The Humanoid Touch

The humanoid was man's ultimate mechanical triumph and perfect servant. Keth Kyrone, son of the one member of Kai's ruling body who still believes in the menace of the humanoids, comes upon the secret force that could constitute man's only hope of defeating the machines. As the humanoids arrive and begin to take over, Keth undertakes the mission to awaken his race to what is happening to them.

This textbook presents the essential research findings on human touch and haptic perception in a concise manner for students and health professionals. Focusing on anatomical, neural and physiological as well as psychological, social and clinical aspects, the scope of this book ranges from the fetus in the womb to the older adult in need of care. The chapters can be read individually or consecutively, and cross-chapter content is indicated by chapter references. Key learning points are highlighted at the end of each section, and figures, illustrations, and references facilitate the learning process. The quality of the presented study results has been critically analyzed and only randomized controlled studies are reported, which gives the reader a critical representation of the current state of knowledge. The textbook also provides valuable suggestions for future research by noting blind spots in existing research, and by pointing to methodological challenges in the implementation of high quality studies. Hence, this textbook is not only a representation of current knowledge, but also an epistemological analysis of the research process. There has been a surge of research about the sense of touch in the past ten years, which is incorporated in this book. This textbook will be an invaluable tool for physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses and other health professionals in everyday professional life.

Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly people? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease? The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects. Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.

The book outlines a pathway to the development of fusion of electromagnetic resonance and artificial intelligence which will dominate the world of communication engineering. Electromagnetic resonance is fundamental to all biomaterials. The authors explore the peculiarities of this typical resonance behaviour in the literatures and provide the key points where the research should direct. Biological antennas are inspiring designing of several electromagnetic devices. From biomimetic engineering to humanoid bots a revolution is undergoing. Authors include entire development in the form of a book along with their contribution to this field.

This edited book is one of the first to describe how Autonomous Virtual Humans and Social Robots can interact with real people and be aware of the surrounding world using machine learning and AI. It includes: · Many algorithms related to the awareness of the surrounding world such as the recognition of objects, the interpretation of various sources of data provided by cameras, microphones, and wearable sensors · Deep Learning Methods to provide solutions to Visual Attention, Quality Perception, and Visual Material Recognition · How Face Recognition and Speech Synthesis will replace the traditional mouse and keyboard interfaces · Semantic modeling and rendering and shows how these domains play an important role in Virtual and Augmented Reality Applications. Intelligent Scene Modeling and Human-Computer Interaction explains how to understand the composition and build very complex scenes and emphasizes the semantic methods needed to have an intelligent interaction with them. It offers readers a unique opportunity to comprehend the rapid changes and continuous development in the fields of Intelligent Scene Modeling.

Communication is increasingly moving beyond ‘ways of seeing’ to ‘ways of feeling’. This Open Access book provides social design insights and implications for HCI research and design exploring digitally mediated touch communication. It offers a socially orientated map to help navigate the complex social landscape of digitally mediated touch for communication: from everyday touch-screens, tangibles, wearables, haptics for virtual reality, to the tactile internet of skin. Drawing on literature reviews, new case-study vignettes, and exemplars of digital touch, the book examines the major social debates provoked by digital touch, and investigates social themes central to the communicative potential and societal consequences of digital touch: · Communication environments, capacities and practices · Norms associations and expectations · Presence, absence and connection · Social imaginaries of digital touch · Digital touch ethics and values The book concludes with a discussion of the significance of social understanding and methods in the context of Interdisciplinary collaborations to explore touch, towards the design of digital touch communication, ‘ways of feeling’, that are useable, appropriate, ethical and socially aware.

The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication has been designed to serve as the touchstone text for researchers and scholars engaging in new research in this fast-developing field. Chapters provide a comprehensive grounding of the history, methods, debates and theories that contribute to the study of human-machine communication. Further to this, the Handbook provides a point of departure for theorizing interactions between people and technologies that are functioning in the role of communicators, and for considering the theoretical and methodological implications of machines performing traditionally ‘human’ roles. This makes the Handbook the first of its kind, and a valuable resource for students and scholars across areas such as communication, media and information studies, and computer science, as well as for practitioners, engineers and researchers interested in the foundational elements of this emerging field. Part 1: Histories and Trajectories Part 2: Approaches and Methods Part 3: Concepts and Contexts Part 4: Technologies and Applications