November 29, 2010
The folks at UT Austin’s HCR Laboratory have been working on a Meka humanoid robot for some time now, but they’ve only just recently added one pretty significant component to it: a head. This so-called “Dreamer” isn’t just your ordinary robot head, though — described by the researchers as a “sociable humanoid head,” the head is modeled on anime and comic characters, and promises to establish an “organic link to its biological counterpart, creating feelings of quasi-affinity in response to gestures and synthetic emotions.” In other words, it’s impressive enough to hold your attention while you interact with it, and it may very well creep you out a little. Head on past the break to check it out in action. Continue reading Meka, UT Austin researchers show off ‘sociable’ Dreamer robot head Meka, UT Austin researchers show off ‘sociable’ Dreamer robot head originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | source HCR Laboratory | Email this | Comments
November 29, 2010
You might remember this Fanuc pick and place robot from a post last year: https://youtu.be/czqn71NFa3Q Not bad, right? Well, since then someone’s gone and cranked it up to nutso: https://youtu.be/vkGCsi4dXcg Wow. Good thing sorting Skittles isn’t a real job, or I’d be looking at unemployment right now. [ FANUC ]
November 25, 2010
When you think of a massage robot, you probably think of something that’s humanoid, using hands to give a human a traditional massage. Robots, however, are best at being robots and doing things in robot-y ways, and all you really need for a massage is movement and pressure. WheeMe is a cute little robot that provides both by driving around your body on knobbly rubber wheels. At only 240 grams, WheeMe isn’t heavy enough to do a painful and fulfilling job, but I can imagine that it probably feels pretty good, at the very least like having someone run their fingers along your back. The especially clever bit about WheeMe is that it somehow knows how not to plunge to its death off of your shoulders… From the sound of things, it uses tilt sensors to keep its center of gravity in a safe place, but otherwise roams around more or less randomly. https://youtu.be/sBpg8ixEbCg WheeMe will be on display at CES in January, and we’ll be there to test it out (extensively) in person. There’s no word yet on price, but I can’t imagine it’ll be very expensive, although I’ve definitely been wrong about this kind of thing before. [ Dreambots ] VIA [ IEEE ]
November 21, 2010
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/11/160x120_k5jxmbafdsq.jpg Chess World Champion Vladimir Kramnik laughs it up in this video of his match against a merciless robot arm, but on the inside, like the rest of humanity, you can see the growing sense of dread. We are doomed. More »
November 16, 2010
This video neatly demonstrates the utility of a jumping robot. EPFL’s jumper is simple, small, and cheap, but it’s able to rapidly negotiate an obstacle course that would be otherwise impassible by anything except a flying robot. The robot plus its self-righting roll cage weighs 14 grams and measures 18 centimeters in diameter. It can jump over 60 centimeters high, which at over four times its own height, is definitely respectable. To steer, the jumping part of the robot is actually able to rotate around inside its roll cage to launch in any direction. Simple but effective. I remember back in early 2008 when we first posted about this robot, and I wrote: “Yes, it’s not exactly controllable. And yes, it doesn’t exactly land right-side up. But these are minor quibbles, and they’re being worked on.” Quibbles solved. Nice job, EPFL. Now just make it fly… [ EPFL ]
November 16, 2010
We know that President Obama likes robots. We also know that President Obama is (at least little) scared of robots. On his recent trip to Japan, Barack came face to face with both Paro and HRP-4C, and it goes just about how you’d expect: I’m with ya, buddy… Just back away slowly or she’ll snap your neck. VIA [ CrunchGear ]