police set up surveillance cameras outside of the suspect’s residence. Investigators claimed that they had discovered new circumstantial evidence taken from his home that linked him to the murder of Dando. Interestingly, police had already obtained several tips from anonymous callers about the suspect just days following the murder. However, the information was overlooked by investigators in the flurry of activity surrounding the case. Following his arrest, the suspect denied ever knowing Dando or having ever caused her physical harm.

The world was told that the name of the suspect was Barry Bulsara, several days following the arrest. However, police discovered that Barry Bulsara was not his real name. Neither were the names Steve Majors or Thomas Palmer, which he also frequently used. Eventually the police learned the real identity of their suspect, Barry Michael George. Neighbors and acquaintances told police that Mr. George often assumed false identities and claimed to be employed by the government to work high security positions. Mr. George also claimed to be related to the classic rock group Queen’s lead singer Freddy Mercury, whose original surname was Bulsara. However, ABC News reported that Mercury’s family denied that Mr. George ever had any affiliation with the singer’s family.

Barry George (BBC News)
Barry George
(BBC News)
Mr. George’s home, located a half mile from Dando’s residence, was searched by police. Investigators lacked important evidence needed to build a solid case, including a lack of motive, eyewitnesses to the crime and a murder weapon. It was hoped that such evidence could be found at the suspect’s apartment. Many items were eventually removed from Mr. George’s residence and used as evidence in one of Britain’s most publicized trials of the century.

The Trial

Almost eight months following Mr. George’s arrest, the Dando trial began at the Old Bailey with a bumpy start. Four days after arguments began with prosecutor Orlando Pownall QC and defense attorney Michael Mansfield QC, the proceedings were adjourned by Mr. Justice Gage for unknown reasons. Legal arguments resumed during the last week of April 2001 but were once again delayed until the first week of May. Finally on May 4, 2001, the trial began again with the prosecution building up its case against Mr. George before a jury of seven women and five men. It was the beginning of a trial that would span five weeks and captivate news audiences worldwide.

Police evidence of magazines found in George’s apartment (BBC News)
Police evidence of magazines
found in George’s apartment
(BBC News)
During the first week in May, the jury learned of the details surrounding the death of Dando and the murder scene. Then they heard about Miss’ Dando’s history, including her engagement, successful career and accomplishments. Subsequently, the prosecution described the evidence concerning Mr. George, creating a picture of a man obsessed by fame. Mr. George had an intense interest in firearms and the military, gauged by the large quantity of magazines and books found at his house on those subjects. George had also a habit of using false identities throughout his life.

Police evidence of photos found at Barry Georges residence (BBC News)
Police evidence of photos found at
Barry Georges residence
(BBC News)
Mr. Pownall told jurors how in 1982 George had joined a pistol club using the name Steve Majors. George’s use of the name was in honor of the character Steve Austin, played by Lee Majors in the popular Bionic Man television series, according to BBC News. Pownall also told jurors that George had assumed other famous identities, including that of a heroic SAS soldier who helped end the siege on the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980.

Gun holster found at George’s apartment (BBC News)
Gun holster found at
George’s apartment
(BBC News)
Mr. Pownall spoke of Mr. George’s obsession with the BBC, where the defendant worked for a stint as a messenger in 1976. Pownall stated that the defendant had an “unusual interest in the BBC” and would often collect copies of the staff newspaper containing articles and photos of employees. The collection of the articles continued on a weekly basis over a seven-year period. One of the employees often featured in the BBC’s staff newspaper was Jill Dando. During a police search of Mr. George’s apartment, two cut out {Metro} newspaper articles referring to Jill Dando’s death had been found.

Jurors also learned that although Mr. George had claimed not to have known of Jill Dando, he had displayed enormous sympathy for her following her death. Mr. Pownall said that a member of the local council had remembered Mr. George saying that a memorial should be built for the murdered television presenter and that the defendant had actively sought letters of condolence following her death. During an interview with a journalist on the Dando case, Mr. George claimed to have watched Jill Dando on the {Crimewatch} television series and was quoted as saying that he thought her to be, “a lovely lady.” Prosecutor Pownall told the jury that the journalist’s account contradicted a statement Mr. George had given the police. An even more compelling account linking Mr. George to the Dando murder case came from a witness named Sally Mason. Mason had been an acquaintance of Mr. George for 15 years. During a conversation with Mason about the murder of Dando, the defendant had remarked to her that he had indeed been there, although he had claimed on other occasions to police to not have been.

