robots
Latest
Cricket bowling machine masters spin and swing, but not spitballs
With America almost done fielding its entire robotic baseball team (so far we've got a hitter, shortstop, and a catcher), researchers over in Britain knew that they'd better "get on the ball" and start working on some improved cricketbots in order to keep up in this roboathlete arms race. After two years of hard work and many frail scientists getting pegged by errant cricket balls, professors and students at Loughborough University have finally perfected the latest automated bowler (that's cricket's version of the pitcher) which is able to put any combination of spin and swing on the ball. The machine achieves this human-like feat through a two-part system composed of spinning wheels and corkscrew rifling down the barrel, and is so adept at mimicking professional bowlers that it can recreate the so-called "ball of the century," a 1993 delivery by Shane Warne that made nearly a 90-degree turn between the leg stump and the batter's off-stump (we don't really understand it either, but apparently it was quite an achievement). Up next for the Loughborough team is adding a visual element to their bot, wherein the projection of a human bowler would appear in front of the machine in order to make training sessions that much more realistic. When asked what it thought it about the latest and greatest in automated English projectile hurling, the robotic welly-wanger we recently featured paused for a second, took a sip from its pint of Guinness Boddington's, and slurred, "Bollocks to that bloody twit -- I'll load up a welly and kick its arse."
Researchers prepping robot whiskers for extra sensory input
As if cats didn't have large enough egos as it is, now they're going to be strutting around, bragging about being the inspiration for the latest sensory input being squeezed into robots. We might point out to them that other cool animals like rats and walruses have whiskers too, but we're not certain it's going to do any good. All the same, these new robo-whiskers being developed by a research team at Northwestern University are pretty dang neat. The whiskers can sense shapes or the flow of liquid, all based on a single sensor at the base of each whisker. Even more impressively, the whiskers can accurately represent the contour of an object, just by brushing across it. There are plenty of uses for the sensors, such as feeling around in the dark, supplementing cameras and avoiding obstacles. They'll also help researches understand all that fancy whisker-based neurology taking place inside of rats, which we suppose in turn should lead to better bots, which is really the point in the first place, right?
2006 DARPA Grand Challenge teams announced, prize plummets to zero dollars
If there's one event we look forward to even more than the annual Robocup competition, it's DARPA's Grand Challenge, where teams from academia and corporate America butt heads to see whose autonomous vehicle can complete a previously-unknown course in the shortest amount of time. Since the 2004 Challenge ended in utter disaster (no one even came close to finishing the entire course, and most competitors barely made it past the starting line), DARPA ran the same race in 2005 with much better results: several teams succeeded in crossing the finish line, with Stanford's VW Touareg leading the pack and taking home the two million dollar bounty. Well DARPA must have figured that it had a great source of cheap R&D at its disposal with these Challenges, so this year will see a total of two events -- one up Pike's Peak (already completed) and an urban version of the original scheduled for November 3rd. To that end, the so-called Team A participants for the Urban Challenge have just been announced (including most of the usual suspects) -- these groups will get up to $1 million in development funds before the race even begins -- while the unfunded (and therefore dark horse) Team B applicants will be revealed on October 18th. Although we doubt that most of these competitors are in it for the money, a recent Congressional ruling now prohibits DARPA from offering up cash prizes, so instead, the top three teams this year will all take home shiny new...trophies. Team B wanna-bes have up until the 13th to submit their applications, but now that you know there's no riches or funding involved, you really gotta have a love of the game to participate -- unless those trophies happen to be 24-karat gold and studded with diamonds, that is, in which case they should fetch even more on eBay than Team Buffalo's losing Yamaha ATV from 2005. [Warning: PDF link] [Via GoRobotics]
Vision Robotics' agricultural scout robot, coming soon to a farm near you
Here at Engadget, it's a safe bet to say that we've never met a robot we didn't like. Still, people who work as farmhands may not take too kindly to this concept for an agricultural droid from Vision Robotics. The idea is that a scout robot would use vision and mapping technology to determine what areas of an orchard need to be harvested, and then would deploy itself, or possibly a team of "harvester" robots to bring home a basket of delicious goodies. It's similar to a tomato-picking bot we spotted nearly two years ago, but we're guessing that the mapping aspect makes this new one a bit different. From what we can tell, these bots are still in the lab, if not on the drawing board, but a recent application to the US Patent and Trademark Office shows some promise. If the scout robot gets approved or someone spots it roaming the Central Valley of California or the Yakima Valley of Washington, we'll let you know. Cyber house rules, indeed.
