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The News -
Latest News
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Written by William Cox
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Tuesday, 12 December 2006 |
 Hanson Robotics , the creators of the Albert Einstein and Philip K. Dick robots are hoping to break into the home robot market. David Hanson, the companies founder, likes to create life-like robots that blur the line between man and machine.
"If you make it perfectly realistic, you trigger this body-snatcher fear in some people," he said. "Making realistic robots is going to polarize the market, if you will. You will have some people who love it and some people who will really be disturbed."
He's now hoping to bring to market home entertainment robots that are about 2 ft tall, with cartoonish features. Hanson plans to have these robots to market in about a year and price them for around $3,000.
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The News -
Household
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Written by William Cox
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Sunday, 10 December 2006 |
 November has come and gone with quite a bit of new news relating to our cute robotic dino-pal, Pleo. You can check out all of the coverage on our sister site, PleoBot.com. We've learned that Pleo really does exist and that he's pretty cute and cuddly (ha! Our suspicions are confirmed!). He'll be selling for around $250 and displays a wide variety of actions, like getting sick with a cold, limping, pretending to be scared, making sounds, and even responding to his name.
Pleo will also come with a SD card slot and a USB port for donwloading new behaviors (and all sorts of hackery!) There's also several new pictures of Pleo, and vidoes - from PC Magazine and SciFi blog.
Pleo's NiMH battery will allow him to run for about 2 hrs, with a 4 hr charge time, however, there are currently no plans to make it replaceable.
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The News -
Military
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Written by William Cox
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Tuesday, 28 November 2006 |
 A Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has flown its first ever mission over the USA. This past Monday the robot landed at Beale Air Force Base in California, after completing its unstated mission.
"This landmark flight has historic implications since it's the first time a Global Hawk has not only flown from Beale, but anywhere in the United States on an official Air Combat Command mission," base spokesman Capt. Michael Andrews said in a statement.
The aircraft is a staple in the War on Terror and has flown over 50 combat missions over the past year in Operation Enduring Freedom. The aircraft is controlled by four flight specialists who operate from a mobile unit the size of a tractor trailer. However, the UAV is capable of taking off, flying and landing all autonomously.
I am, however, quite curious as to what mission the Global Hawk is flying over US skies.
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The News -
Science
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Written by William Cox
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Monday, 27 November 2006 |
If you thought having a robot crawl through your intestines or your abdominal cavity was creepy, how about a tiny robot that swims through your spinal column? Dr. Moshe Shoham has developed a propulsion system for such a robot. Such a robot is different from those that travel through your digestive tract, in that it needs its own propulsion system.
"The first location we're targeting is the spinal canal—which means the device will travel through the cerebral spinal fluid (CSS) which is clear and similar to water. It doesn't flow too fast, but it needs propulsion,"
Now that the propulsion system has been developed, Shoham can begin work on the payload of the robot, which when finished, will be a tiny endoscope with two swimming actuators, power system, and camera system. It is estimated that it will take several more years to finish the system and further miniaturize it, but Shoham hopes to one day have robots perminently installed in your body for monitoring.
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The News -
Science
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Written by William Cox
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Monday, 20 November 2006 |
A group of swarm robots, developed by Marco Dorigo , and other from Free University of Brussels , Belgium, Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology in Italy, Autonomous Systems Laboratory , Switzerland, and Dalle Molle Institute for the Study of Artificial Intelligence , Switzerland, use simple rules to collaborate and work together. The robots can only see what's around them and cannot directly communicate to each other.
In experiments, six of the cylindrical robots were able to drag an object across the floor of a room. Working autonomously, they locate and assemble around the object and either grab hold of it directly or of another robot nearby, before slowly dragging it towards a target.
In this video, you can see how the robots locate the red object and try to latch onto it. Once they've grabbed it, they turn themselves red, thereby becoming part of the object. Once each robot can no longer see any red, they begin to move the object towards the light.
Each robot is just over 7" tall and comes with a gripper, and tracked wheels. They can also sense external forces acting on them, in order to determine which way the swarm is pulling on the object. The rules that the robots followed were developed specifically for the task they had at hand, but Dorigo is looking to develop a second generation of robots that will be able to interact in a human environments.
"It is called Swarmanoid and will have three different kinds of robots," he explains. Some robots will be able to crawl along like Swarm-bots, others will be able to climb walls, and others still will be able to fly, he says.
The potential for this kind of research is almost limitless. We look forward to hearing more about Dorigo's work in the future.
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The News -
Science
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Written by William Cox
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Friday, 24 November 2006 |
 This is for all of you out there that read the ballroom dancer-bot story and decided you needed to master walking before dancing. Nomura Unison Co. along with Tohoku Universities' Kazuhiro Kosuge and Yasuhisa Hirata have created a robotic walking assistant that not only senses its user's behavior, but also detects obstacles in its way and the slope of the floor. The robot is unmotorized but is able to apply the brakes in order to help its user maintain their balance.
They plan on marketing the robot for rehabilitation, the elderly and physically disabled. The unit should be available for around $4,000 USD.
[Via Engadget ]
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The RB2000 robot from JR Robotics and VStone is able to perform some impressive acrobatic feats. Our friend, Lem, 