We present DIJIT, a novel binocular robotic head expressly designed for mobile agents that behave as active observers. DIJIT's unique breadth of functionality enables active vision research and the study of human-like eye and head-neck motions, their interrelationships, and how each contributes to visual ability. DIJIT is also being used to explore the differences between how human vision employs eye/head movements to solve visual tasks and current computer vision methods. DIJIT's design features nine mechanical degrees of freedom, while the cameras and lenses provide an additional four optical degrees of freedom. The ranges and speeds of the mechanical design are comparable to human performance. Our design includes the ranges of motion required for convergent stereo, namely, vergence, version, and cyclotorsion. The exploration of the utility of these to both human and machine vision is ongoing. Here, we present the design of DIJIT and evaluate aspects of its performance. We present a new method for saccadic camera movements. In this method, a direct relationship between camera orientation and motor values is developed. The resulting saccadic camera movements are close to human movements in terms of their accuracy.

Apple's lead artificial intelligence researcher for robotics has departed the company to join Meta Platforms' competing effort, part of an exodus of AI talent from the company. The employee, Jian Zhang, joined the Meta Robotics Studio, the social media company confirmed on Tuesday. Separately, three more AI researchers are leaving Apple's in-house large language models team, adding to upheaval in that group, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The latest string of departures -- all taking place over the last week -- includes John Peebles, Nan Du and Zhao Meng, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the moves haven't been announced.

Abstract--The paper focuses on an immersive teleoperation system that enhances operator's ability to actively perceive the robot's surroundings. A consumer-grade HTC Vive VR system was used to synchronize the operator's hand and head movements with a UR3 robot and a custom-built robotic head with two degrees of freedom (2-DoF). The system's usability, manipulation efficiency, and intuitiveness of control were evaluated in comparison with static head camera positioning across three distinct tasks. Teleoperation plays a pivotal role in robotics by enabling efficient data collection for learning from demonstrations. The quality of collected data heavily depends on the operator's ability to intuitively control the system and receive adaptive visual feedback.

From Ex Machina to Robocop, humanoid robots have been the subject of science fiction blockbusters for years. Now, human-like robots are becoming a reality – and the latest bot from Engineered Arts is one of the most realistic yet. The robotic head, dubbed Adran, has 22 custom actuators that allow it to move its eyes and mouth just like a human. A creepy video of Adran in action shows the robotic head winking at the camera, moving its jaw from side-to-side and even grinning. Engineered Arts posted the video to its YouTube channel, although it admits that more work needs to be done before Adran is ready.

Spike-based communication between biological neurons is sparse and unreliable. This enables the brain to process visual information from the eyes efficiently. Taking inspiration from biology, artificial spiking neural networks coupled with silicon retinas attempt to model these computations. Recent findings in machine learning allowed the derivation of a family of powerful synaptic plasticity rules approximating backpropagation for spiking networks. Are these rules capable of processing real-world visual sensory data? In this paper, we evaluate the performance of Event-Driven Random Backpropagation (eRBP) at learning representations from event streams provided by a Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS). First, we show that eRBP matches state-of-the-art performance on DvsGesture with the addition of a simple covert attention mechanism. By remapping visual receptive fields relatively to the center of the motion, this attention mechanism provides translation invariance at low computational cost compared to convolutions. Second, we successfully integrate eRBP in a real robotic setup, where a robotic arm grasps objects with respect to detected visual affordances. In this setup, visual information is actively sensed by a DVS mounted on a robotic head performing microsaccadic eye movements. We show that our method quickly classifies affordances within 100ms after microsaccade onset, comparable to human performance reported in behavioral study. Our results suggest that advances in neuromorphic technology and plasticity rules enable the development of autonomous robots operating at high speed and low energy budget.

Last year, CNET traveled to San Marcos, California, for an early, behind-the-scenes look at a new generation of artificially intelligent sex robots from Abyss Creations, maker of the popular "RealDolls" line of customizable sex dolls. Now, customers can expect to start receiving those same sexbots within the next month. So says Abyss Creations founder and chief designer Matthew McMullen in a recent video interview with a RealDoll enthusiast and Harmony beta tester who goes by "Brick Dollbanger." In the interview, McMullen says fully equipped AI sex robots should start shipping in September, which matches what a spokesperson for Abyss Creations subsidiary Realbotix told me earlier this week. McMullen also said putting the final touches on his company's new creations has proven to be "a little more difficult than we anticipated."

I'm driving down the San Diego freeway, searching for my exit, feeling jumpy and a little bit lost. I'm hoping a few wrong turns early in my drive won't make me late. I still need time to stop off at a strip mall with a Starbucks and a big parking lot -- someplace I can put on deodorant and maybe a little makeup after my cross-country flight. I prefer to think this is because I want to appear professional to the human man I'm on my way to see: Matt McMullen, the founder of Abyss Creations and its offshoot robotics company, Realbotix. But once I find a place to park and start brushing my hair, I realize that some deranged sliver of myself feels as if I'm primping for romance. This is a complicated realization. In addition to McMullen, I'm about to meet Henry, the first available male sex robot. Henry is six feet tall, with six-pack abs and the customer's choice of penis. He's just a prototype at the moment -- you can't buy him -- but the two female models Realbotix developed alongside Henry will ship this summer. So far, there have been 50 preorders at $12,000 apiece. Henry, Harmony, and Solana have sturdy silicone bodies, and once they're synced up to a corresponding app, they can give compliments, recite poetry, tell jokes, and seduce.

It's been just short of a year since I locked eyes with Harmony, RealDoll's first sex robot, at her home in Southern California. It was an arresting experience that has remained cemented in memory. In that moment, I suddenly understood the uncanny valley, a theory posited by roboticist Masahiro Mori, nearly half a century prior. It attempts to explain the feeling of revulsion and eeriness that human onlookers experience when they encounter an artificial life-form that appears nearly, but not quite human. Today, she's ventured out of the dimly lit R&D room at Abyss Creations to meet me at CES.

It's been just short of a year since I locked eyes with Harmony, RealDoll's first sex robot, at her home in Southern California. It was an arresting experience that has remained cemented in memory. In that moment, I suddenly understood the Uncanny Valley, a theory posited by roboticist Masahiro Mori, nearly half a century prior. It attempts to explain the feeling of revulsion and eeriness that human onlookers experience when they encounter an artificial life form that appears nearly, but not quite human. Today, she's ventured out of the dimly lit R&D room at Abyss Creations to meet me at CES.

During my four-hour visit to the birthplace of the RealDoll, the frighteningly life-like full-body sex toy, I've seen mounds of silicone vaginas, sheets of detached nipples, headless women hanging from meat hooks, a 2-foot penis and skulls with removable faces that attach like refrigerator magnets. Now, as we sit in the dim light of his R&D room, staring at his latest creation, Matt McMullen, the founder of Abyss Creations (the parent company behind the RealDoll), nonchalantly turns to me and says, "All I see is potential." For a man poised to bring millennia of male desire to life, McMullen, a small but striking figure who looks like a reformed industrial rocker, is surprisingly calm. Later this week, he'll launch Harmony AI, the heart of RealBotix, a platform intended to bring artificial intelligence to McMullen's sex dolls and companionship to the lonely, eccentric or curious. Harmony AI is part Android app, part sexualized personal assistant available for download directly from RealBotix.