Yes, it’s the summer.
The beautiful weather in Vancouver for the past couple of months really hasn’t been very helpful keeping me posting for the blog.
But with the notion of that Summer should be filled with lots of fun, I’d like to share some robot-filled entertainment with you. Hardly a headline material, I agree. But the epic-ness of the music video you’re about to see may to justice to that.
So here is Dan Mangan, a local Canadian artist, with a song called Robots.

Reporter Amy Harmond interviews Bina48, a robot developed by David Hanson.
Follow the link below to watch the video interview.
Making Friends With a Robot Named Bina48

Somewhat unknowingly, I had been following a systematically devised set of rituals to prepare and eat all my meals.
After rushing back from my lab, located conveniently within 2 minutes of walking distance, I put my bagel in the toaster and open my laptop sitting beside it. A progress bar starts to move forward as the laptop wakes up from its ‘sleep’ mode.  A slice of bagel takes longer to toast than the time it takes for my laptop to wake up for me. Before the progress bar reaches the 50% …

Dr. Machiel Van der Loos forwarded me an article on Paro from the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago. Paro is a furry baby seal robot with the potential to impact people emotionally: it has two huge eyes that can stare at you adoringly and it can move its body parts like a real pup. Emotional bonds with artifacts, such as objects, etc, have been discussed for hundreds and thousands of years in literature. The question for today’s discussion is, ‘Would our emotional bonds with Paro lead to a happy ending, or an ethical ending?’

For the first time in the world a robot conducted a wedding for a cute Japanese couple, BBC reports.
BBC News – Tokyo couple married by robot in rooftop wedding.