English Teaching Robots in South Korea

South Korea has targeted the robotics industry, specifically intelligent service robots, as a growth industry for the future.  An interesting recent development in this field is the introduction of Engkey, and English-teaching robot, into elementary school classrooms in Seoul.  Engkey is a penguin-shaped robot developed by a team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology's (KIST) Center for Intelligent Robotics that recognizes the human voice.   Read the New York Times account for an interesting description of how Engkey interacts with school children.
The introduction of Engkey (click on graphic at left to see a full-size version) was part of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology's plans to use robots as teaching aids.  In February, the Ministry began deploying hundreds of them as part of a plan to equip all 8,400 of the nation's kindergartens with robots by 2013.
Work at the Center for Intelligent Robotics illustrates Korea's ambitious plans for the robotics industry. Last month, it announced a trial service for 11 types of intelligent robots this year. They include “kiosk robots” to roam amusement parks selling tickets, and “robo soldiers” that will man part of the 155-mile border with North Korea with a never-sleeping camera eye, night vision and lethal fire power.

English-Teaching Robots for Korea by 2018?

An article in today's issue of The Korea Times proclaims "Robots to Replace Native English Teachers."   Participants in a recent robotics forum speculated that, by about 2015 robots should be able to help English teachers in the classroom and that by 2018 they should be able to teach on their own, while communicating with students."  Robots are already available in English classes through a pilot project in Masan, aimed at testing the viability of robotic teachers.   Some participants in the robotics forum also saw English -teaching robots as a remedy for the lack of English teachers in small rural farming and fishing villages.
After reading this article, I remain very skeptical.  Nothing is mentioned about the current state of the art in machine translation and the considerable challenges of teaching English to native speakers of Korean.  The linguistic and pedagogical challenges of teaching English would seem to be too large to be overcome by developments in software and artificial intelligence in less than a decade.  In any event, we'll all see.

Stickybot: The Global Nature of New Technology

Stickybot" is a quadruped robot capable of climbing smooth surfaces, such as glass, acrylic and whiteboard using directional adhesive.  What is more interesting for the purpose of this post is that Sangbae Kim, a Korean Ph.D. student at Stanford University, was the lead designer of this amazing little robot.  A graduate of Yonsei University, Sangbae has already completed an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford and is working on his Ph.D with a special focus on bio-inspired robots.  If you doubt at all that this is inspirational work, please view the embedded video of "Stickybot" in action.  In the mid-1990s I taught for two years at the National University of Singapore and on more than one occasion I fell asleep after watching a tiny gecko crawl across the ceiling of my bedroom.  The biological similarities to real geckos that Kim Sangbae and his team have captured are truly amazing!  For those of you wishing to explore this in more depth, I recommend Mr. Kim's website.
All of this is very significant in light of my earlier posts about South Korea's goals for its robotics industry. Korea has declared its intent to focus on service robots, including networked robots.  It requires only a little imagination to think about what future versions of "Stickybot" and other biomimetic robots might offer in this regard.
Kim Sangbae has, appropriately, received many accolades for his work.  What I'd like to stress here are the following aspects of this story.

• It shows clearly that advanced technology development these days is inherently global or transnational. 
• Korea's future technology development and competitiveness will draw on students educated in Korea, the U.S. and other parts of the world.
• It seems that South Korea has a bright future in robotics.

I hope you all enjoy the video!  More on this topic in future posts.

Korea Aims for Top Three Nations in Robotics

The Korean government aims to develop its domestic robotics industry into one of the world’s top three by 2013, officials said in April 2009. According to an article in the Joongang Ilbo, the government plans to spend 1 trillion won on research and development in the robot sector over the next five years, which will likely allow Korea to take a 13.3 percent share of the worldwide robotics market, according to the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy’s report to President Lee Myung-bak. In terms of production, the Korean robot industry ranked fifth as of last year, followed by Japan, the United States, Germany and Italy, according to the ministry.
Korea’s global market share stands at 8.9 percent, with exports topping $180 million.
More state research investment would help raise the size of the domestic market, from the current 896 billion won to 4 trillion won in 2013, while the world market for robotics is expected to reach $30 billion by the same year.  Since 2002, the government has invested an average of 82.1 billion won annually in robots. Specifically, the government plans to develop robots that are capable of performing surgery, acting as security guards, farming, doing housework and navigating submarines and aircraft.