Penguinbot makes the perfect driving companion
It's always more fun driving with a buddy than cruising around alone, but since we lack what are referred to as "social skills," there aren't that many folks willing to ride shotgun in our car or hop on the handlebars of our Segway. Enter the robotic driving companion from Pioneer, a little penguin-shaped bot being shown off at CEATEC that perches on your dashboard and seems to act as a blinking, chirping second set of eyes on the road (or a backseat driver, if you will). Unfortunately -- due to garbled machine translation -- it's nearly impossible for us to discern all the features offered by this device, but we think that its embedded camera and image recognition software allow it to remind you when the light has changed, alert you if you're swerving ("Officer, I swear I'm not drunk -- see, my robot penguin hasn't chirped at me once"), or give you a heads-up when you pass a "point of interest" (such as a ferris wheel, helpfully suggests the Impress write-up). No word yet on pricing or availability for this lively road trip partner, nor is it clear whether sporting one qualifies you for the carpool lane. Keep reading to check out the unnamed bot "in action" (i.e. sitting motionless in front of a driving simulator), and then hit the read link for a few more snaps and short video...
South Korean "gun-toting sentries" to protect, serve
South Korea has unveiled the latest piece of evidence that the future is finally upon us: it's supplementing its soldiers manning the border with North Korea with "gun-toting sentries" that can detect baddies and kill them. Or as Lee Jae-Hoon, deputy minister of commerce, industry and energy told the Agence France Press: "The Intelligent Surveillance and Guard Robot has surveillance, tracking, firing, and voice recognition systems built into a single unit." The South Korean government is expected to buy 1,000 of these robots at the cost of $200,000 apiece and will deploy them along its northern border, coastal regions and military airfileds. However, it's unclear what would happen if Kim Jong Il were to send in a legion of pilfered remote-controlled domestic robots as a countermeasure -- that is, if these robotic sentries would be willing to fire on their own kind.Update: Eagle-eyed reader (and likely Korean speaker) Jihan J. happened upon a Korean site with pics and an actual video of this bot in action. Go on and check it out -- that is, if you like watching robots shoot automatic weapons wildly in every direction.
Terranaut II: Fish finally gets its ride pimped
Yes, we know you all weren't expecting this invention until about the year 3000 from a shifty scientist named Wernstrom, and yet here we are in -- hold on, let us check our watch -- 2006 and already the reverse wetsuit for fish has nearly been perfected. Now granted, Seth Weiner's Terranaut II rig doesn't allow its Blood Parrot fish occupant to run around like a madman on robotic legs -- in fact, the "pilot" is lucky to hit 1MPH in this wheeled contraption -- but imagine the freedom it must feel being able to navigate its once-stationary bowl throughout some of the world's finest art galleries. (Unlike us, we bet the little critter can even distinguish a Manet from a Monet). The rather simple vehicle uses a digital camera to track fishy's movements in the bowl, and propel itself in the corresponding direction -- although from the quick cuts on the sample video, it would seem that there's less forward momentum and more spinning around in circles. Still, it's nice to see someone giving these creatures a shot at mobility, and when all the radioactive waste we dump into their natural habitats eventually turns them into super-smart mutants, we hope they'll remember this small gesture before stuffing us into glass cages and feeding us processed members of our own species.[Via digg]
Japanese prof thinks robots need emotional sensibilities
Aside from providing the world with great gadgets, entertainment devices and robots -- the Japanese have now answered the question that every robot enthusiast since Isaac Asimov has been trying to answer: how do we improve robot-humanoid interaction? Professor Shuji Hashimoto, director of the humanoid robotics centre at Waseda University in Tokyo, has a theory: robots need a solid dose of those Japanese manners (don't we all?) encompassed in the Japanese word kansei, which includes feelings, mood, intuitiveness and sensibility. Hashimoto spoke to a conference on "socially intelligent robots" at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK last week, saying that "Robots are going to need similar emotional capabilities if they are to cooperate smoothly and flexibly with humans in our residential environments." How would that translate from the theoretical academic ivory tower to the living room lab of a domesticated robot? According to NewScientist, who covered Hashimoto's UK talk, "if a robot's owner is sweating and has a racing pulse, say, the robot will sense this and decide that now might not be the time to offer them the TV guide or tonight's dinner menu." Still, we're sure that Hashimoto wasn't talking smack about our new favorite polite robot, the EMIEW -- otherwise we might have to sic a legion of BEAR robots on him.[Thanks, Matt]
