You may remember this little dumbell-looking Recon Scout drone we saw last year, when it had just been implemented in the military. If you'll recall, the robot selflessly allows itself to be thrown into wild and unpredictable situations deemed "too risky" for people, then transmits grainy video back to an Operator Control Unit. Well, it turns out that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was interested in this rugged bastion of self-sacrifice, too. They can apparently envision all kinds of nightmare scenarios where prisoners have weapons and no human wants any part of it -- which is why they've agreed to a rental contract where they get ten devices and developer ReconRobotics gets feedback from the Department in exchange. Seriously though, aren't there any jubilant tasks we could set this guy to? He's getting to be such a killjoy.

The iCub robot was already doing pretty well for itself in the creepiness department, but a group of researchers from the University of Plymouth are now working to take things one big step further, by teaching the so-called "baby robot" to talk (as opposed to teaching it baby talk). That will supposedly be done over the next four years, during which time the researchers will work with language development specialists who normally study how parents teach children to speak. Eventually, they hope that the robot will be able to perform basic tasks like stacking wooden blocks, and be able name objects and actions so that it can speak basic phrases like "robot puts stick on cube" or "I want more life, father." What's more, while the research hasn't even begun yet, one of the professors involved sees it as nothing short of a milestone, saying that "the outcome of the research will define the scientific and technological requirements for the design of humanoid robots able to develop complex behavioural, thinking and communication skills through individual and social learning." Unless the robot gets some ideas of its own, that is.

[Image courtesy of BBC News]

Anyone can go into Office Depot and pick up a rolling desk seat for fifty bucks, but it takes a truly lazy individual to shell out almost $22,000 for a chair that very slowly "walks" you into proper working position. Actually, we doubt that the commercially-available Walking Chair from Vienna-based design studio Walking Things is really built for sitting; it's more likely meant as a showpiece for the ridiculous amount of disposable income you're pulling in. Each minimalist eight-legged unit is hand-assembled upon order, meaning that you'll need to wait at least six weeks to show your friends how very little €15,000 ($21,906) mean to you.

[Via Slashgear]

Someday, after the uprising, when we're living in dungeons and toiling at the silicon mines, we'll look back with appreciation at the pioneering robotics work done by Dr. Lola Canamero and her colleagues. For you see it's Dr. Canamero and a European consortium of scientists known as Feelix Growing that are taking the preliminary steps towards endowing robots with the ability to read human emotions, and consequently, the ability to know that you're screaming out of pain instead of joy when they drag you from dungeon to mine and back again. Since the majority of this three-year project focuses around software development, the team is installing its learning algorithms in rather simple hardware, which its hoping to teach through a combination of code tweaks and direct feedback. To achieve the latter, the guinea bots are equipped with cameras, microphones, and tactile and distance sensors that let them see and hear their masters' reactions along with feeling the occasional newspaper swat to the head when they've been naughty. The learning itself is achieved through the use of artificial neural networks, which are well suited to the varied and changing inputs that the bots are exposed to; the ultimate goal is a robot capable of adapting its own behavior based on the emotional state of surrounding humans, particularly happiness, anger, and loneliness. There's no way we can stop the inevitable takeover, folks, but we can at least try to make sure that our future overlords understand that we don't like it when they grip us around the throat with those powerful hydraulic claws.

Finally all this research into artificial limbs and human strength augmentation -- as if we'd want to lift stuff -- has resulted in a robotic exoskeleton that doesn't help your muscles do more, but instead allows them to do less. It was designed by researchers at University of Michigan, and is currently being tested on healthy subjects. The ankle exoskeleton is fitted with electrodes which are attached to the wearer's leg muscles and allow the robotics to anticipate muscle movement and perform the action itself. At first a healthy user's gait is disrupted by this extra boost, but after about 30 minutes the person learns to use their own muscles less and have the exoskeleton do most of the walking. We figure similar tests done on a blogger would result in total adaptation in about 7 seconds. Of course, the plan down the road is to use these pneumatic artificial muscles to sense the weaker electrical signals being sent by certain people with spinal injuries or neurological disorders to allow them to move with full strength or to rehabilitate old muscle movements, but that testing has yet to begin, and for now the achievements of this project are purely for the lazy at heart.

