The Turing Test states that to be considered "sentient," an artificial intelligence must achieve a 30% success rate. That means Elbot's accomplishment, while noteworthy, does not an AI make.

Organizer Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering was excited anyway, and readily compared today's events to the time in the 1997 when IBM's Big Blue defeated chess master Gary Kasparov. "This has been a very exciting day with two of the machines getting very close to passing the Turing Test for the first time," he said.

Perhaps even more impressive was just how believable the computers were, even if the human speaking with them knew they were speaking with a machine.

"Today's results actually show a more complex story than a straight pass or fail by one machine. Where the machines were identified correctly by the human interrogators as machines, the conversational abilities of each machine was scored at 80 and 90%. This demonstrates how close machines are getting to reaching the milestone of communicating with us in a way in which we are comfortable. That eventual day will herald a new phase in our relationship with machines, bringing closer the time in which robots start to play an active role in our daily lives."

Note to Warnick: Read anything on robots written by Isaac Asimov, then get back to me. [Telegraph]

The beauty of this prototype is that it can work inside an MRI thanks to its titanium and stainless steel construction. Everything from biopsy, to diagnosis to cancer-hunting is all completed within the MRI, making for a convenient one stop trip for patients.

The robot kills cancer cells by way of a probe that is inserted into the breast until it reaches the tumor. The probe then burns the cells until they're all dead. Researchers say the robot, if successfully deployed into the medical field, could consolidate three months of hospital trips into a single visit. Better yet, the robot will also be able to access parts of the human body that human surgeons can't, although researchers didn't elaborate much on that point.

Unfortunately, the robot is a prototype, and trials are estimated at four years out, if they happen at all. "We're not just governed by technology," said said Rao Gullapalli, a collaborator on the robot from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. "We're governed by bureaucracy as well." [Diamondback Online via Slashdot]

[Make]

The 22 pound battery-operated system is belted to your waist and captures brain signals through sensors attached to your skin. HAL supposedly works effortlessly with your muscles, increasing your strength up to 10 times the norm without turning you all jolty and robot-like. Think Iron Man instead of Robocop. If the price is a little too much for you, you can rent a cheaper option= one leg for $1,460.

But really, can you put a price on looking this good? [Daily Mail]

I, for one, can't wait to get my mitts on one. [GetRobo]

Bar2 is radio controlled and runs about 8 hours on a single charge. And as you can see in our gallery, he's great with the ladies.

The robot is a fully stocked bar on wheels with compartments for ice, beer and mixed drinks. Grab a beer from Bar2 and its carousel system automatically rotates to present you with the next bottle (15 max capacity). The top carousel holds up to six bottles of hard alcohol and mixers that is programmable to mix the perfect drink.

And Bar2D2 sounds like his fictional counterpart, stocked with the soundboard of an R2-D2 toy. See the full process of building Bar2 over at Jamie Price's flickr page. [flickr via Gizmowatch]

I like the way it finds its way back to the charging base automatically...though you'd better plan ahead on having it charged up if you want to use it for a serious business video conference. Though I reckon your colleagues'd be too amused by the strangeness of nattering to a robot for the conference to go smoothly...and if they're Red Dwarf fans then the similarity to the scutters will have them giggling far too much.

The Rovio's out this Friday for $300. [RobotsRule]

The images above illustrate two design concepts: the first is focused on amplifying a swimmer's lower body movements in the water—like a motorized version of swim fins. The second concept goes a little further by attempting to mimic how a penguin uses its upper body to swim. Apparently the project is still in development, and since the image illustrates that the motorized lower body fin has actually been tested, I am going to assume that is the direction they have decided to pursue. That's probably for the best. [IHMC via Wired]

And, Barry, when these things get cheap enough for the mass market, give me a ring. There's this remote on my coffee table that's just out of reach. [New Scientist]

How's it work? Well, people drop off their bikes at the garage, where a robotic arm reads their RFID card to identify it. It then brings the bike to its designated parking spot among thousands of other bikes. At the end of the day, a swipe of the card brings your bike back to the surface in about 10 seconds. All this for about $19 a month, and you don't need to buy a lock. Totally amazing. [Treehugger]

Assembled from 5 main pieces sliced with a foam cutter and held together with silicon seal, the limbs fit the torso as if they're sitting on a shelf (requiring no additional adhesive for easy assembly/disassembly). Also of note: this styrobot only weighs 20 pounds. Just don't tell the neighbors, because they sorta think he's real. [KK via MAKE]

Check out video footage of the harness in action below, plus our exclusive interview, where Maru discusses the what it takes to win a robotic deathmatch.