Sega Toys' Dream Pony is one freaky robot
Remember the Uncanny Valley? It's that place where robots look very much like the biological entities that they're meant to emulate, but just dissimilar enough to give them a very creepy appearance. Well we'd suggest that Sega Toys' upcoming Dream Pony falls squarely into the valley, as the 4-foot tall bot certainly resembles a real mini horse -- though as you can see in the pictures (both here and after the jump), it probably has the potential to really freak people out. Nonetheless, Sega is confident that this latest addition to its zoo of robotic pets will be popular enough among little girls (and immature men such as ourselves) that it can move 10,000 of these strange toys per year. Since you wouldn't pay $600 for a stuffed animal that just sat around looking weird, Dream Pony -- a virtual doppelgänger for Hasbro's Butterscotch -- responds to visual, audio, and tactile stimulation by jerking its head around or emitting a frightened whinny, among several other forms of exciting feedback. Although this robopony won't actually trot around the neighborhood like the real one your parents would buy you if they weren't so stingy, you can still sit on its back (assuming you're under 80 pounds) and "feed" it a plastic carrot over and over again. All-in-all, the Dream Pony doesn't really seem to provide the kind of long-term playability you'd get from an Xbox or a Robosapien, but once your little girl starts begging and whining for one, you'll have little choice but to welcome Dreamy into your home.[Via Pink Tentacle]
Toyota's monopedal robot leg will jump, jump!
We can imagine few things more frightening than a monopedal robot with a white plastic bulge as a head, but that's precisely what Toyota has created: a monopedal 3.3-foot tall robot that can jump 1.6 inches off the ground. Seriously. This guy is next on the evolutionary ladder for robots, which are slowly coming together with articulate arms, faces, and now fully extendable legs to eventually form the Voltron-like shape of a seriously bulbous dude. In fact, this leg would go well on that bot we blogged about the other week that is designed to carry injured soldiers off of the battlefield -- given that any given robot could run probably monopedal-jump away faster than it could roll (at least in our vivid imaginations). [Via The Raw Feed]
iRobot's Dirt Dog: Roomba gets a 'tude
So you've got Roomba on carpet duty and a couple Scoobas taking care of the kitchen and bathrooms, but who's cleaning up that mess of a workshop where you spend most of your time getting your hacks and mods on? Well up until now you had to rely on your own prowess with a shopvac (meaning that nothing ever actually got tidied up), but thanks to the good folks at iRobot, the bad-ass Dirt Dog is coming to get your back. The same size and shape as the more timid Roomba -- meaning all your current batteries, remotes, and charging bases are compatible -- Dirt Dog comes equipped with a 40% larger debris bin along with specially designed brushes to sweep up caked-on dirt, heavy debris, and other messes that are "too dirty for a regular vacuum." This new $130 dog will be taking a bite out of some of your toughest cleaning chores starting on Friday, but you gotta make sure that it doesn't wander out of your workspace and into the rest of the house -- it probably won't pee on your couch, but those 1,000 RPM brushes will shred your shag carpets, scratch the hell out of your polished hardwood, and -- if you have a significant other -- get you confined to the garage for the rest of your natural life.Update: So it looks like the vicious Dirt Dog isn't the only upcoming member of the iRobot family. A Cnet article tipped us off to a new military bot that the company is working on -- called the NEO Mover -- and a little digging around turned up a few solid deets. Touted as the PackBot's big brother, NEO is apparently a 200-pound robot that can haul cargo Big Dog-style, and interestingly enough, is also said to be able to "move like a soldier" -- not sure what that means, but we won't make any snarky comments for fear of a swift and deadly reprisal. Like PackBot, the NEO Mover will also serve as a demolition expert of sorts, detecting explosives and presumably sacrificing its own well-being so that its human overlords can remain safely packed into their Hummers.[Via The Raw Feed]
EMIEW bot now able to mingle without maiming