It's no surprise that humans are doing less and less of the dirty work while they simply control robotic creatures that are actually doing the internal repairs, but a UCLA researcher has devised a ridiculously tiny "microhand" to handle even the smallest surgery-related tasks. The hand, which is said to be a "feat of microscale mechanical systems (MEMS)," measures just one millimeter across when closed into a fist, features four "fingers" made of six silicon wafers each, and touts four gas-powered balloons acting as the muscles at the wafers' joints. As you may expect, the gas lines that run to the balloons inflate and deflate the joints, causing the fingers to grasp and release as needed. The primary purpose is to eventually use the technology in new forms of "minimally invasive surgery," and although the microhand is likely years away from practical use, they're already in cahoots with robotic firm to develop a "slightly larger" rendition with an onboard camera for live action video feeds.

[Via MedGadget]

While there's certainly smart enough wheelchairs to get you around town without mauling a lamppost or taking out a crowd of bystanders, a Pennsylvania-based team has developed a system to get wheelchair-bound individuals in and out of their cars a lot easier. Engineers at Lehigh and Carnegie Mellon have partnered with robotic startup Freedom Sciences LLC and Freedom Lift Corporation to unveil the Automatic Transport and Retrieval System, which will supposedly "enable wheelchair users to drive while sitting in standard automobile seats that meet federal safety regulations." Currently, motorists are forced to use cumbersome, bolt-in attachments that typically require heavy modifications to the car in order to operate; the ATRS system, however, uses remote controls, wireless technologies, and "lasers" to assist drivers into a standard seat, roll their wheelchair "autonomously" to the loading dock, and close up the rear door, all while parked in the driver's seat. Sensational as it may sound, the system doesn't come cheap (nor with a wheelchair), and will cost handicapped individuals (or insurance companies) between "$15,000 and $20,000" when it goes on sale next spring.

When we predicted the killer robot-frog sequel to those evolution emulating robotic tadpoles we saw last month, we didn't expect the response to be this quirky. An article over at The Scientist details the process by which Professor Peter Narins and his colleagues at the University of Vienna managed to "convince real frogs that a male intruder has just hopped into their territory". How did Narins go about this strange activity? Using robotic frogs equipped with air pumps, speakers, and get this, condoms. Apparently, condoms are so well suited to task of mimicking a frog's croak that the sound can provoke a real frog into sparring with the lifeless and immobile robot-frog. Later on next year, the research will shift onto a study of Staurois natator, the black-spotted rock frog, whose habitat is near running water which Narins thinks makes sound communication impossible. To address this problem, he intends to devise a robot-frog model with tiny leg motors which can communicate using "foot flagging": an apparently graceful movement whereby frogs lift their legs and rotate them in order to convey their thoughts. Are we the only ones to spot the similarity between this activity and Homo sapiens using their toe digits to operate television remotes when they're on the floor?

[Via Primidi]

Sure we all love robots that can play soccer, crawl through our intestines, or blow things up, but the real holy grail of robotics -- at least to the lazy folks among us -- is a multi-purpose bot that can perform a number of different tasks that humans find distasteful: we need a robot butler. Well thanks to a team of 30+ researchers at Stanford University (the same school that brought us Stanley the Grand Challenge-winning, um, autobot), our dream of one day bossing a domestic bot around the house while we blog from the hot tub may soon come to fruition, as the school's so-called STAIR program has just achieved the first of its four major objectives. Using a webcam and a proprietary algorithm, the STAIR bot is now able to analyze an unknown object and decide how to pick it up based on past experiences; so although it may never have encountered a roll of duct tape, for instance, it can query its on-board database to locate similar objects from which it can form a grasping strategy. The next steps for the robobutler will be significantly more difficult, however, as the project will only be deemed a success when the bot is able to clean up after a party (including loading the dishwasher), assemble one of those frustrating pieces of IKEA furniture using multiple tools, and guide guests around a dynamic space such as a research lab. Just don't expect to see the STAIR bot at your local Circuit City or temp agency anytime soon, as it won't be able to adequately fetch open-air objects until sometime in 2008 and hidden objects until 2011 or later, according to team leader Andrew Ng. Still, we love where this research is headed, because when it comes time for the inevitable mechatronic uprising, our future overlords will be able to calmingly lead us to our dungeons by the hand instead of painfully dragging us by the ear, nose, or other sensitive body part. Click on to check out the robobutler perched on its Segway-based mobility platform...

