Nanogenerators and self learning robots!

I like browsing technology sites and came across these two articles today which seem pretty fascinating. I'm currently interested in robotics, biomedical and green technology which these fit into. Hope you enjoy them too!

From Scientific American: "Can Robots be Programmed to Learn from their Own Experiences?"

Excerpt:
""A truly useful personal robot [must have] the ability to learn on its own from interactions with the physical and social environment," says Stoytchev, whose field of developmental robotics combines developmental psychology and neuroscience with artificial intelligence and robotic engineering. "It should not rely on a human programmer once it is purchased. It must be trainable."Stoytchev and a team of grad students are developing software to teach robots to learn about as well as a two-year-old child. Their platform is a humanoid robot that sprouts two 60-pound (27-kilogram) Whole Arm Manipulators (WAM) made by Cambridge, Mass.,–based Barrett Technology, Inc., each tipped with a 2.6-pound (1.2-kilogram) three-fingered BarrettHand."

Link to rest of Article: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=robot-learning&SID=mail&sc=emailfriend

Also from Scientific American: "Nanogenerators"

Excerpt: "Just as a machine won't run without a source of power, a device built at the nano-scale is of little use if it doesn't have the energy to work as a sensor or drug delivery particle. Since there isn't a battery in existence yet that's small enough to couple with a nanodevice, researchers have sought to power their microscopic creations with energy drawn from their surroundings. This energy so far has come primarily from chemical reactions (such as the oxidation of hydrogen peroxide), but that may change. A new study published today in Science describes the creation of a nanogenerator that transforms kinetic energy into a continuous flow of direct-current (DC) electrical energy."

Link to rest of article: http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=nanogenerator-2009-03-26