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RoboDynamics Luna: the 5-foot tall personal robotic platform (update: video)
It's a new era for personal robotics. Meet Luna, the fully-programmable robot companion platform that will ship this year. As a platform, RoboDynamics -- a Santa Monica-based company previously grounded in telepresence -- is trying to position Luna as the 5-foot tall "beige box" of modern robotics. She comes with her own one-click Luna App Store, eight "Luna Expansion Ports" (think 12/5 volt USB for robots), and Luna CloudNet where third-parties can sell additional functionality like face recognition to app developers. The robot ships with a number of personality packs and features an 8-inch touchscreen, two cameras, wireless connectivity, a three-mic array, and a variety of sensors. Oh, and she's portable. Remember, Luna's not a prototype, but a real working robot that you can actually take home for the price of an entry-level fully-loaded laptop. Update: While $1,000 is the ultimate target price, the initial batch of limited edition Luna robots will ship in Q4 for $3,000. General availability will begin in the second half of 2012 with final pricing coming later this year. %Gallery-123302%
Wakamaru's latest gig: distraught thespian, clothes rack
After a failed career of house cleaning and guarding your kids, Mitsubishi's Wakamaru was left with a choice: toll booth operator or actress -- she chose the latter, easier option. Osaka University's 20-minute play titled, "I, Worker," focuses on a young couple whose seductive (don't you think?) housekeeping robot has lost her will to work after struggling with the idea of human servitude. The play is expected to go full-length by the year 2010, at which point we expect Wakamaru to extend her brooding to the insatiable lust she feels to violate her programming and enslave humanity. It's not like she can pull off a broad emotional range thanks to that chiseled face of apprehension anyway.
The Assistant Robot cleans almost all that you soil
Sure, it looks like a friendly robot strapped to a mobile toilet, but this robo-maid developed by Tokyo University's Information and Robot Technology (IRT) center won't be assisting with the after birth of your Turducken food baby. Assistant Robot is domestic enough to do the laundry, sweep, and clean up the kitchen... but there are limits to what its 3D sensors will respond to. Its creators claim that it can recognize when there's more laundry to do and won't be distracted from completing its task by the roar of the crowd from the television. That gives men about 10 - 20 years to get their act together before this robot could conceivably go production. Hot domestic cleaning action in the video posted after the break.
Chapit the domestic bot does less, looks cuter
Raytron's Chapit has nothing on the University of Tokyo's tea-serving humanoid, or Honda's helpful Asimo, but it's got looks in spades, plus it's still more likely to help you around the house than that sluggard Nabaztag. The bot can recognize voice commands with a vocabulary of 100 words to start, but capacity for up to 10,000 words. You can command Chapit to flip the lights, turn on the TV, and the net-connected bot can even be operated remotely if you're not nearby to shout commands in person. No word on news reading or weather forecasting capabilities, but they seem a shoo-in.
