Replying to a message of Jeff Snyder to Bob Ackley:

 JS> On 04/01/09, Jeff Snyder quoted Bob Ackley: Greetings From A New.

 BA>> Note that Sony has invented a robot dog that behaves quite a bit like
 BA>> a real one - although it doesn't leave 'calling cards' like real
 BA>> ones do.  I suspect they might have picked up the idea from the
 BA>> robot pet dog in Battlestar Galactica those many moons ago.  In any
 BA>> case, they're also pretty far along with robot people, too.


 JS> Yes, I am aware of Sony's dog. If I recall correctly, it is called
 JS> AIBO, and according to Wikipedia, it stands for "Artificial
 JS> Intelligence roBOt. It is also a homonym for the Japanese word for
 JS> "pal".

 JS> Yes, I remember the dog from the original Battlestar Galactica series.
 JS> In fact, last year, and the early part of this year, I did an entire
 JS> watching marathon of BSG 1978, BSG 1980, BSG 2003 mini-series, BSG
 JS> webisodes, and of course, the BSG remake series, which just ended two
 JS> weeks ago. BTW, that BSG dog-like creature was called Muffet, or
 JS> Muffit, or something like that.

 JS> Oh, also, just remembered...in the final moment of the finale of the
 JS> BSG remake, they showed all of these different kinds of robots,
 JS> which, of course, included AIBO and other more human-looking robots.

 JS> I've been keeping track of nanotechnology and robotics for a number of
 JS> years now. I find it interesting, as well as somewhat alarming. They
 JS> say that by the middle of this century, computers may surpass human
 JS> intelligence. In a sense, they already do, and speed-wise, well, we
 JS> all know the answer to that. Are we looking at a "Terminator"
 JS> self-fulfilled prophecy? Time will tell. Even some scientific deep
 JS> thinkers are now saying that we are allowing our technology to get
 JS> ahead of our minds and hearts...and that is a bit scary.

Not sure if it's Sony, but I recently read about an outfit in Japan that is
developing a 'nurse' robot to work in nursing homes.  Sort of an electronic
companion to the people there.

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