Ok folks, the future is officially upon us: Japan has just built a robot with a frickin' laser embedded in its head. Yes, we were thinking Cylons too, but it turns out that their intentions are not quite as devious. The new Excellent Mobility and Interactive Existance as Workmate bot (EMIEW) -- who last had a gig as a hotel clerk -- has now been equipped with a sensory laser, giving it the ability to navigate a crowd without bumping into people. Hitachi will demo the new-and-improved EMIEW at the 2006 World Automotive Congress beginning October 23 in Yokohama, Japan -- we just hope that its laser is also able to identify shorter folks, because injured toddlers are really bad PR.[Via The Raw Feed]
Robot hospital: the doctor will 011100110110010101100101 you now
We've certainly seen our fair share of robotic surgeons, nursebots, and robopharmacists around here, but what happens when it's the robots themselves that need a little medical attention? Why you ship them off to Osaka, Japan's Akazawa Roboclinic, of course. Although some people might write off the recently-opened clinic-- which is run by Systec Akazawa, makers of the skateboarding, Bluetooth-controlled PLEN bot -- as little more than a repair shop, the employees apparently conduct themselves in a very professional manner, donning traditional hospital lab coats and dividing the space into examination, operating, and rehabilitation rooms. The hospital is currently staffed by just four "physicians" led by a Dr. Ohno, who says that the most common maladies they encounter are faulty motors, fractured frames, and severed wires. So before sending your malfunctioning Robosapien, decapitated Qrio, or rabid Aibo to that great mechatronic heaven in the sky (a.k.a. your local landfill), spend a few bucks on a long distance call to Akazawa -- they may just be able to fix up your beloved robotic companion and return him/her as good as new.[Via Robot Gossip and Loving the Machine]
Canada's new "Robotic IV Automation" medical assistant
Our fellow Americans: be forewarned, our seemingly friendly neighbors in the Great White North may soon be invading with legions upon legions of seemingly helpful medical assistant robots. Oh yes, this time it's coming from the inocuous city of Winnipeg (made famous for housing the Royal Canadian Mint!), where the Robotic IV Automation is in development by Intelligent Hospital Systems. This robot (which surely must be related to both Penelope and Emma), can, as its name implies monitor the refilling of various medications, in syringe and IV forms, up to 100 perscriptions per hour. Given that our country is already afraid of the importation of cheap Canadian drugs, we think that we should be even more frightened of the devious importation of robots that can administer those cheap Canadian drugs that will take jobs away from hard-working American nurses.[Via Robot Gossip]
Meet Penelope, the new medical assistant robot
Just in case EMMA the nursebot didn't do it for you, there's a new medical assistant bot in town, codename: Penelope. This metallic medico may have all the personality of a swinging desk lamp, but it may also save your life. Penelope is trained to respond to a surgeon's commands for specific tools; if a surgeon calls out for a scalpel, then Penelope will hand it to her. Or if that's too practical for you, try Robotic Surgial Tech's explanation that its robot is like an "Instrument Server." As the company states on its site: "Much as a web server manages and serves web pages, Penelope manages and serves surgical instruments. Penelope processes requests for instruments as they come in. The instrument is located, fetched, and delivered." So does that mean if multiple surgeons ask for multiple items then it will suffer a distributed denial of service attack and start to 404?[Via Robot Gossip]
iRobot WiFi module gets FCC nod
It may not look like much, but the circuit board pictured above could have major significance for robot lovers the world over. You see, this nondescript WiFi module was just submitted to and approved by the FCC for Rhein Tech Laboratories, a company working on behalf of a little outfit known as iRobot -- the same iRobot that's gifted us with such time-saving apparatuses as Roomba, Scooba, and that upcoming lawnmower bot we just heard about. Now at this point we're not sure whether the module will be end-user installable for long-range remote control of Roomba or if it's just one component of a different project altogether, but the simple fact that iRobot is working on some sort of WiFi integration is good news indeed. Good news for now, that is, until the servant bots use those built-in transceivers to coordinate their imminent uprising, and we have to go back to mowing our own lawns, carrying our own rucksacks, and cleaning our own floors (or the floors of the dungeons where they keep us locked up, whatever the case may be).
