Posts Tagged robot gadgets
Mebot lets you talk to the little one on your desk
Posted by admin in Audio Gadgets on March 2nd, 2010
It would appear that when MIT isn’t working on top secret Flyfire Swarming Displays, they make Mebots.
What is a Mebot? Think of it as a way of being in the same room with someone, even though that other person is far away. Unfortunately, that other person has to take the form of a crab-like creature.
As you can see, the screen is made so the transmitted person’s head is oversized on this body, but the Mebot can also do an emoticon face as well. By the way, the neck on the Mebot is cable of “three degrees of freedom for simple emotional cues”.
I’m not certain how the neck giving emotional cues works, but I have to admit, your head movements can be just as much an emotional giveaway as your face. Not to mention one’s arms, which this thing has for some added expressions, especially those who can “talk with their hands”.
I can’t help but wonder if those little claws of hands could grab things off a desk, maybe even pinch something. Yeah, I don’t think you want to turn your back on the Mebot.
Anyway, this is still experimental tech at MIT, which means that it probably won’t be available anytime soon.
Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
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Mebot lets you talk to the little one on your desk
Mebot lets you talk to the little one on your desk
Posted by admin in Audio Gadgets on March 2nd, 2010
It would appear that when MIT isn’t working on top secret Flyfire Swarming Displays, they make Mebots.
What is a Mebot? Think of it as a way of being in the same room with someone, even though that other person is far away. Unfortunately, that other person has to take the form of a crab-like creature.
As you can see, the screen is made so the transmitted person’s head is oversized on this body, but the Mebot can also do an emoticon face as well. By the way, the neck on the Mebot is cable of “three degrees of freedom for simple emotional cues”.
I’m not certain how the neck giving emotional cues works, but I have to admit, your head movements can be just as much an emotional giveaway as your face. Not to mention one’s arms, which this thing has for some added expressions, especially those who can “talk with their hands”.
I can’t help but wonder if those little claws of hands could grab things off a desk, maybe even pinch something. Yeah, I don’t think you want to turn your back on the Mebot.
Anyway, this is still experimental tech at MIT, which means that it probably won’t be available anytime soon.
Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
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Mebot lets you talk to the little one on your desk
The Wearable Telecommunicator is like having a little friend on your shoulder
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on February 13th, 2010
Imagine if Jiminy cricket in Pinocchio was a robot, and he would be on his shoulder like you see in this picture. Granted, Steven Spielberg sort of did that in A.I., but the Wearable Telecommunicator is a reality.
The Wearable Telecommunicator has been developing experimental technology for a robot that is operated by a remote user so he or she can see, hear, and even gesture through the shoulder-mounted robot.
There is a video after the jump, and you can see the user of the Wearable Telecommunicator with virtual reality goggles. You know, the type that we all thought would be wearing by now back in the early nineties.
So I guess this is some way for a person to be in two places at the same time. In other words, the human can talk to someone new at a party, and the robot can chime in any time.
You know what it reminds me of? The scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker has Yoda on his back during training. As I recall, R2D2 was in that scene, so I suppose what we are seeing with the Wearable Telecommunicator is a cross between the bossy micromanagement of Yoda and the helpful metal companion of Artoo.
Of course, this technology is still under development, hopefully we will never see an age where everyone has one of these robot parrots on their shoulder.
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The Wearable Telecommunicator is like having a little friend on your shoulder
The Heineken Robot serves you beer
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on February 10th, 2010
I figured that this next gadget might appeal to the beer guzzling crowd, which I’m assuming is some percentage of our audience.
The Heineken Robot, which I am guessing is a lack of a better name, was developed by some experimenters at Middlesex University in the UK. As you can see, it is essentially a beer keg with wheels. I’m pretty certain that the Heineken robot was in an extra on the Sandcrawler from the original Star Wars movie.
The R2-beer-you droid is programed to come to anyone who waves their hand. I suppose that is much better than saying: “Hey Bartender” and I’m sure the Heineken Robot has a much better response time.
You actually have to wave your hand over it, and its tap will glow. That is the sign for the customer to put their cup underneath, and it fills the cup with lots of suds. I’m not certain how the Heineken Robot knows if the cup is full. Maybe it uses that sensor thing that fast food restaurants use to fill up sodas. Just work at McDonalds for a little while and you will see what I mean.
Of course, the Heineken robot is simply a pet project for now, but it would be interesting if some modifications of it could enable it to replace barmaids.
Tech Cult – We cover the latest tech news, but always with a funny twist.
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And now, R2 would like to introduce…robot astronauts!
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on February 8th, 2010
What you see here is a robot made by both NASA and GM, in order to go into outer space. Yeah, it sounds like science fiction, but it is happening right now.
In fact, there is a video of it after the jump so you can see the robots at work. You may notice that they can do some very precise work of assembling and disassembling, albeit slowly. I guess if time is not an issue, these robots could probably be sent to the space station right away.
Yes, there are probably a lot of bugs to work out before these robots are ready to be sent in orbit. Of course, one can see the need for robot astronauts. Why send a man up there if you can have a robot do the same job? Of course, if the robots break down, then you’d better send a robot to fix the thing.
Yes, this R2 is one amazing robot. And yes, they call this robot R2, just like R2-D2 from Star Wars (minus the D2). Of course, it looks a lot more like C3-PO, really. On second thought, it bears a strong resemblance to Samus Aran, the heroine from the Metroid video game series.
Well, on the video, you may have noticed one of the parting shots was of the R2 robots holding some sort of hand drill that looks like a weapon. Uh-oh! This is how T3 ended, right?
