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While we’re not quite to the level of teleporting cancerous growths from a patient to the medical waste bin yet, Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital (JGH) has taken us a step closer to a future where robotic surgeons may be commonplace.  

Surgeons at JGH will reportedly use the new robotic, assisted-surgery device to treat gynecological and prostate cancers. According to a news release from JGH, use of the da Vinci surgical robot will lead to “shorter operation times, less blood loss, and a decrease in possible complications.”

“It has become increasingly evident that prostatectomies performed with robotic technology lead to a significant decrease in incidence of sexual dysfunction and incontinence improving the daily lives of our patients,” said Dr. Jacques Corcos, Director of the Robotics Program and Chief of the Department of Urology at the Jewish General Hospital. “This knowledge is based on current research being conducted at the JGH, and is part of a larger design, a Robotics Program in affiliation with all six of Quebec’s universities.”

Check out the JGH da Vinci robotic page for more info.

_{(Photo:© JGH Source: Montreal Jewish General Hospital) [- Jeff James]}

After a lengthy hiatus, Nxtbot.com will soon be updated with a new look, much more content, and lots of other long-overdue improvements. Before all that can happen, however, some sorely needed maintenance is in order.

If any of you reading this happen to have a blog, you’ll understand what an evil scourge spam comments are. I typically see hundreds of them every day, and they quickly clog up the the admin side of things. Who wants to spend 30 minutes a day searching through piles of spam to find a handful of legitimate comments? Not me, so I decided to install a comment spam filter.

There are a bunch of spam filters out there, but I decided on reCAPTCHA, a nifty blog spam blocker developed by some big-brained folks at Carnegie Mellon University. You’ve undoubtedly seen these before: now that reCAPTCHA is installed, you’ll need to decipher two blurry text strings (see static image above for an example) before you can post comments on the site. It’s a small inconvenience, but it saves us all from the scourge of blog spam.

What really impressed me about reCAPTCHA is that is actually does something with all of our fuzzy-word deciphering efforts. All of those words we decipher are actually being spit out by an OCR program that is having trouble deciphering them. In essence, we ‘re all helping digitize literary works for a good cause, and reCAPTCHA makes that possible.

Here’s a blurb from the reCAPTCHA side that explains things better than I can:

About 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans around the world every day. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that’s not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day. What if we could make positive use of this human effort? reCAPTCHA does exactly that by channeling the effort spent solving CAPTCHAs online into “reading” books.  

So there you have it. Now that I’ve sorted my spam problems, it’s time to get working on that new site logo…. [- Jeff James]

Okay, this may not be breaking news: The Tyco NSECT came out in late 2006, so those of you who’ve heard about this gadget can move on to something more timely. I did come across one of these R/C bugs not long ago while shopping at a local big box store, and the thing looked suitably cool enough to write a bit about.

The six-legged gizmo can scurry forwards and backwards, and its plastic mandible can be opened and closed. The two features that stood out for me were the carapace-mounted missle launcher (that fires those little foam Nerf darts with the sucker tips) and a eye-color changing function. You can see the NSECT in action via this corporate NSECT video on YouTube, or you can check out the Amazon.com listing.

Other R/C robots may offer more functionality, but the prospect of having a missile-firing, eye-color-changing monstrosity smash through a miniature LEGO city is an image that appeals to me. (Source: Tyco RC) [- Jeff James]

Timed to coincide with the release of the new Simpsons movie, a Homer Simpson-skinned version of Wowwee’s Robosapien toy has just been sighted trampling Springfield in various gadget shops on the Internet. It appears that the product is primarily available in the UK, as I’ve yet to find a North American shop that’s selling one.

Regardless, Homersapien features a bevy of features that Simpsons fans should recognize. Here’s an excerpt from a product description over at UK-based retailer Gadgetshop:

With 67 new pre-programmed functions, Homersapien can pick up objects, throw objects, kick objects and dance around the room as well as the more expected “Homerisms” such as belching, snoring, farting, and the classic Homer “Doh!” – he’s even programmed with a number of Kung Fu moves! Homersapien is pre-programmed with catchphrases galore taken from all manner of shows from various series’ and even has his own Krusty Burger cup which he holds so dear.

