Uni-Cub
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Honda looks to developers to make its robotic stool useful
Honda has always been more than a car company. In addition to its car and motorcycle business, it also manufacturers marine vehicles, generators, a weird robot and even planes. To keep that spirit of just making as much stuff as possible alive it introduced the Uni-Cub personal mobility system in May 2012. It's been refined since then, but it's still not something you can run down the dealer and purchase. Honda is looking to developers to expand the its use cases beyond rolling you around a museum with an upcoming API for the rolling bar stool.
OK Go's new music video has robotic seats, drones and life-sized pixel art
Say what you will about OK Go's music, but the band has a knack for attention-getting uses of technology in its videos -- and its latest project only drives that point home. The new "I Won't Let You Down" promo has band members performing dance numbers on Honda's UNI-CUB robot stools, letting them bust moves that aren't possible with legpower alone. And that's only part of the technology involved. Director Morihiro Harano uses an octocopter drone to capture dramatic pull-out shots, while a legion of Japanese schoolgirls creates giant pixel art by dancing in Busby Berkeley-style routines. Is it over the top? You bet, but it's doubtful you'll forget this mechanical extravagance any time soon.
Honda's latest robotic stool is fun to ride, still impossible to buy
One of the several reasons for why we love CEATEC is that we get to test ride human transporters there (as well as meeting robots of all sorts). Last year we came across Honda's stool-like UNI-CUB, and this year, the company is back with a new and improved model dubbed UNI-CUB Beta, and it even let attendees ride the vehicles -- while wearing Epson's smart glasses, no less -- around the show floor under staff supervision. It should be noted that the Beta was actually first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show last November, but that didn't kill our curiosity. Read on for our impression and hands-on video.
Daily Roundup: Honda and Toyota's human transporters, Valve's Steam Machine specs, Siri's voice actress and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Honda UNI-CUB vs. Toyota Winglet: the battle of human transporters at CEATEC (video)
For the first time, this year's CEATEC in Tokyo dedicated one big hall to demo some electric vehicles, which include Nissan's autonomous Leaf and a couple of human transporters: Honda's UNI-CUB and Toyota's Winglet. While neither mobilizer is totally new, we just couldn't pass up this opportunity to give them a test drive, especially when they are still not yet street legal -- not even in Japan. The good news is we survived to tell the tale, so do read on to find out what it feels like to burn these tiny wheels at 6km/h.
Honda's UNI-CUB mobility device is the butt of ASIMO's jokes
Our humanoid friend ASIMO had better start counting his blessings. If fate had dealt him another hand, he could have ended up as the behind-wearing UNI-CUB. Honda's latest personal mobility device appears to be a robotic stool with an omnidirectional wheel (dubbed the Honda Omni Traction Drive System, no less). You control speed and direction of the UNI-CUB by shifting your weight in the saddle, and the unit is designed to keep you at eye-level with non chair-riding pedestrians. Obviously this is no all-terrain vehicle, but it does claim to be able to handle gradients, has a top speed of six km/h and a range just under four miles. Which should be plenty for the National Museum of Engineering in Japan where these butt-supporting bots will be demonstrated in June.
