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  • Kinect-Controlled Robot: It's This Generation's R.O.B.!

    Devin Coldewey

    Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

    Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010


    The Kinect hacks continue. Today we have a team who has put together a telepresence robot controlled via Kinect, and although you probably can’t remove a splinter with the thing, you could at least gesture a lot, and pick up blocks. Man, shades of the Robotic Operating Buddy for NES.

    This Kinect-based R.O.B., developed by Willow Garage, is still in the early stages, but already it’s a huge step ahead of similar systems, which use far more expensive and complicated motion tracking systems, just in the fact that it works, and it’s off the shelf. I look forward to seeing how this project goes.

    Also, did you notice the double-Kinect setup? I’m surprised they’re not interfering with each other. I’m sure we’ll figure out when and how that happens soon enough.

    [via Fast Company and Gizmodo]

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