Miuro, the robotic iPod dock
We literally see a new iPod dock hit the streets every single day (when you can find ten of them at Target, it would seem that the market is already a bit oversaturated), however, Japanese manufacturer' ZMP's Miuro is the first one we've spotted that will actually follow you around the house and shake its groove thing at your behest (well, except for maybe the KNG DJ dock). A not-quite-accurate acronym for "music innovation based on utility robot technology," Miuro is a 14-inch wide, egg-shaped device that can either pump tunes from your docked 'Pod or wirelessly from a PC through its Kenwood-built speakers. The 9-pound bot -- available in either white, black, yellow, or red -- responds to your commands via the included remote, and can gain a little more autonomy with the addition of optional cameras and sensors. Miuro goes on sale in Japan today for a rather pricey $930, and should be making it Stateside sometime in the second half of next year. This will certainly be a boon to us lazy Americans, as soon we'll be able to shed our hefty 'Pods and let a little robotic slave tote them around for us -- until the eventual uprising, that is, when swarms of these things will repeatedly attempt to crush your jugular in your sleep while almost unoticeably piping out "Killing Me Softly."[Via The Raw Feed]
BEAR robot carries injured soldiers to safety
Although Stephen Colbert hates bears, he might actually go for this one, given that it's designed to save lives, not destroy them. The Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval Robot is a new bipedal droid designed to carry injured soldiers off of the battle-charred landscape as far as an hour's distance. What's more, its lower legs can fold down to roll away on tank treads, which seems a vast improvement over the previous spider-like designs that we've seen lately. No word yet on if it's actually tried to carry a real live shell-shocked GI -- which might be a little different than a lifeless dummy -- but beyond military applications, Vecna Technologies intends to use the BEAR for more domestic purposes. On their site they also illustrated plans for the robot to help mobility-impaired patients as a home-living assistant, and even show it carrying tea in one diagram. You know, come to think of it we wouldn't object at all if one of these things showed up every now and again to refill our tea mugs.[Via Roland Piquepaille]
Lazy Hubo gets a Segway
What's the world coming to? It's bad enough that everyone moves from here to there in their cars, motorcycles, personal helicopters, and human transportation devices (except for us -- we sit in front of the computer for 15 hours a day), but now it seems that the sedentary lifestyle is so prevalent, even robots are demanding their own set of wheels. You may remember Professor Oh Jun-ho's Asimo-like humanoid bot Hubo (probably better known when he sports the head of Einstein and transforms into Albert Hubo); well now Hubo has apparently gotten tired of walking around all the time, and has tasked the professor with acquiring a Segway for him to zip around on. At this point Hubo is unable to board the Segway without some help (geez, how lazy can you get?), but a software upgrade will supposedly provide him with the necessary motivation. See, you thought that our future robotic overlords would be shuffling around slowly while they round us up to toil in the silicon mines; in fact, they'll be corralling all humans at several miles-per-hour from the comfort of their Kamen-built scooters.
WiebeTech CD/DVD Imager a godsend to pirates, forensic analysts
Because we can't seem to get enough of robots, so how about we show you one that actually does something useful? Too boring, you say? What if we handed you a stack of 50 DVDs and CDs and told you to rip the image, archive 'em and, while you're at it, take a picture of each label. Now you want a robot to lord over, don't you? Lucky for you, our favorite Kansas hard drive maker and friend of forensics analysts everywhere, James Wiebe has come to your rescue with the WiebeTech CD/DVD Imager. So remember kids, this new bot may not be as fun to say as the robotic "welly wanger", but it's probably a bit more practical if you're about to fire off a few hundred copies of your latest tape (on CD) and can front the $2399 one of these will set you back.[Via MacMinute]
