May 24, 2005

Scooba

iRobot's Scooba is a household, robotic floor cleaner designed for hard floors made of materials such as tile and linoleum reports Cnet. It vacuums up loose particles and applies cleaner to soak up dirt, then dries the floor, which also makes it safe for wood.

"It is like an industrial floor cleaner, but for your home," said iRobot CEO Colin Angle. "Even if it wasn't a robot, this (makes mopping obsolete). With mopping, most of the time you are spreading dirty water around. But because it's a robot you push a button and it cleans your floor."

May 22, 2005

ApriAttanda robot

Toshiba, Japan has unveiled new robots to help out the elderly and children from the home to the shopping mall by following them and responding to their voices.

The "ApriAttanda" identifies an individual with its visual sensor and high-speed image processing system and follows the person.

When the person moves forward, the robot moves forward. When the person stops, the robot stops -- while maintaining a certain distance.

If the robot loses contact with its companion, it calls to the person and responds to their reply, Toshiba said.

The other type of robot, nicknamed "sharp ear," detects the directions of voices from multiple speakers with six built-in microphones and recognizes what they have said.

It can "respond to a person offering greetings and then go on to respond to a question from another person," Toshiba said in a statement.

The company plans to develop the robots further so that they "can accompany people to shopping complexes and carry things, look after young children and elderly people."

It also aims to make the robots capable of sending images to family members outside showing what is going on at home. More

R2D2 prototype

During the presentation of Episode III in Livorno, a prototype of R2D2 was shown off. The 1.5 mt tall R2D2 prototype built by researchers at the university of Pisa walks, beeps like the original, and flees from people holding light sabres reports codewitch! Other features include bluetooth and usb.

NASA developing human-like robots

Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are working to develop robots with human characteristics. Researchers at the Ames Research Center, a NASA laboratory in Silicon Valley, California, are envisioning "futuristic robots that 'act' like people, enabling these mechanical helpers to work more efficiently with astronauts," said a press release from the center.

May 13, 2005

a robot that can replicate itself

Scientists have created a robot that can replicate itself in minutes. The team behind the machine says the experiment shows that self- reproduction is not unique to living organisms. Developed by researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the machine was constructed from cube-shaped robotic unitsthat functioned independently. A four-module robot could assemble an exact replica of itself in just two and a half minutes. The researchers add that the ability could be harnessed to drive major advances in nanotechnology, and may even lead to space colonization by robots. More

May 11, 2005

Domo

Domo is a new upper-torso humanoid robot at the MIT CSAIL Humanoid Robotics Lab. It is the doctoral work of Aaron Edsinger-Gonzales. The goal of Domo is to contribute a novel approach to robot manipulation in unstructured environments. The approach is centered on integrating compliant and force sensitive manipulators into a behavior based architecture that learns anticipatory sensorimotor models.

Seen at Engadget.com

May 9, 2005

POLUBO

Luxpro, has announced POLUBO, a new robot aiming to go up against Sony's QRIO in its dreams

Features of POLUBO

*Interactive language learning player, ideal for parent and child shared use.
*Adorable character design with realistic body movements.
*Packed full of educational enrichment, including 400 words and sentences in 8 categories.
*Lively picture cards, high quality professional voice recording, and energetic and thematic.
*User friendly interface, designed for use by young children, with
worry-free" and "childproof" materials, damage resistant durable design, completely safe for unsupervised play.

More

May 6, 2005

CMU's H1ghlander Robot

GizmoNews - The H1ghlander robot is a driverless vehicle that will race through 175 miles of hostile desert terrain for a $2 million prize. On Thursday morning, the H1ghlander was being evaluated by a team from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). If the vehicle passes the evaluation, it could advance to the semi-finals at California Speedway in September. The H1ghlander is one of 118 teams hosting similar evaluations. The Pittsburgh Channel reports.

May 4, 2005

WL-16RII

Waseda University and tmsuk, Japan, are showing off the "WL-16RII" , a new 2 foot robot to assist people in climbing up and down stairways. The robot presented in Fukuoka will go on sale in 2010. In the demonstration "WL-16RII" succeeded in the stairway ascent and descent of height 20 centimeters. Sensors (not on board) inspect the height and width , etc., of the stairway and programs movement beforehand allowing for safe ascent and descent. In the future using RFID chips on stairways, information can be passed to the WL-16RII allowing it to walk freely in town. Read More (Japan)

May 1, 2005

Sony's Qrio robot goes to school

Qrio, a humanoid robot developed by a Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratories Inc has been attending a nursery school in California since March to play with children up to 2 years of age in an experiment to help develop a robot that can "live in harmony with humans in the future."