The Beauty and The Beast

Brendan I. Koerner (brendan_koerner[at]wired.com) wrote in Wired Magazine an article title "The Trouble With Humanoid Droids". The article is really cool and show as how humans behave with robots. In this article Victoria Groom, a robotics researcher at Stanford University says “The humanoid form is such a powerful social cue, If you see this humanoid shape, you’re going to respond to it like it’s a person.” That´s why Today’s military robots are ugly little buggers. Because when there’s the potential for violence, though, let’s stick with ugly robots.

In the other hand we have a beauty call Sam who is kind of dummy and doesn´t even looks very human but he shows a big smile. Sam is a creation of Kacie Kinzer who owns a master degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. Kacie Kincer has made a project called Tweenbots. He define "the Tweenbots as a cardboard robots that travel at a constant speed in a straight line, and are equipped with a flag that asks for people to "aim" them in the right direction to reach a destination in the city. The Tweenbots are placed in urban public space and are dependent on the strangers they meet to help them reach their goal. The Tweenbots have been traversing New York City on various "missions" for the past year a half; and they have always arrived at their goal without incident. Assisted only by the empathy of strangers, the Tweenbots reveal the spontaneous, playful, and kind aspects latent in our everyday interactions."

Watch out what happens :)