Korea's Growth Engines: Robotics

South Korea's robotics industry may be set to take off and could become an important growth engine for the nation's economy. On February 26, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy announced that a law intended to encourage the development and distribution of intelligent robots had passed the National Assembly. In a 2006 article, the New York Times noted that If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication, which has grouped more than 30 companies, as well as 1,000 scientists from universities and research institutes, under its wing. Some want to move even faster. In December of last year the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) announced that it concluded a contract with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in order to promote the international standardization of network robot. To do so, they plan to organize a specialist group and jointly hold workshops. Although South Korea's current market share in the robotics industry worldwide is small, it appears to have great potential. As Korea.com noted, "Korea’s potential in the robot industry is among the best in the world, armed with highly developed associated industries, such as consumer electronics, automobiles and communication equipment. The country’s superior IT infrastructure and rapid acceptance of new technologies will help boost growth, too." More on this industry in future posts.

"I Am Robot"

I just finished watching the last fifteen minutes or so of a television program called "I Am Robot," on YTN. The program itself was produced by a science TV channel. The segment I watched featured a robot festival at a large exhibition hall somewhere in Korea. Students from several universities entered their robots in a variety of competitions, including relay races, basketball, dancing, music and so forth. Some of the robots could mimic human moves, if one of the students wore a specially designed electronic suit. Others were controlled from a small hand-held panel. A few things impressed me about this robot festival.

• One was the obvious enthusiasm of the college students for their projects.
• Another was how human-like some of the movements by the robots were. These were all humanoid robots, with two arms, two legs, and most of the major joints that a human being has.
• The audience for the robot competitions included quite a number of grade-school children and their enjoyment of the festival could be seen on their faces. Might this competition influence some of them to pursue a career in mechanical engineering and make a future contribution to robotics?

Korea is investing a great deal these days to develop the field of robotics. See, for example, the activities of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory (지능로봇 연구실) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Korea University. http://robotics.korea.ac.kr/index.html?lang=eng Most of the other top universities have similar efforts underway, not to mention the work of government research institutes. Robots promise to play an interesting role in Korea's future information society as networks become ubiquitous.

My Interest in Korea's Information Society: 1

I first set foot on Korean soil in February of 1971, arriving at Kimpo Airport in Seoul as an American Peace Corps Volunteer. Our group, designated as K-16, came to teach English at universities and colleges around the country. I was assigned to the English Education Department of Kangwon National University in Chuncheon. Among the many things I learned in two years of life in Korea was that telephone service and telecommunications in general were primitive. Simply making a long-distance call to Seoul required a walk from the building housing English Education to the main administration building, where we would be permitted to use a black telephone in a certain Dean’s office. During my two years with the Peace Corps I heard so many Koreans shouting into telephone receivers that I initially thought it was a cultural trait, rather than the result of such poor voice quality over the existing lines. All of this would soon change. During the 1980s Korea achieved a revolution in telecommunications that caught the attention of the industry worldwide and forever changed the quality of life for South Korea’s citizens. The story of that revolution became the subject of my book, The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995. I have been intensely interested in Korea’s subsequent efforts to build an information society which have thrust it into a leading role internationally and at the same time have rendered my book an historical document. Therefore, I am now working on a second edition with the ambitious goal of trying to provide a faithful and comprehensive account of recent developments in South Korea. For information on my background you may consult my personal website, which is basically an electronic resume. http://www.jamesflarson.com For my thoughts on Korea’s telecommunications industry and its rapidly advancing information society, check this blog on an occasional basis.