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Diego-san: The working robot with the freaky baby head
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on January 15th, 2010
You want to hear what freaks me out the most? Babies. I’m not talking about real babies that crawl, coo, and you have to change every once in a while. In fact, I think these babies are cute.
I’m talking about every time someone makes a baby’s head and puts it on something like a doll, or in this case, a robot. This is Diego-san, a four-foot tall robot with the head of a baby.
Why they used a baby’s head instead of a some sort of artificial face, I will never know. I mean, Number Five, C3PO, and Wall-E looked cuter. However, Diego-san’s face is made up of 20 moving parts, and it is designed to communicate via facial expression rather than talk.
This baby has already learned how to stand up from a chair on its own, and it can hold a water bottle. I’m guessing it can’t drink the water, as it would probably rust. Maybe the creator should feed it baby oil. Yes, that was a bad joke, and there is no way that I can call the Diego-san anything but “it”.
I’m guessing that Diego-san was designed as some baby simulator or something. Perhaps he is another stepping stone for the advancing science of robotics. I think that it is weird that we have the technology to create this baby’s robot body, but we just don’t have the technology to make an artificial baby head that doesn’t look freaky. Honestly, I feel like this robot should have appeared in the movie Brazil.
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Speaker Bot plays your MP3 player
Posted by admin in Audio Gadgets on December 31st, 2009
Despite all of the conspiracy theories that robots will someday take over the world, you can’t help but love this robot. He’s completely harmless, all he does is play your favorite music all day long. He may have a permanently goofy expression on his face, but at least he has his uses. Plus he’s made out of new and old parts, which means you’d be giving new use for old discarded electronics.
These robots ship out worldwide and are assembled in New York by Lipson Robotics. In order to power the speaker, you can use the power adapter and plug it into the wall, use batteries or plug it into the USB port on your computer. He even comes branded with a metal nameplate to declare the robots origins (Lipson Robotics). The speaker will work with any MP3 player and can be purchased for $550 from Etsy.
Source: Technabob
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Omnitread can get to places that we can’t
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on December 31st, 2009
I’m not certain what it is, but there is a lot of cool robot stuff happening today. First the JO-ZERO, the Remo, and now the OmniTread.
The OmniTread isn’t a humanoid robot, and it isn’t a kit that you can special order just yet. The OmniTread is the work of some developers at the University of Michigan, and it is designed for some very rugged work.
As you can see in the video (after the jump), you will note that the design of the OmniTread resembles that of a train. The serpentine robot has treads on all four sides of its segments, and pneumatic bellows that can lift itself up like a caterpillar.
Right now, the developers at the University of Michigan have two models of the OmniTread. One of them, the OT-4, is named because it has the ability to crawl through a small hole only four inches in diameter. Their experiments show them working with an Omnitread with an AC cord, but they do have a working model that is good for 75 hours worth of use with the help of some battery power.
The uses of the OmniTread are similar to the robo hummingbird that we reported on a few days ago. It is a machine that can go to places that we cannot, such as a collapsed building or cave-in. Just imagine having a durable camera mounted on the front of this guy, and you’ll see what I mean.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the OmniTread at work on the job in the near future. In fact, my source claims it was “ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice” for a quake that recently occurred in San Diego, but I couldn’t find a secondary source to back this up. Until then, let’s just assume that the OmniTread is just concept tech.
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Omnitread can get to places that we can’t
Robot Hummingbird could one day have a tiny camera
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on December 29th, 2009
One of the most intriguing creatures in the animal kingdom is the hummingbird. These small birds have wings that move faster than 30 times per second, and they are the only bird that can fly backwards.
It does not surprise me that a Japanese researcher named Hiroshi Liu modeled his flying robot after the hummingbird. His robo-hummingbird, for lack of a better word, weighs up 2.6 grams and 10 centimeters long. Just to let you know, this is about the size of a non-robo-hummingbird.
Believe it or not, research into this robotic avian is at $2 million, and counting. The end-goal of this project is to create a robo-hummingbird with a tiny camera. This will allow the robo-hummingbird to fly into tight corners for going to places that humans cannot reach.
For example, in situations where a mineshaft has collapsed, and there is only tiny openings for air. Just send in the robo-hummingbird and check on the status on survivors. Now, you could achieve the same effect by mounting a tiny camera on a small flying toy copter, but the toy chopper would not be as stable in its flight.
Personally, I can easily see this robo-hummingbird being used as some sort of spy camera. I’m not certain if adding a colorful hummingbird disguise would fool anyone, though.
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Yotaro Baby Simulator, with real tears!
Posted by admin in Kids Gadgets on December 18th, 2009
Personally, I think that the target audience for the Yotaro baby simulator would be children who have just learned that they will have a new brother or sister.
As you may be able to tell from the shot of Yotaro’s oversized head, the fake baby has a projector behind it to simulate a face, albeit a freaky one. This projected face can even respond to a touch. You know your skin turns a lighter color when you press your fingers against it? The Yotaro baby’s face can do that.
It also has, from what I can tell, authentic tears. The video that you can watch after the jump shows the Yotaro connected to a water tank.
As I said before, I’m not certain who this Yotaro baby simulator is designed for. If it is designed to prepare potential parents for caring for a real child, I just can’t help but think that it won’t work. Trust me, nothing prepares you for a real baby.
You can’t always calm a baby’s crying by doing a series of actions to calm it down, believe me. Maybe they’ll program the Yotaro to a “fussy” setting where nothing will calm him or her down, and it takes hours before the baby tires him/herself out. Now that’s realistic parenting.
Of course, Yotaro is just a concept technology from Japan’s University of Tsukuba. It isn’t available for purchase…yet.
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