EURASIPAC Meeting In Wellington

We are organizing an EURASIPAC workshop in Wellington on February 18th at the Royal Society of New Zealand. We assembled an interesting program with acknowledged speakers, including the ambassador of Germany and Spain. The focus of the workshop is the collaboration between NZ and EU in the area of ICT. The full program is available at:

http://eurasiapac-fp7.eu/2010/12/02/eurasiapac-workshops-in-australia-and-new-zealand-in-february-2011/

Dutch and Chinese Translation of the Godspeed Questionnaire Series

Thanks to Bram Vanderborght and his team, a Dutch and Chinese translation of the Godspeed Questionnaire Series is now available. With this measurement instrument you can assess the anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety of robots. You can find a detailed description of the instrument in our article.

Taxonomy for LEGO Minifigures

LEGO has produced more than 4000 different Minifigures. Their variety approaches the one of small biological systems. Similar to pre-gentic biologist, we need a taxonomy to order the Minifigures. Several online communities, such as Peeron, Bricklink, Lugnet and Bricksets have created such taxonomies, which are based on the LEGO themes of the sets in which the Minifigure appeared first. If, for example, a new LEGO sets in the theme “SpongeBob SquarePants” contains a new Minifigure, then this figure will be put in the category “SpongeBob SquarePants”. Continue reading “Taxonomy for LEGO Minifigures”