Filtered for robots

09.40, Tuesday 26 Sep 2017

1.

This video of a robot sorting system for a warehouse.

The dance of those little orange cushions charging from source to destination, giving each other room… lovely.

Packet switching. It used to be that the pipes were visible, and the packets were dumb but had addresses. The junctions were smart and did the work. We call them routers. Here there are no routers and there are no pipes. But instead, autonomous packets.

I wonder if the internet could work like this: not dumb packets with addresses, but each packet with a tiny bit of software to choose its own next destination. I’d be interested to hear of any work in this direction.

2.

Woffice, a property service company in Handan province, China, has a monthly relaxation day for its staff. One month it was “No Face” day.

Luckily for these employees in China, they’ve been given a day off to go “faceless”. [Staff] wore masks on Tuesday so they didn’t have to fake their facial expression throughout the day.

And:

Most workers chose to go with the “No Face” mask to relax their smiling muscles and remain anonymous in front of customers

Identity is work.

Great photos.

The caption to the bottom photo is brutal: This way no one can see me cry.

3.

A robot monk in Longquan Temple, China. Named Xian’er.

Through a touch screen held on his tummy, he can answer voice commands and up to 100 questions on Buddhism.

A robotic priest in Wittenberg, Germany. Named BlessU-2.

The machine delivers various blessings in eight languages.

Does a benediction from a robot have an effect? Is sentience necessary to facilitate the presence of the divine?

4.

Rings that look like fingers. Earrings that look like ears.

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