ForcaTech Blog

Real life post on a local online community classified. Here is the text from the post:

“1987 GOLD honda accord on 13s..Talk about getn STATUS… It does RUN. Has New tires, New gold 2 hours custom spray paint job of 6 cans @6.23 a can, and stunts on 13” chrome hubcaps. Has radiator leak. Drives okay… but you have to keep putting coolant in it… but thats with most off road cars anyways. It has dings and dents on the body.

“The car does have jumping capabilities and can ride a wheelie on front and back wheels with a skilled driver of course…Do not attempt if you suck @ driving. Reason for selling: it’s too dang ballin for us. We want to tone it down a bit and maybe get a Rally Van. I only put PREMIUM 91 gas in it and change the oil every 20 jumps and not a jump more. Pick up this ballin whip for cash money only.. for a steal @ $500 O.B.O! or trade for something else that runs of equal or better value. “

This guys obviously aren’t really interested in selling this vehicle or are trying to cater to a specific audience. One way or another I think we can all learn something about salesmanship from this.

In 1961 GM invented the first robot. Their robot wasn’t what we picture now when we hear the word. It was designed to take hot, forged metal parts for vehicles and dip them in water to cool.

Our view of robots has changed considerably since then. Now robotics are a crucial part of manufacturing and our daily lives. We go to the grocery store and while putting our keys away and pulling out our grocery list the doors are opened automatically for us. We go to the bank and in stead of standing in line can put our magical piece of plastic into the machine and it will dispense the money we ask it to–hopefully. Our trash cans get rolled out to the corner so in the morning the robotic arms of the garbage truck will dump our trash out and put our can back.

Now–using machine learning–robots can change and ‘grow’ almost as a human would. In the past in order to get the unbelievably realistic Einstein to make facial expressions programmers would have to program each of Einstein’s 31 individual facial muscles. Computer scientists from the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California have now–using machine learning–made it possible for the robot to learn facial expressions on its own.

As the robot began to learn new facial expressions and what the different muscles did it began fine tuning facial expressions to create new ones. Researchers explain that it is a slow process for the robot to learn new expressions much like a human does–scary.

One day I am sure, they will become completely self aware and we will all be doomed. Until then enjoy these robot videos!