Now that everyone’s favorite underachieving (albeit lovable) slacker had been roboticized, will he go the way of Futurama’s Bender and turn to the consumption of alcohol for energy? Or perhaps the Asahi beer-bot can be modded to dispense Duff-brand beer? Regardless, it’s clear that Homer has more technical wherewithal than we’ve previously given him credit for. (Source: Gadgetshop) [- Jeff James]

According to a news release over at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a vessel (loaded with a few robotic submersibles) will soon be headed to the Arctic to search for signs of life on what WHOI dubs “…the seafloor of the world’s most isolated ocean.” The Swedish icebreaker Oden will serve as the transportation for a 30-member research team and a trio of new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) developed for the mission: the Jaguar (pictured), the Puma and the CAMPER.

The 40-day mission — officially called the Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition (AGAVE) begins on July 1st. One wonders if the WHOI folks anticipated a mission acronym that reminds people of tequila (which is created from the fermented sap of a blue agave plant) more than deep-water hydrothermal vent research, but I digress.

The Chief Scientist of the mission is WHOI geophysicist Robert Reves-Sohn, who summarized the focus of the mission in this comment from the news release:

“This is an exciting opportunity to explore and study a portion of Earth’s surface that has been largely inaccessible to science,” said Reves-Sohn. “Any biological habitats at hydrothermal vent fields along the Gakkel Ridge have likely evolved in isolation for tens of millions of years. We may have the opportunity to lay eyes on completely new life forms that have been living in the abyss beneath the Arctic ice pack.”

Kidding about the mission acronym aside, this expedition looks like a promising use of robotic technology to help researchers unlock the secrets of life in extreme environments, which could have numerous benefits for robotic exploration in other areas. NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) must agree, as both are contributing significant amounts of funding for the program. (Source: WHOI) – [Jeff James]

[Update: Click here to view the WALL-E Trailer] – Over the years we’ve seen a bundle of robot films, from the adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, the Terminator series, and the forgettable Short Circuit films. An upcoming film about a robot uprising (starring Shrek-star Mike Meyers) is also in the works.

One of the most promising new films may be WALL-E, a new Pixar animated film slated for release in June 2008. TIME Magazine drops a few hints about the flick in its June 18th issue that presents this summary: “The year is 2700. WALL• E, a robot, spends every day doing what he was made for. But soon, he will discover what he was meant for.”

This sounds a bit like the “exploited robot seeks freedom” storyline we’ve seen elsewhere, but you have to admit that Pixar’s track record is phenomenal. Mark your calendars, as this one will likely be worth a trip to the local super-uber-megaplex to see on the big screen. (Source: TIME Magazine, /FILM) – [Jeff James]

For the last few years, enterprising robot hobbyists have hacked into iRobot’s popular Roomba robot to make their own autonomous robots. Now iRobot has decided to faciliate that modification even further by releasing iRobot Create, a do-it-yourself robot kit based on the Scooba/Roomba platform.

The Create will be offered at a variety of price points, ranging from a basic model for $129, a robot with command module for $179, and a complete bundle (with charger) for $229.

An open expansion bay (with 25-pin expansion port) allows for the addition of new sensors, expansion devices, actuators and other gadgets to expand the usefulness of the device. A number of demos and hard-wired sensors (32) are also included. The optional command module plugs into the expansion bay and enables full access to all of the Create’s sensors, motors and other devices. Also included are sample programs, a compiler, USB cable and a quickstart guide. The Create will support the use of a range of programming languages (including C/C++) via iRobot open interface.

Check out iRobot’s iCreate website or Robot Magazine’s Create article for more information. (Source: iRobot) – [Jeff James]