Facial movements are the toughest to master because of the many different muscles that move to make different expressions. Animatronics for Control of Countenance Muscles in the Face Using Moving Units is taking on the challenge of a robotic humanoid (realistic) head and face that can create eye and facial movement by moving muscles in the face. Overlayed with silicone rubber, the unit currently has 26 actuators that can create 58 different facial expressions. Overlayed with a muscle texture, the unit has excellent medical and teaching potential.

The Confucius Computer: Transforming the Future Through Ancient Philosophy is an excellent tool that lets students ask the computer questions and receive an answer that Confucius would give if he were here in person.

Haley said she would also like to see an online survey to see what the next big challenge there will be. For now, making the robotics lighter, faster, and more sensitive is more of a refining process than a big challenge. Where the service oriented function of robotics takes the industry may be the land of ideas and with that, the bigger challenges. One area that is not well explored yet is the audio/stereo for the future. What ways will music and sounds be brought to users that we do not have now? She would also like to see better stereographics.

What do the robotic developers want? Advances in Artificial Intelligence. The Furby had its day. Ugobe's Pleo, a toy dinosaur that you can touch and pet and play with and is interactive, is one of Haley's favorites.

Rome Reborn digitally recreates the city circa 320 A.D. All Rome Reborn images © The Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia 2008.

However, there was no doubt that this year's most magnificent technology was the display of Rome Reborn. Bernard Frischer, director of IATH (Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities), is the brainchild behind Rome Reborn. The goal is to digitize the entire city of Rome at its height of civilization in 320 A.D., and make an interactive real time environment. Though computers and technology are new to our era, Frischer said he is not the first to undertake the stunning idea of recreating the city.

Throughout time, there have been several attempts to recreate Rome. In the 15th Century, Rome was reborn with words in historical documents. In the 16th century, 2D pictures of Rome began to surface. By the 18th century, 3D models of some of the buildings were produced. From about 1900 to 1943, Paul Bigot produced a 1:400 scale model of the entire city. In 1930, under Mussolini, the Italians were inspired to produce a 60-foot 1:250 scale model of the city and it is this model, 90 % of the city, which is the source for Frischer's Rome Reborn.

In the 1970s, Frischer saw the model and was awed by it. He was a photographer and loved technology. He even did some excavating at the village where the poet Homer lived. His family was involved in cinema. "It was not continuous work, I would take time to do other things and pursue school and come back to this project as technology and opportunity allowed. It wasn't until August of 2008 that we were able to put the project on the Internet and still protect the IP rights of those involved."

The model, made of plaster of paris, is in a museum in Rome and will be moved soon to a new location. While Frischer's company had insurance and good technology, the museum refused to allow any overhead devices. The model had to be laser imaged from the sides. "It had to be this way, even with insurance, there's no way to replace the model. All the builders have passed on and the methods of making it may be very difficult if not impossible to reproduce." Gabriele Guidi, Politecnico di Milano, collaborated with University of Virginia IATH on the project and their main job was to reverse model the scan of the 60-foot city.

Like all models, the 60-foot city was designed to be viewed by an audience from specific locations. "So you can see where the detail is more involved in areas that are in view and less detailed where people won't be able to see it." This meant that the photogrammetry team had work to do. The model has 7,000 buildings, and 100,000 objects. The idea was to scan this and digitize it and put texture to it and make it interactive. Of course, there had to be collaboration with several companies and universities.

Pascal Mueller, Ph.D., is one of the authors of Procedural's new CityEngine modeler. This program can create cities ten times faster than existing methods. A temple, for example, can be parameterized and this makes it easy to change height, shape, size, etc. CityEngine uses some of the theories of scripted geometry of MEL and CAD.

It was great to be able to make the 3D version with procedural methods. "We think now that there were no chimneys in Rome so with the procedural, it's easy: we just take them out." Many houses and temples and buildings were similar as to be expected, so the procedural way of changing the shape or size is the better way to go.

The 60-foot model was used in many documentaries and even two movies: Quo Vadis with Peter Ustinov as Nero in the story of the burning of Rome, and the Oscar-winning Gladiator.