So NASA has developed these robots to basically do the work of humans. There was a previous version, which the R2 you see above (yes, “R2″) is a refinement of, and now as you can see he’s quite a performer. Is he doing a tango move there?
Check out this video. The money shot is at 3:30, where you can really see how gentle and precise the movements are.
Some scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne have built “evolving” predator and prey robots designed to, in short, learn from each other. Read that again: While we’re worried about Taylor Swift and and Lady Gaga, robots are now teaching each other how to hunt us.
The robots use Darwinian Selection to decide how to escape each other or work together to avoid collisions.
I will say this: it’s always going to be impressive to me when robots make my breakfast. But after seeing those ramen-bots doing it at high speed and fighting with knives, and after watching those robo-arms pitch fastballs to each other, I just feel like breakfast should be made a little more quickly than these ones manage to do it.
It’s not quite as endearing as the (also terrifying) BigDog, but the OmniTread robot does seem pretty useful. That is, if you don’t need to go fast. The bot is a specialist in navigating rubble and small spaces, and could help locate people trapped under collapsed buildings. There is a risk of them running in terror, but if they’re pinned it shouldn’t be a problem.
It’s designed by roboticists at the University of Michigan, and right now there aren’t any production plans. But if it were to prove itself in a quake or other disaster, they might find themselves with a government contract right quick.
[via Coolest Gadgets and TechEBlog]
It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only a Chinese Thomas the Tank Engine knock-off. Imagine no possessions except for Optimus Prime. And then mate the two robots to get baby Thomas.
Yeah. WTF.
You’ll recall that there was a bit of a buzz a few years ago about a fat-fighting robot named Autom designed to sit on your counter and convince you not to eat that last slice of pizza. Well, the old girl is almost ready for production and should be arriving next Fall.
Autom, in her first incarnation, looked a bit weird and was basically a fancy computer case. Now, however, this thing is like a fat-fighting Furby with expressive eyes and a cute little mouth that definitely wouldn’t ever eat the last slice of pie, unlike me.
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You know that thing about robots eventually taking over the world? Or computers? Or robots with computers in them and at first you’re like, “Hey cool, I’m friends with a robot and we play Scrabble together because he has a computer in him,” but after a while the robot gets all moody and you start to notice stuff missing from your room and all of a sudden the robot is, like, locking you out of your house and punching you in the upper arm for no reason? Maybe that robot would have one of these VIA Mobile-ITX boards in it. It’s small, is what I’m saying.
Yes. It is finished. We can shut down NASA, DARPA, all the arts and sciences, and stop trying now. The pinnacle of human achievement has been reached. Robot vacuums have been hacked to play the parts in a real-life game of Pac-Man.
Video inside.
There’s not much for me to add here. In addition to walking normally, robots can now play pool, baseball, volleyball, and make ramen. Anybody else feeling a bit like an endangered species?
Seriously, who doesn’t want a pet dinosaur? Sure, Jurassic Park makes it seem all dangerous and life-threatening and such. Would you really let that stop you? I think not. But until genetics research and cloning catch up to our imaginations, we’ll have to settle for robotic proxies. And everyone’s favorite little Camarasaurus just got back on the market.
You may be familiar with the old DARPA Grand Challenge. Well, consider this the Petit Challenge. Roboticists whose favorite flavor of robot is micro are being challenged to bring it in the 2010 NIST Mobile Microbotics Challenge, or Microlympics. All contestants must be no greater than 600 micrometers (or rather, their robots must be), and they will compete in three grueling micro-events!
It’s not enough that they make ramen, juggle, and play catch — now robot arms need to play with their food? This robot arm on the right is teasing the one on the left. Want a Fanta? You can’t have one! Your feeble manipulator navigates this six-pack in vain.
I wanted to tell you guys to watch this without seeing the description, but it’s difficult to do so. Better find someone nearby, tell them to close their eyes, and then open them when they think they’ve got it figured out. This piano-based voice synthesizer breaks down the morphemes of normal speech into components which can be built up using piano keys. Sounds crazy in theory of course, but actually seeing the keys playing themselves and a voice coming out of it makes me think the end times are coming.
Nissan announced Thursday [press release in English] that it has developed robots that are able to move in a group without colliding into each other. Much like a school of fish, the so-called Eporo can also avoid obstacles standing in their way safely. Nissan claims this is the first time the world sees robots that are able to show group behavior.
Let’s see… a robot that responds to the thoughts of its master (is “master” the right word here?). Pretty sure that we (humans) will bring about our own downfall, either by blowing each other up, or by inventing a robot that says, “You guys are idiots, so we’re going to kill you.”
You’ve heard of Deep Blue, the IBM computer that bested Gary Kasparov in a chess match a decade ago. Now, there is Deep Green, a robot that plays pool. And by the looks of this demo video, it can’t lose.
As Delicious founder, and now-Googler, Joshua Schachter points out, it is “only a matter of time before one of these kills a person.”
Only a fool would pay for pornography on the Internet. It’s like, you don’t pay for air (or, more accurately, oxygen), do you? So why pay for porn? But if porn is free all over the place, what’s going to happen to our nation’s adult entertainment industry? It employs more than a few people (that’s good), and helps maintain our image abroad (that’s also good). Two good thing! So what’s the industry going to do in a world where every kid can load up uTorrent or visit YouTube-like site? One word: robots.
