Then the robot “speaks” and proves that, as Albert would himself doubtless have pointed out, matters such as gravity and resemblance are all relative.<\/p>\n
“Hi. My name is Albert Hubo. I come from South Korea and I am very happy to be in Valencia,” says the creature, after having demonstrated some rather bizarre hip-hop moves.<\/p>\n
Albert is strutting his stuff at the Campus Party, a week-long technology fair at the Spanish city's futuristic City of Arts and Sciences complex that has drawn thousands of people.<\/p>\n
A packed audience was on hand for the entrance of Albert, the brainchild of Jun Ho Oh of South Korea's Institute of Advanced Technology.<\/p>\n
Albert's head bears the Einstein's instantly-recognisable facial features and his characteristic shock of white hair. But Jun has taught the robot a few tricks that the iconic scientist never managed.<\/p>\n
He can walk, talk, smile and even have a go at the gentle movements of Tai Chi, thanks to the advanced technology packed into 66 motors, most of which are situated in his head.<\/p>\n
According to Jun, in a few years busy householders might find a use for an Albert in the home undertaking the daily chores that humans would rather live without.<\/p>\n
“They will be able to help human beings in daily tasks,” says Jun.<\/p>\n
Albert, who stands one metre 37cm tall is “based on a Windows XP platform that allows us to make him as intelligent as we want", he adds.<\/p>\n
For Jun, the future is robotic. Albert, who takes his leave of his new admirers with a cute wave after first performing a traditional Korean dance, is just the start, he says.<\/p>\n
“Robotic movement will extend to all kinds of applications. For example we won't need keys, as a sensor will be enough to identify us."<\/p>\n
Albert is but one attraction at the 11th edition of the Campus Party.<\/p>\n
For those seeking a gravitational virtual thrill, look no further than the VirtuSphere, a spherical “locomotion technology for immersing in virtual reality."<\/p>\n
The user walks inside, dons a wireless, head-mounted display, then sets off through a range of virtual walk-through scenarios – or as the VirtuSphere Inc. puts it, “infinite space".<\/p>\n
The concept has aroused interest from the military and law enforcement agencies as well as athletes, architects and real estate professionals, says the company.<\/p>\n
The VirtuSphere, invented by Ray and Nurulla Latypov, can already be admired in Seattle, Moscow and Redmond, the city in Washington state that is home to the sphere's parent company – and also to Microsoft.<\/p>\n
Then for the intellectually inclined, there's Mindball, a game designed to move a small ball across a table using brainwaves.<\/p>\n
The winner is the person who can stay more relaxed as sensors attached to players’ headbands measure their cerebral output.<\/p>\n
The electrode sensors connect to a biosensor system registering the brain's electrical activity in the brain.<\/p>\n
“Winning waves” are Alpha- and Theta-waves, the by-product of a relaxed state of mind, for that is what it takes to move the “ball” towards the opposing player's goal.<\/p>\n
The more relaxed the player, the further the ball moves.<\/p>\n
The ‘biofeedback’ game was developed from a prototype, Brainball, product of the Smart Studio at Stockholm's Interactive Institute.<\/p>\n
More down-to-earth visitors to Campus Party can attend technological workshops and discussions ranging from software development to computer applications for astronomy.<\/p>\n
And for PC owners loath to bite the bullet on hardware upgrades, there is all you need to know how to overclock processors and modify memory.<\/p>\n
The City of Arts and Sciences, a spectacular complex designed by local architect Santiago Calatrava, has laid on download broadband speeds of up to five gigabytes for the event.<\/p>\n
That's enough, says Spanish telecoms company Telefonica, to download the entire contents of the Spanish national library in a couple of hours.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At first glance, the bulky white figure looks like a prancing astronaut – until it turns round and its features reveal it to be a Korean scientist’s concept of a 21st century Albert Einstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}