Androids

Watch Japan’s Creepy Android Newscaster Deliver The Day’s Top Stories

Robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro has unveiled what he says is the world’s first news-reading android — eerily lifelike and possessing a sense of humor to match her perfect language skills. This latest plunge into the uncanny valley is named “Kodomoroid”—an amalgamation of the Japanese word “kodomo” (child) and “android.” After delivering news of an earthquake…

io9 Mark Strauss Jun 25

World’s first android newscasters are here to replace cable news hosts

In the future, we’ll get the news from fair and balanced android newscasters that’ll somehow terrify us more than the cable newspeople we have today. These android newscasters are frighteningly lifelike and can interact with humans, read the news and Tweets, tell a joke and basically replace the lousy talking heads on TV. The android…

Sploid Casey Chan Jun 24

Stephen Colbert Addresses the Android Threat

With the Turing test all over the news, Stephen Colbert asks “How close are we to having to battle AI for existence?” He also answers that question with “Now.” The Colbert Report Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook The Colbert Report Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The…

io9 Katharine Trendacosta Jun 11

Surreal Photos Of Disembodied Android Faces Are Horrifying

London-based photographer Luisa Whitton devoted several months to documenting the efforts of scientists who are striving to create robots that are nearly indistinguishable from humans. The results are as fascinating as they are unsettling. Whitton says that the goal of her project, titled What About the Heart?, is to “subvert the traditional formula of portraiture…

io9 Mark Strauss May 28

The Latest Incarnation Of ASIMO Is Actually Quite Badass

Honda’s humanoid robot, ASIMO, recently celebrated its 14th birthday. The diminutive android has experienced some minor upgrades over the years, but nothing quite like it’s latest batch of enhancements. Just watch what ASIMO can do now. Lance Ulanoff and the team at Mashable recently attended a demonstration of the new-and-improved ASIMO at the International Auto…

io9 George Dvorsky Apr 18

The Amazing Swedish Show Real Humans Is Getting An English Version

It’s a crime that the Swedish android show Real Humans (Äkta människor) hasn’t gotten aired in the United States yet. It’s widely hailed as one of the best science fiction shows of recent years. But at least, we’re getting an English-language version from the writers behind Spooks. According to Variety and the Radio Times, the…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Apr 7

This story only takes a couple minutes to read — and it’s superb.

Some of the shortest stories pack the biggest punches. Case in point: “In the Marrow” by Malon Edwards, published over at Lakeside Circus. It’s under 1,000 words, and it tells the story of a gynoid and her girlfriend, who’ve been driven apart by their parents — and by the “sexually deviant” gynoid’s memory loss. Here’s…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Feb 20

In Ken Liu’s new story, a text adventure game becomes a thing of wonder

Ken Liu mashes together so many things in his new story “The Clockwork Soldier,” over at Clarkesworld: a Scheherazade riff, a Zork-style text adventure, a strange fairy tale, and a Philip K. Dick-inspired tale of android sentience. And he makes it all come together beautifully. Top image: Waldemar Kazak. In “Clockwork Soldier,” we start out…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders Jan 3

The U.S. military’s robopocalyptic army is starting to take shape

Everyone, say hello to WildCat, a robotic quadruped that can run 16 mph (26 kph) without tethers. It joins an already impressive cast of conceptual bots, including an updated version of ATLAS — who, as showcased in a must-see new video, may soon appear on an episode of American Ninja. Indeed, the Pentagon’s robotic army…

io9 George Dvorsky Oct 4

This android’s muscles and tendons allow it to move like a human

You know how the original Terminator looks like a human — even on the inside? Well, that was probably a good design decision. As the designers of this android undoubtedly know, the best way to get a robot to look and move like a human is to give it an actual musculoskeletal system. Everyone, say…

io9 George Dvorsky Sep 27

The android who inspires us

Musician Janelle Monae gave a fantastic interview to Elle magazine about how science fiction has influenced her work, and why she identifies with androids. Her new album, The Electric Lady, comes out September 10, and we can’t wait. In the meantime, we are still in love with her fantastic short film, Many Moons, which introduced…

io9 Annalee Newitz Aug 30

Would you copy your mind to a robotic body-double?