Critical Evidence

Clothes at George’s flat, police evidence (BBC News)
Clothes at George’s flat, police
evidence (BBC News)
During the second week of the trial, jurors were told of a police search of Mr. George’s apartment. One of the critical pieces of evidence was a coat which contained discharge residue particles in one of the pockets. The coat was similar to the one worn by the suspect witnesses claimed to have seen on the morning of Dando’s murder. The prosecution told jurors that particles found in the coat originated from the fired gun that contained the cartridge case recovered from the murder scene of Dando. Forensic scientists had found a similar match between the particles found in Mr. George’s coat pocket and particles found on the coat and in the hair of Jill Dando at the murder scene. Moreover, at the scene of the crime investigators found a single fibrous strand that matched the material of a pair of pants owned by the defendant.

Another particularly damaging witness account was relayed to the jury before the end of the prosecution’s opening speech. A witness named Susan Mayes said that she saw the defendant standing across the street in front of Dando’s house on the morning of the brutal murder. The witness also claimed that the defendant had been wearing a black suit with a white shirt. Mr. Pownall ended his speech by telling jurors that, “although he might have not had a rational motive, this defendant shot Jill Dando.”

During the third week of the trial, jurors were given a tour of several of the key places involved in the investigation. Following a visit to the houses where Dando and Mr. George lived and surrounding areas, jurors were once again escorted to the courtroom to hear the testimony of other key witnesses. One witness, who was a friend of Dando’s, described how she had found her friend’s body on the front step. In fact, several people came across the body of Dando immediately after her death. However, no one had seen anyone suspicious near the crime scene, except for Miss’ Dando’s neighbor Mr. Hughes. Jurors were also shown videotaped interviews, in which Mr. George had been questioned extensively by investigators. Once again, Mr. George was heard saying he had never before seen Jill Dando in the flesh, yet he was shocked upon learning about the circumstances of her death. Investigators also asked Mr. George if he had killed Dando, which he denied doing.

The Defense

On the fourth week of the trial, the defense attorney Michael Mansfield QC told jurors that there was evidence that Dando had been assassinated by a professional Yugoslavian hit man. He suggested that her death was caused in retaliation for NATO bombings in Belgrade. His claim was further supported by a National Intelligence Crime Service report, which ordered the death of the famous television presenter. “Miss Dando’s murder was a hit ordered by Arkan, the leader of the Tigers,” Mansfield said. The arguments made by the defense, focusing on the hit man theory, extended into the fifth week. Mansfield also told jurors that there were threatening phone calls received by Television Centre in London and BBC Belfast in the days following Dando’s death. The caller had been said to have had a foreign accent and had referred to Dando’s murder ws personalities with being future targets. In a rebuttal against the prosecution’s earlier statements, Michael Mansfield told the jury that evidence linking Mr. George to the crime was “non-existent” and that the prosecutors failed to produce a motive, weapon or witnesses who saw him commit the murder.

Mansfield presented a witness who claimed to have seen a man in a Range Rover car parked near Dando’s house on the morning of the murder. The witness, a traffic warden, told the court she had noticed the man waving at her while talking on a mobile. She told the court that when she had first approached the car, she did not see the man and was startled when she eventually noticed him. She believed the man on the phone in the car had been attempting to attract her attention. There was no evidence presented by either side that connected Mr. George with a Range Rover vehicle.

Following closing statements by the defense and prosecution, Mr. George’s fate lay in the hands of the jury. On July 2, 2001, the jury returned after five days of deliberation. Barry Michael George had been found guilty of the murder of Jill Dando and sentenced to life in prison.

Newspaper articles (BBC News: July 3, 2001)
Newspaper articles
(BBC News: July 3, 2001)
According to British law, previous convictions of the defendant could not be told to the jury to prevent prejudicing the case. The BBC News reported what the jury had never learned — that Barry George had been previously arrested for crimes, some of which were assaults against women. In 1980, George had been fined for the impersonation of a police officer. That same year, he was arrested for the molestation of two women. One of the women had been attacked by Mr. George in an elevator, a crime for which he was later acquitted. The same year, Mr. George had been arrested for indecent assault of a second woman. She had told the judge at the hearing that he had followed her for several weeks prior to the attack. Mr. George was convicted for indecent assault in 1982 and of attempted rape in 1983.

