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Marco Tempest to work with Baxter the Robot

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Marco Tempest: A cyber-magic card trick like no other Marco Tempest: A cyber-magic card trick like no other Illusionist Marco Tempest (watch his cyber card trick and his electric take on Nikola Tesla) has a new assistant — Baxter the Robot. The star of this talk from roboticist Rodney Brooks, Baxter is a life-sized robot that has eyes that glance where he is about to move and arms that react to human touch, plus common sense and the ability to learn movements over time. Tempest hopes that this robot — which was designed by Rethink Robotics to work with humans in factory environments — will be the perfect ‘bot to assist him on stage.  The trick: programming Baxter to be ultra flexible in order to adjust to the subtle differences in performances rather than doing exactly the same thing every time. Rodney Brooks: Why we will rely on robots Rodney Brooks: Why we will rely on robots

Tempest tells Mashable that he plans to customize Baxter with actual hands. And as he goes, he’ll be sharing the programming for the robot with both MIT and GitHub. As Tempest tells the site, “It’s time for magicians and technologists to collaborate.”