Ideas for the world, FREE!
Posts tagged robotics
A Twitter Account for Your Robot
Aug 19th
Robonaut 2 was designed by NASA to help the astronauts with missions and mundane activities around the International Space Station. With 12,000 followers, you too can keep track of R2’s every tweet. According to its Twitter account, R2 is not related to the nefarious HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s also not related to Boba Fett from Star Wars, despite similar appearances. When asked of a possible connection on Twitter, its handlers replied “Sorry, no relation to Boba Fett. Besides, I’m a friendly robot.” R2 also claims no gender, speaks only computer code and English, and plays chess.
Robot Police To Visit You, Soon
Aug 3rd
We cannot confirm if this is true but Jamie Martin Design, a UK based product design firm has designed what we could describe as the coolest cop ever. Its called the C.R.A.B. or Cybernetic . Autonomous . Remote . Barricade. The 6 legged robotic cop comes straight out of video games. The sleek thing will be used to do patrols and will be used as a barricade, apparently. The robot packs powerful cannons to keep crowds under control with smoke screen and tear gas shell deployment capabilities. The AI software was developed over a period of 12 years apparently. And its headed to London. We doubt it but we like the design. So, the machines have finally made inroads into our lives! Images after the break.
Iran’s Got Robots!
Jul 7th
We all know Iran’s got balls, messing with the world’s minds with it’s nuclear facilities but this is for the first time that they are showing off that they have some kick ass technology too! Surena II, Iran’s second humanoid robot was shown off by none other than Mr. Ahmadinejad. The humanoid robot is 4.7 ft tall and weighs 99 lbs. While the walking may not be as fast as Asimo’s, looks are quite close. Video of the robot after the break.
Video: Morphing Robots And The Future Of Flight
Jul 4th
One small step for the Pentagon, one giant step for robotics. This can be an appropriate punchline to underscore what Pentagon researchers have achieved. They have built a small robot which id paper thin (0.5 mm) and can fold itself into several shapes. This might seem quite trivial to you but DARPA, that funded the project thinks of a whole wide world of applications for this technology. The small squares of robotics joined by elastomers or elastic polymers could one day help a soldier on the ground to engineer a jet out of these self assembling robots to get out of a battle zone. Sounds far fetched, but didn’t we think supersonic flight had to make do with the sonic boom? Video after the break.
Video: Now Feel “Virtual” Things
Jul 3rd
When was the last time you wanted to touch a 3D object in a video game? A team at the Gify University in Japan has developed a haptic feedback system for interacting with virtual 3D objects. Real 3D kick boxing anyone? The technology also sounds promising for those in the medical interactivity field. Video of the system at work after the break.
Computer Automatically Deciphers Ancient Language
Jun 30th
In his 2002 book Lost Languages, Andrew Robinson, then the literary editor of the London Times’ higher-education supplement, declared that “successful archaeological decipherment has turned out to require a synthesis of logic and intuition … that computers do not (and presumably cannot) possess.”
Regina Barzilay, an associate professor in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Ben Snyder, a grad student in her lab, and the University of Southern California’s Kevin Knight took that claim personally. At the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in Sweden next month, they will present a paper on a new computer system that, in a matter of hours, deciphered much of the ancient Semitic language Ugaritic. In addition to helping archeologists decipher the eight or so ancient languages that have so far resisted their efforts, the work could also help expand the number of languages that automated translation systems like Google Translate can handle.
The Willow Garage Robot Plays Pool, Will Win The Next World Championship
Jun 18th
Willow Garage recently gave out 11 of their towel folding PR2 robot but kept the fun part of the robot to themselves. Apart from the well publicized towel folding thingy that the robot does, the team at Willow Garage was able to get the PR2 to play some perfect games of pool. Yeah, the robot sees the balls via a high res camera, positions itself perfectly guided by the real time physics engine and pockets every ball it shoots (well, almost). We knew the robot could see and recognize corners of towels, but who knew this piece of machinery could play perfect corner shots! Let’s be fair to humans though- the PR2 has a special “hand” which is more like a hole in a piece of plastic and not the full five finger that we have. Consider that an advantage to the robot if you want to. Video of some PR2 pool after the break.
Carnegie Mellon’s Soccer-Playing Robots Get Creative With Physics-Based Planning
Jun 4th
Robot soccer players from Carnegie Mellon University competing in this month’s RoboCup 2010 world championship in Singapore should be able to out-dribble their opponents, thanks to a new algorithm that helps them to predict the ball’s behavior based on physics principles. That means that the CMDragons, the Carnegie Mellon team that competes in RoboCup’s fast-paced Small-Size
Willow Garage Giving Away 11 PR2 Robots Worth Over $4 Million
May 5th
Oh, the very slow but super “towel folding” robot “PR2″ by Willow Garage will soon see clones of itslef in 11 institutions and universities across the globe including the USA, Europe and Japan. Theis “giveaway” is worth $4 mil! The objective is to get these towel folders to be developed into something more useful than just
We Need Robotic Maids. We Do.
May 3rd
Oh Japanese robot builders, are you sure we need things like this in our lives? Floor cleaning robots are great but do we really need dish cleaning “maid” robots? Why are we making our lives a movie? (read I Robot). OK, lets stop the drama and get to the meat of the topic now. Jouhou