What jurors had also not learned throughout the trial proceedings was that Barry George had been arrested in 1983 for trespassing on the property of Diana, Princess of Wales. Mr. George had been found armed with two knives, rope, combat paraphernalia and a gas mask. George had been seen loitering near the grounds around Diana’s home a total of four times during the same year before he was turned away from the area. Therefore, Mr. George was a more threatening and disturbed character than what his defense team had initially portrayed. Based on Mr. George’s prior criminal records from before the Dando charge, it was evident that stalking and other violent acts were not unknown to him. According to The Mirror newspaper who had interviewed the former wife of Mr. George, the marriage was described by the Japanese national as “violent and terrifying.” The marriage lasted from 1989 until the couple’s divorce in 1994.

Aftermath

UPDATE: Appeals & Conviction Overturned

On July 31st, 2009, a London jury cleared Barry George of all charges relating to the murder of Jill Dando. Jailed since 2001, George was finally retried after lengthy appeals based on questions raised by his defense team about evidence presented by prosecutors at the original trial.

In November 2008 three Appellate Court judges called into question the veracity of forensic evidence leading to George’s conviction.

The Old Bailey Court retrial jury, like the first jury, never heard of George’s prior sex offense conviction, record of an attempted rape and three arrests for indecent assault. This second jury never heard about the Kensington Palace break-in either.

Barry George celebrated the not guilty verdict by having a cocktail and a cup of tea with supporters following the jury’s exoneration. According to newspaper of record Telegraph.co.uk, George will receive £1 million compensation for his time incarcerated, another £100,000 likely from tabloids for his story. Additionally, George will likely sue for wrongful imprisonment. According to newspapers, George will likely retire in Ireland or rural England.

It is difficult to imagine that something positive could arise out of a life that had been unnecessarily and violently destroyed. However, as a lasting legacy to Jill Dando, Mr. Farthing, friends and family of the TV station banded together with numerous supporters to create one of the world’s first criminal science institutes. Mr. Farthing said that those who knew and loved Jill were, “trying to turn the tragedy into something positive.” The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science was developed to assist in the prevention of crime. The institute provides degree courses on crime prevention, in the hopes that other unnecessary acts of violence could be prevented in the future.

Bibliography

This story is based entirely on newspaper articles and online news stories from British and American newspapers and web sites. The most faithful coverage was provided by the BBC News (www.bbc.co.uk) out of respect for the savage murder of one of its own stars. Other major sources were ABC News (www.abcnews.com), The Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk), The Manchester Guardian Internet Edition (www.guardian.co.uk/guardian), The London Times Online (www.timesonline.co.uk)

$1 Million Reward Offered in Connection with Major Art Theft Stolen Artwork Includes Original Warhol Pieces

Los Angeles: Between Sept. 2 and 3, 2009, a multi-million-dollar collection of original artwork by renowned artist Andy Warhol was stolen from the West Los Angeles home of businessman Richard L. Weisman on Angelo Drive. The stolen property included a collection of ten 40-inch by 40-inch pieces produced from 1977 to 1979 depicting famous athletes. A portrait of Weisman was also taken.

A domestic employee entered Weisman’s home on Sept. 3 and immediately discovered the artwork missing from the dining room walls. She then left the residence and went to a neighbor’s home where she called the police.

Accompanying this press release is a crime alert with details of the incident and images of the stolen artwork.

Photos of the paintings can also be found at the following link:
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/9584873_FnPj8#645233892_VxSHt

Further descriptions are available at the crime alert link below:
Crime Alert Flyer

A reward of $1 million is being offered for information leading to the recovery of the artwork. Anyone with information about this crime is urged to call the Los Angeles Police Department’s Art Theft Detail at 213-485-2524. After-hours and on weekends, calls may be directed to a 24-hour, toll-free number at 1-877-LAPD-24-7 (527-3247). Callers may also text “Crimes” with a cell phone or log on to www.lapdonline.org and click on Web tips. When using a cell phone, all messages should begin with “LAPD.” Tipsters may remain anonymous.