A robot kicked my ass in Scrabble at CES
Look, there's plenty of boring industrial robots on the floor of the Las Vegas convention center for CES. But I've got to hand it to the Industrial Technology Research Institute ( ITRI ) -- it really knows how to make a demo fun and interactive. The company combined a number of its technologies into a robot that is able to sit and play Scrabble against a human opponent ... and win. This isn't some "AI" playing you in a digital world, to be clear. The humanoid machine, powered by what ITRI calls its Intelligent Vision System for Companion Robots, plays a physical (if slightly modified) game of Scrabble. Instead of tiny tiles with letters on them, the company used small wooden blocks like a child might play with. This, of course, means the board is slightly larger, but otherwise it is a standard Scrabble layout. It's hard not to be impressed by all the moving parts here. For one, the robot has to learn and understand the rules of the game and the best strate...