Maru builds the bots; his sons Kenta and Ryoma operate them in the combat tournaments. For a prizefighter, King Kizer is only 16 inches tall but has a lightweight aluminum frame, very rapid servomotors and sensors that help it maintain its balance and detect its enemies. Kizer uses the latter to launch speedy, autonomous attacks on foes.

The harness creates a master-slave connection with Kenta. When the boy moves his upper body during combat, sensors with voltage potentiometers transmit the motions via a Bluetooth link to Kizer, which reproduces them. In the video, you can see that there's a bit of a delay, but apparently robot combat is still clumsy enough for this to not have too great an impact. The lower body is still controlled with a gamepad.

We recently visited the Maru dojo to discuss King Kizer and new fighting-robot technologies:

How does the "master-slave" control technology work? Where did you get the idea? Have you used it in Robo-One tournaments?
The master-slave control idea goes a long way back. The concept has a long history in robot anime, and it has been implemented in surgical devices. I've been using it since I first entered Robo-One.

The equipment affixed to the operator's body is known as a "master suit," and I concentrated on making this lightweight.

The strong point of the system is that it's great for adapting to the requirements of the moment. Other systems can only be operated through preprogrammed robot motions. For instance, in hand-to-hand combat, if you encounter a robot that is shorter than what you expected to go up against, your machine will be punching air instead of metal. But with a master-slave control system, that's not a problem you encounter.

The weak point of my current master-slave system is that it's limited to the upper half of the controller's body. But this is a problem that I believe I can solve. I'm also making improvements to use the system in non-combat applications. As you saw, it can also be used to handle eggs!

How do you build your robots?
When I decided to make my first bipedal robot from scratch, I had to study. The manufacturing process includes making the aluminum panels—cutting, bending and finishing—, plus vacuum form molding, resin casting and other techniques. The design is done in 2D CAD, and then I make a model, printing the frame on paper. Once I confirm the mechanical structure of the paper model, I start creating the actual aluminum panels. Since I don't do it in 3D CAD [just 2D CAD], this work process is really critical.

I already had computer programming skills, so making the robot's control system wasn't so difficult for me.

What is the role of your sons in your robot activity?
They're more than operators—our team is like the driver and mechanics in an F1 race car team. But their most important role is that they keep me motivated. I give it my all so that my sons can be victorious. I doubt I would have the power to keep winning at Robo-One if I had to create and operate the robots and compete in the tournaments all by myself!

Also, my sons sometimes provide me with unexpected inspiration. As children, their perspectives on robot making are invaluable.

In only three years of robot fighting, you have collected about $50,000 in prize money at Robo-One. Why is the Maru family team so successful?
I could not do this if I were not part of a family team. Most competitors in Robo-One are bachelors—there are few family teams. And I don't want to see my kids cry if they lose at the tournament!

Another reason for our success is not the technological power of our hardware and software, but how we manage our team. There isn't a great difference between competitors. in Robo-One. Fighting really hinges not on the actual winning or losing, but on seemingly trivial factors that are not obvious.

To give you some specific examples, one must consider things like safety parameters that are in your robot's design and how they'll affect performance, readiness for bugs that crop up during a fight, as well as strategies and practice based on your study of opponents. You can't count on having a winning streak if all you have done is create a robot with some cool abilities.

What is special about Japanese robots in general?
For Japanese people, a robot means a humanoid, bipedal robot. It seems Japanese are unique in the world in this way of thinking about robots. Many of the competitors in Robo-One watched robot anime when they were kids and that really influenced them. Robots are part of their childhood dreams, and that is reflected in their robot designs and fighting techniques.

Music for the second clip: "Prelude No. 1" by The Grift; no frikkin' clue what the song in the first clip is.

If you are fortunate enough to actually ride in the Walking Beast, don't expect heart-pounding, edge of your seat thrills. Its Chevy V8 engine only musters up enough power to move the steel behemoth along at around 5 mph—although it does shake the ground up to 500 feet away with each step. Montesano is planning on making some upgrades to the Walking Beast in the near future, including an elevator system to load passengers. Perhaps he should start touring the country offering rides at $10 a pop—sort of like a nerdy adult version of pony rides at a state fair. [Pop Sci]

Maybe I'm rhapsodizing this a bit early, but there are plenty more clips on YouTube, and if you're still into it after that, the first full episode is on BBC Three's video site. (Thanks for keeping it US-friendly, BBC!) Still hungry for more? The show's own site has some crazy 3D animation worth fiddling with—presumably best under the influence of some sort of mushrooms not generally found in my pantry. [The Wrong Door]

Once again, the week before Labor day brings offbeat art lovers from around the world to Black Rock City, Nevada, for a seven-day event that immerses the senses in radical artistic self-expression. Actually, its pretty hard to describe Burning Man unless you have actually been to one, but it is certainly a far cry from the stuffy art museum atmosphere most of us are familiar with. Plus, there are enough flaming gadgets to keep any nerd entertained. Hit the jump to see some of the unique projects on display this year.

