A few months ago, I attended a panel discussion on Immersive Design where the panelists delved into the philosophy of consciousness of technology: when and how do we realize that something (particularly Artificial Intelligence) has gained consciousness. And what would be the form that would gain awareness first (if it hasn’t already gained it). Would it be man made robots, or would it be the self organizing cities or the internet.

These are fascinating topics of discussion, but this particular post is dedicated to some of the coolest robots of the past decade. Some time ago GoRobotics.net put together a list of the top 10 robots of the past decade.

Keepon

It features the very cute (and not necessarily as advanced) KeepOn, designed to allow a broad range of interactions with children (particularly the ones with Autism) which otherwise are impossible to have. Also on the list is the advanced Predator Drone, used in many military strikes by the US recently.

Others on the list are

• Pleo (the dinausaur toy),
• PackBot (the search bot),
• BigDog (one of the most advanced rough-terrain robot),
• RoboSapien (the hackable toy),
• ASIMO (Honda’s flagship robot),
• Aibo (the useful dog),
• Lego Mindstroms and
• Roomba (first commercial floor cleaning robot)

The following video presents the cute Keepon dancing to Spoon’s, “Don’t You Evah”.

For the full article on GoRotics.net click here.

Also do check out the ‘dream the impossible’ documentary at the Honda site where it shows off  its ASIMO robot. http://dreams.honda.com.