A central theme of the recently concluded GF2045 Congress was the idea of achieving a kind of immortality by transferring our minds to avatars or robots. Indeed, as Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro’s presentation clearly showed, our robotic doppelgangers will truly be made to look and act like the real thing. During his presentation at Alice…

io9 George Dvorsky Jun 18

PETMAN is the Terminator’s less violent kid brother

Looks like BigDog finally has a robotic counterpart to take him out for a walk. Actually, Boston Dynamics’s PETMAN has been under development for a while now, but this is our first opportunity to see him decked out in full battle gear. The DoD funded Boston Dynamics says the humanoid robot is being used to…

io9 George Dvorsky Apr 8

Are these what the robot cops look like in J.J. Abrams new TV series Human?

J.J. Abrams Robocop series Human pairs a jaded (but still human) Karl Urban with an android cop, played by Michael Ealy. While Ealy isn’t in any of these on location shots from the recent shooting of Human, a bunch of emotionless mannequin-looking cops are. Check out the creepers behind Urban — are these the future…

Television Meredith Woerner Mar 27

Watch as robots and androids portray themselves in this futuristic stage show

What better way to portray robots and androids on stage than by having actual robots and androids perform their own parts? Such is the thinking behind the Japanese Robot Theater Project. The troupe’s latest productions, “Sayonara” and “I, Worker,” feature robots that interact with live performers right on stage. And not surprisingly, they never miss…

io9 George Dvorsky Feb 14

An Android You Can Make With A 3D Printer

French sculptor Gael Langevin’s InMoov project combines two of our favorite things: 3D printing and robotics. Though he had no previous experience making robots, Langevin spent the last year figuring it all out, ultimately developing and coding a voice controlled android that can be constructed from parts generated by a 3D printer. And not only…

io9 George Dvorsky Jan 22

A short film about one roboticist’s obsessive quest for perfection

In a future where robots have replaced retail workers, androids and gynoids that can pass for human are highly valued. Anders Ohm is an expert at building and fine-tuning robots that seem human, but he takes issue with the little flaws that make us human. His obsession with perfection is especially pronounced when it comes…

io9 Lauren Davis Jan 19

The most compelling new look at artificial intelligence comes from… Shonda Rimes?

Most startling news of the day: Grey’s Anatomy producer Shonda Rimes is creating a new TV show, based on an as-yet-unpublished young-adult novel, Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza. That novel, about a teenage girl in the Midwest who finds out she’s really a cutting-edge artificial intelligence, comes out in March but is already getting some…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Oct 29

A New Android Cop Show, From the Makers of Fringe

Could there be dueling police dramas about robots a year from now? Just a few weeks ago, NBC picked up a show about cops and robots from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Josh Friedman. And now, Fox has ordered a pilot for a show about android cops from J.J. Abrams and J.H. Wyman, one of…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Sep 6

How close to reality are the androids in Alien and Prometheus?

When Alien came out in 1979, roboticists were making wheeled boxes that crashed into walls. Ash – the film’s traitorous android – was pure fantasy. But when Prometheus comes out this summer, Weyland Industries’ David 8 enters a world with plenty of real-life androids. Given what we’ve learned about androids in the past few decades,…

io9 Dennis Cass May 7

Watch Japan’s Creepy Android Newscaster Deliver The Day’s Top Stories

World’s first android newscasters are here to replace cable news hosts

Stephen Colbert Addresses the Android Threat

Surreal Photos Of Disembodied Android Faces Are Horrifying

The Latest Incarnation Of ASIMO Is Actually Quite Badass

The Amazing Swedish Show Real Humans Is Getting An English Version

This story only takes a couple minutes to read — and it’s superb.

In Ken Liu’s new story, a text adventure game becomes a thing of wonder

The U.S. military’s robopocalyptic army is starting to take shape

This android’s muscles and tendons allow it to move like a human

The android who inspires us

Would you copy your mind to a robotic body-double?

PETMAN is the Terminator’s less violent kid brother

Are these what the robot cops look like in J.J. Abrams new TV series Human?

Watch as robots and androids portray themselves in this futuristic stage show

An Android You Can Make With A 3D Printer

A short film about one roboticist’s obsessive quest for perfection

The most compelling new look at artificial intelligence comes from… Shonda Rimes?

A New Android Cop Show, From the Makers of Fringe

How close to reality are the androids in Alien and Prometheus?

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