robots
First, this is not an April Fools joke post. Biggs does those, not me. This is ApriPoco, a small helper robot created by Toshiba. It can learn how to accomplish…
It flies like a real butterfly! I was actually quite surprised at the build quality on this thing. Usually these sorts of things blow into a million pieces on the…
http://www.reuters.com/resources/flash/includevideo.swf?edition=US&videoId=78870 Here’s something everyone can enjoy; intricate robot fighters bobbing, weaving, and punching. It’s the twice-yearly Robo-One Championships in Tokyo. The most recent tournament played host to 112 robots ranging…
I said “cable-laying,” get it? Anyhoo, if you’re in the market for a huge remote controlled submersible robot that weighs 50 tons and can bury oil and gas pipes at…
[photopress:starscream_deletedscene1.jpg,full,center] At first the headline grabs your attention, but then you read the story and find out that the man who died built the killer robot specifically to kill himself.…
I’ve just downloaded an inexplicably large video (120mb for 30 seconds? It’s called YouTube, guys) of this crab doing its thing. It’s certainly not as cool as the BigDog robot…
BigDog Robot: Imagine this thing coming at you through the woods
Good lord. If you want to see the future of warfare and fear, this is it. This is the BigDog quadraped robot designed by Boston Dynamics for DARPA and can…
Willow Garage makes “open source” robots and is hoping their work, in conjunction with some Cali universities, will soon appear in homes around the world. Their robots, called the Stanford…
I for one welcome our laser-guided, Mac Mini-powered robot masters
[photopress:7579_large_mechrobot.jpg,full,center] Right now, plugged into my Mac I have an iPod Touch, an SD card reader, and a currently charging Palm Centro. Did you know that you can also control…
French company Robosoft has created an interesting infrastructure-less solution to transit in the city. The robuCAB is a little electric four-seater that uses a pair of cameras to monitor the…
[photopress:killerrobots.jpg,full,center] An artificial life expert warned today that robotic soldiers (like the one pictured here) pose a threat to human life, and not just the bad guys’ lives. The robots,…
Google is sponsoring a $20 million prize to the first group that can drop a robotic spacecraft on the moon. Once its there it has to send video and data…
So, out on Long Island some kid’s FlyTech Dragonfly was snatched out of the air by a hawk that mistook it for actual prey. Either the hawk is really stupid…
Oh Pleo, you’re the best almost-real dinosaur friend a guy and/or gal could ever have. Just in time for St. Valentine’s Day comes a new behavior download for your Pleo…
Ocean glider powers itself with water's heat, maps the boring parts of the Caribbean
This little robot has been cruising the Caribbean for two months now, mapping out currents, temperatures, and other subaquatic trivia. It’s at least partially powered by ocean temperature gradients —…
Some French students have figured out a way to use the Nintendo DS to control a small robot. The above video shows someone controlling the robot by using the touchscreen,…
Keepon the dancing robot and Diane the dirty call management system
My alma mater, CMU, released a bunch of videos featuring wee little Keepon, a dancing robot that could potentially sequester himself into your colon and reproduce, but let’s not think…
Yeah, I know it’s an annoying GIF, right? I never got into the whole Aibo/Pleo/Robosapien thing but TC headquarters just sent me a Pleo to talk about for the Crunchies…
I started Brief 288 talking about Rovio, a home exploration and telepresence robot, but the photo we showed, we think is called “Mr. Personality.” Samsung had a couple cool announcements.…
http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Follow me here. These little plastic figurines are hooked up to an AV player that plays specially-encoded discs. Whatever the real-life human musicians do on the screen gets replicated…
[photopress:IMG_0331.JPG,full,center] Tribot love Chunk! Wowwee’s new robots — the Roomba-like Rovio and the Robio-Sapien-like Tribot — are built on the same 3-wheel model. The Rovio has built-in GPS and webcam…
Artificial intelligence expert claims sex with robots a real possibility
Sex with robots?! One day, maybe in a dreary Los Angeles, that could actually be a possibility. David Levy, noted chess player and artificial intelligence expert, says in his book…
I’m hung over and I’m really sleepy, so I’ll keep this short. 2007 was a fairly dead year for gadgets. The real 8 million pound gorilla this year was the…
Roboteer Sylvain Calinon, who dabbles in human-robot interaction, has created a robot specially designed to put an entire class of Frenchman out of business. He’s Swiss, so that makes some…
Now that Russia is officially part of the Technocracy, their robot rulers are taking over more and more of the everyday maintenance. Apparently the Russian rail system (Motto: “If it…
It’s winter. Days are shorter, your mind is wandering, and you need a little robot made out of a toothbrush head and a pager motor. Put down the booze, get…
It looks like Sony’s misunderstood and short lived pooch is making a return. According to Stuff, the new Aibo PS will be linking directly with your PSP and PS3 over…
In an effort to aid humanity in its rapid convergence with the Borg, Toyota today announced two new robots aimed at making life easier for people who need assistance with…
Sometimes, bordering on always, I wish I had a drone to do all my [dirty] work. Something to blog for me, read and analyze exit polls from post-Maasticht Eastern Europe,…
There has to be some sort of cultural differences here. In Japan, every week a new robot comes out that looks more like a person and behaves like a person…