Developing General-Purpose Robotic Hand Systems [Student's Corner]

Low-End General-Purpose Systems

Since the announcement of the ZBM System13 in 1%9, ZBM has been incorporating leading-edge technology in products referred to as small general-purpose systems. With the many models of the Systeml3, Systeml32, Systeml34, and System1 38, ZBM has introduced many technological advances addressing the needs of diverse customers, from the novice, firsttime user to the experienced user in the distribu...

Autonomous manipulation with a general-purpose simple hand

While complex hands seem to offer generality, simple hands are often more practical. This raises the question: how do generality and simplicity trade off in the design of robot hands? This paper explores the tension between simplicity in hand design and generality in hand function. It raises arguments both for and against simple hands, it considers several familiar examples, and it proposes an ...

General-Purpose Computation without General-Purpose Processors

Resource Partitioning in General Purpose Operating Systems

The principal role of the operating system is that of resource management. Its task is to present a set of appropriate services to the applications and users it supports. Traditionally, generalpurpose operating systems, including Windows NT, federate resource sharing in a fair manner, with the predominant goal of efficient resource utilisation. As a result the chosen scheduling algorithms are n...

Embodied Systems: Introducing General-purpose Wearable Computers

The thesis presented in this paper outlines a notion of computing named Embodied Systems. It is suggested that this concept will move the computer devices from the desks to the users’ bodies. The users would then, apart from merely controlling the actual computing itself, also control and decide the context in which the computing takes place. As a step further, the context may in fact trigger c...