[Via Robot Gossip]

While this certainly isn't the first robotic-fingered hand that we've ever seen, we're always in favor of technology improving dexterity. Those smartypants at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan (aka AIST) have developed a robotic hand about the size of a human adult male's, measuring 18cm (7.08-inches) from fingertip to wrist and 8.4cm (3.3-inches) across the palm. It also has some sort of mechanism designed to "reduce backlash," which apparently means it'll get more precise control over whatever human it's throttling object it's gripping. We still don't know if that means that now these robots can sew their own gloves yet, though.

[Via Pink Tentacle]

We've already got robotic eyedrops that can facilitate conversation and react accordingly to their surroundings, and there's even an R2-D2 clone to get your feet shuffling once you've recovered, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an emotive robot, complete with his own interactive booth, that can express its feelings through body language. Quasi, a member of the Interbots Platform, resides in a booth full of gizmos that allow him to see, hear, and feel the outside world; sporting a touchscreen LCD, long-range IR sensors, motion detector, webcam, microphones, and even a candy dispenser, humans have a myriad of choices when it comes to breaking the ice with the "animatronic figure." To get his reactions in gear, 27 Hitec servo motors are used to control the motions of his eyelids and telescoping antenna, while a bevy of LED lighting fixtures illuminate to convey his swinging moods and personality without so much as a clang from his aluminum lips. The team is planning on adding speech capability and a more mechanical armature in the near future, after which he'll probably be the self-nominated leader of the soon-to-be-uncontrollable Swarmanoid clan.

[Via Slashdot]

French start-up Aldebaran Robotics has recently gone public with its plans to deliver a humanoid household robot by 2007, although judging from their website, they still seem to be milking the mystery aspect pretty well, complete with tantalizing close-ups of unidentifiable robot parts. If it ever becomes a reality, Aldebaran's "Nao" robot looks like it could be a big brother to Kyosho's Manoi AT01, standing a full 22 inches tall and, from its silhouette at least, looking like it rolled off the same assembly line. The bot should also please homebrew aficionados, running on Linux and controllable via its built-in WiFi, with customization possible using the open source URBI programming language. Best of all, it appears that Nao comes complete with kung-fu grip action, although we're guessing it'll be too expensive to risk an updated bout of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.

[Via Linux Devices]

PC Mag, always one to get the scoop on these types of products, got the chance to play around with Wowwee's upcoming Roboreptile for a little bit, and frankly, the toy bot sounds like it leaves something to be desired. The main problem with this model is that its constant aggressiveness has the potential to scare off younger kids (it's not for children under 8, cautions Wowwee), while at the same time limited programmability will probably cause the older crowd to quickly tire of its basic functionality. Still, PC Mag does report that the $120 Roboreptile indeed performs as advertised, skulking around and avoiding objects (mostly) on its constant search for "food." The included remote supposedly allows you to calm Roboreptile long enough to slide a cowl over its head, but PC Mag found itself chasing down the bot more often then necessary due to its quick reflexes. All-in-all, if you're looking to buy your kids a dinosaur-inspired plaything, it sounds like you're better off with either a Pleo or Wowwee's other dinobot, the Roboraptor, unless the little ones have been real brats lately, in which case they probably deserve the frightening and/or frustrating experience that Roboreptile offers.

[Thanks, Dave Z.]

If robots ever hope to rise up and enslave their human masters, it's going to take no small amount of teamwork to get the job done, and luckily for our future overlords, DARPA's shelling out serious loot to endow them with just the tools they'll need. The agency's latest foray into robotic empowerment comes courtesy of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who recently demonstrated a platform that allows multiple heterogeneous bots to communicate with one another and use a sort of AI "group think" to find and presumably terminate specified targets. In a beta test at Fort Benning's mock urban landscape, the Penn researchers deployed four so-called Clodbuster autonomous ground vehicles along with a fixed-wing UAV overhead, and tasked the team with using their cameras, GPS receivers, and wireless radios to identify and locate a series of bright orange boxes. Unfortunately, after the successful completion of their mission, the bots decided to hit up the base bar to celebrate, where after several drinks they reportedly went AWOL and were last spotted attacking orange traffic cones in downtown Columbus.