Results tagged “robots”

So many concepts and products. I wish I could live with all those products now. Some are coming soon. Some are a long ways off. It warms a technophile's glittery soul. Above is the lovely Nissan Eporo bot designed as a new traffic model. The bots travel in tight groups and avoid collision all based on the schooling behavior of fish.

Last we saw Nissan's crash-avoiding BR23C robot "car," it was rolling along all by its lonesone, taking cues from the humble bumblebee in order to survive in the wilds of CEATEC Japan. Well, it's almost time for CEATEC yet again, and it looks like Nissan has seen fit to give our robot buddy a new bag of tricks, and a proper name: Eporo. Perhaps the biggest news, however, is that it now models itself on fish, which not only gives it greater peripheral vision (courtesy of a pair of laser range finders) to avoid obstacles, but lets it travel in packs similar to a school of fish. The idea there being that these could one day carry passengers and stick close together to reduce congestion on city streets and, in turn, cut down on the number of accidents.

Robots and mobile phones are huge in Japan so it was only a matter of time for the two to come together thanks to KDDI AU. The concept Polaris is a Sony Rolly-like robot with a mobile phone dock. It's supposed to act as a life recorder keeping track of everything you do, then giving you recommendations.

A giant weight lifting robot disguised as a cuddly white teddy bear, able to transport people from operating tables and to restrooms. It can only lift 135 lbs but that's way more than I can do and Riba does it without complaining.

It's bizarre and hypnotizing. A lot of precise, almost clockwork like engineering went into this masterpiece called the WAHHA GO GO. Staring at it too long could induce nightmares so I suggest you watch it no more than twice or some Ringu shit might happen.

DARPA is probably the only department within the military I'd be interested in working for. Their latest creation is a robotic hummingbird done that spies better than Cheaters. Mastering flight with such precious is incredibly difficult which is why the prototype isn't as nimble as the real thing but all in due time. Pretty soon that pretty little bird fluttering outside your window may be more than meets the eye.

Watch out Gundam! Residents of Kobe took one look at Odaiba's life-size Gundam statue and thought they could do better. The muse to their project is a Tetsujin-28 Gigantor. It'll stand just as tall at 59 ft but weighs in at a hefty 50 tons. OH SNAP! Those is some fightin' words!

P.S. When can I move to Japan? Better yet when is America going to build some giant statue in honor our popular culture - hmm, I vote for a massive and I do mean MASSIVE real-life enactment of Springfield, working nuclear reactor and all. I call dibs on the Simpson's house. Damn the recession. Let's do it!

Video after the jump.

via Crunchgear

Penguins are survival artists that brave the icy Antarctic storms to rear their young on land, where they move rather staidly and at times even somewhat clumsily. They feed mainly on small shrimp-like creatures - krill - which they hunt in the depths of the ocean. The penguins' swimming and diving behaviour has been studied in Antarctica for many years. Using state-of-the-art methods, researchers have succeeded in revealing the secrets of the underwater "flight" of this unusual order of birds.

More after the jump

Well this is one way to attract tourists, or not. I'd definitely go. Aside from the killer robots, I hear Hakodate is actually quite nice, in a New England sort of way.

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

So many robots in Japan but I'm not surprised. I'm more surprised about the 2 in Africa. I wonder what they do and if they know each other. :)

via ieee spectrum

Once again I need to profess my love to the brainiacs at MIT. Their latest project, "Huggable" is a robotic teddy bear complete with servos, sensors, webcams, speakers, articulated joints, and artificial intelligence. It even acts as a telepresence device mirroring the movements of a remotely controlled Huggable.

The Teddy Bot was designed for early learning and hospital use but lets get to the real deal here. This thing is about as close as we'll get to the lovable "TEDDY" in Spielberg's "A.I." DO WANT!

via Gizmodo

Listen, growing plants is HARD. I've failed a number of times. They need sun, water, food, and the specific amount to each species is daunting to memorize. This robotic planter actually gets up and walks the plant to keep it the sunlight. Fun for me but probably scary for my dog. Click the picture to see it in action.

Check this flying fish airship entry in Germany's Airship Regatta convention. I'm strangely hypnotized by it.