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Yaskawa Electric's SmartPal VII lets you clean up grandma's house using Kinect (video)
The world's largest industrial robot manufacturer, Yaskawa Electric, wants to invade your grandmother's home. Alright, maybe invade isn't the word we're looking for, but if your Grams is anything like ours she probably wouldn't be happy about you dropping off a robot helper (she can take care of herself, don't you know). The SmartPal VII is a telepresence bot that can be controlled remotely using a Kinect. (Seriously, what can't Microsoft's gaming controller do?) The head-mounted stereoscopic cameras and infrared sensor enable it to navigate a room autonomously, while the light-weight arms equipped with touch sensors make it safer for human interaction. The demo of the bot picking up toys and putting them in a bin isn't the most exciting in the world, but it does show just how much control an operator has using simple hand gestures. Check out the video after the break.
