Pod Cast Evaluation

At the start of the digital cultures brief the question was to pick a technology that would create an effect in Ubiquitous city like Leeds in the future. Instead of just writing an essay we were asked to make a visual pod cast. At first I had no idea in what to research and kept on putting of the subject. Soon after while looking on you tube I watched a video on Asimo. This was the Japanese Humanoid robot created by the car company Honda. I thought it fascinating how agile and smart the robot was and originally thought it was a child in a small suit after realising this then led me looking at other different types of robots. This then gave me the idea of what I was going to pick as pod cast, robotics.
As I started researching I realised that companies were experimenting with robotics and had built a prototype and just thought of them being really basic and barley movable. After reading a little about them I never realized how advanced they were actually becoming and how quick they could make in impact on the planet.
Breaking away from this I first looked at the start at the inspirations and designs of how the thought of robots came around. I found out they began in movies and the first was a German film called Metropolis in 1927. This was created to give an n idea of what life would be like in the future as well. Other similar films were then created soon after like The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Wars and I Robot. I also began looking at household new technology advances and child’s toys like the kind that are shown on television adverts. I found about the I Robot Hoover that’s a self cleaning vacuum which uses censors and the Wowwee company that creates the interactive Robosapian. Continuing the search I looked at different robotics that are helping the world today and found the bomb disposal units used in the army. What I found was that robots used from the 1970’s till now has not much has really changed. After feeling disappointed I then referred back to the humanoid robots like Asimo looking more at what functions they have and other types can do. Here I found the Toyota robots where they are physical able to play musical instrument like the trumpet and violin.
When I collected all my research I had found I first wrote it all up as an essay where I added my opinions in it. From here I transferred the writing from my essay to at&t demo so that it could be spoken instead. I also didn’t particularly want to be in the pod cast my self. This process took a lot longer the expected as the demo could only pick up a few lines at a time. I eventually copied to become a woman’s voice, as it was clearer than the men’s. I then added the speech files to final cut, as I didn’t quite get how to use PowerPoint as movie. To fill in the video I just added still pictures from research to fit the speaking to finish it off. Although the next day I realised I did not save my project properly and lost the whole thing, so I had to repeat the process again, At times it was frustrating and it made me lose interest a little. Overall I did enjoy researching and shocked to see how fast robotics was evolving.

Robotics podcast

Animation Characters

Azimo

In Japan, companies like Toyota and Sony have created their own robot prototypes. Some of the main functions that these robots can do are to play musical instruments like the violin but the popular robot Azimo is highly multifunction. Created in the year 2000 by Honda after several attempts at designing and different models Azimo is now at its best. It has a built in camera in its head and can recognize a massive amount of multiple moving objects knowing the distance and direction of where they are. He can see the majority of the environment around him such as stairs and other uneven surfaces and avoids knocking into them or falling. He also can identify unusual sounds knowing if something may be harmful or not. An amazing feature about Azimo is that once a persons name and face is registered into his system he then has the ability to recognize their faces by memory and will greet them. When responding to a question or gesture Azimo faces the person and speaks directly back to them of if not that he shakes their hand or gives them nod to show he’s acknowledged them. The Internet can also be connected to Azimo and he can provide information about the news and weather updates.