Other projects to look out for:

• I Heart Lamp by Blue Lake Iron Works by Joel 'Fatboy' Brown, Mark 'F St' Whitman, Spike Foster, Tisha 'Mortisha' Sloan: "I Heart Lamp is a super-size sculpture of grandma's living room floor lamp. More than 30 feet tall, the lamp sits on the playa as a reminder of the cushy living rooms that are the American Dream for the mainstream, but with a twist to fit other dreams. Made from a scavenged Douglas Fir pole and recycled box pipe and lumber, this lamp, besides being surrealistically large, does not contain an electric light bulb. This lamp is lit by a propane fire cannon that turns on the same way the light would… when someone pulls the chain hanging from under the lampshade almost 20 feet in the air." (It may also be an homage to the movie Anchorman. I hated the movie, but anything Steve Carell says is OK in my book.)

• PlaySoundGround by Sasha Leitman and Michael St. Clair: "PlaySoundGround is an adult-sized playground that is also a musical instrument. It consists of three large pieces: a merry-go-round, a slide, and a teeter-totter. These pieces are equipped with sensors that convert the motion of play into music. The installation provides an arena for chaotic improvisations, synesthetic experiences and pointless fun."

• SOL by Alex Nolan and Justin Grant: "SOL is a groundbreaking piece of kinetic art, pushing the limits of sound, vision and motion in art. The sculpture is a nearly 25' tall robot, sensing the location and motion of nearby observers to track them with a highly directional sound system. The work is powered by an array of solar panels, drawing energy the sun to fuel its sensory output."

• Tetrion by Jim Abrams: "The Tetrion is a tremendous representation of the pieces from the original Tetris game."

[Burning Man Image of 2008 Burning Man designed by Rod Garrett and Larry Harvey]

The instructions are simple enough. There's the Microsoft speech API, the LED mouth, some circuitry, and lastly the googly plastic eyes from a craft store. It's certainly no EVE, but it's a start. [MAKE via Tecnhabob]

He said Intel's research labs are already looking at human-machine interfaces and examining future implications to computing with some promising changes coming much sooner than expected.

"The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago," Rattner said. "There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future."

Excellent, Intel, While simple math can show computers crushing our intellect in no time, it's very comforting when the world's leading microprocessor developer confirms it. You'd just better sell me faster chips than the machines. I've been an excellent customer. [Intel via bbGadgets]

[newscientist]

With a length of 8 meters, it can dive in with its fiber cam where rescue dogs can't, leading the way for human rescuers. Look for it slinking around in rubble piles next year. [Nikkei and Tohoku University via Crunchgear]

This is no ordinary robot control system - a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made - and continue to make - connections with each other.

As they do so, the disembodied neurons are communicating, sending electrical signals to one another just as they do in a living creature. We know this because the network of neurons is connected at the base of the pot to 80 electrodes, and the voltages sparked by the neurons are displayed on a computer screen.

The researchers hope that they'll learn about how the brain works via this project, leading to advances in treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's. I'm hoping it doesn't lead to an army of rat robots bent on destruction. We'll see what happens, I guess! [New Scientist via Slashdot]

The MechRC has an electronic and mechanical expansion system, so you can build your own version. For $760, however, I would pass until I can upgrade it with gatling guns and laser cannons. [MechRC via Toylogy]

There are a few Wings currently manned by Predator UAVs, which can indeed carry Hellfire missiles, but unlike the Reaper, their main mission is reconnaissance. Quite the contrary, the Reaper is the first true hunter-killer UAV, and its 66-foot wingspan and the ability to carry up to 1.5 tons of laser-guided bombs and other ordnances makes the Predator look like a fluttering sparrow.

And over Iraq, the Reaper can do the targeting-pod recon and close-air support that manned jets most commonly find themselves tasked with at a fraction of the cost (Reapers cost $18 million each, compared to three times that much for an F-16). Not to mention without the operational expenses or potential danger to the pilots, who can be in Las Vegas munching Taco Bell with their families. [Strategy Page via /.]

The interface on an N800 tablet:

And the video:

[Nokia Smart Spaces Lab via Reg Hardware]