Tag: ROBOTICS

Oh science, why are you going there? Haven't you seen the movies? Don't you know what your insatiable thirst for knowledge is bound to wreak? Hapless roboticists at Reading University are working on building a robot octopus that will move, react and grasp objects just like an actual octopus. Such a creature could be invaluable for performing underwater tasks -- such as maintaining watercraft ...

Crushed by the lines at Lady Gaga, we stumbled aimlessly around the convention center until we noticed a group of people crowding around a small, seemingly empty stage. Was it an invisible Pico projection? A telepathic social networking demonstration? No, it was the massive, fluorescent LG booth, and the object of attraction was a small, circular vacuum cleaner with tiny spinning brushes. We bent ...

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A metal robot may not look like a human being, but as long as it acts like one, babies won't be able to tell the difference. That's the conclusion that researchers at University of Washington reached, after studying the ways 18 -month-year-old babies interact with humanoid bots. To observe the baby-bot dynamic, scientists placed each child in a room with a remote-controlled robot along with ...

Vehicles equipped with self-parking technology already serve drivers with limited parallel parking skills. Parking-challenged residents of Birmingham, England no longer have to wait for automobile-assisted guidance, though, thanks to a new futuristic garage at the city's Cube complex. The three-story-deep subterranean car cave employs a $3 million robotic system that, according to the BBC, ...

Such an unlikely event may seem inconceivable, but the Tokyo Institute of Technology appears determined to overthrow the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as robotic royalty. Almost one year ago to the day, DARPA promised the world a leaping robot capable of hurling itself over lofty structures as tall as 25 feet. While observers eagerly await the official debut of the high-flying ...

As if the robot gods had come down and granted your writer's wish of combining her favorite things, the X-4 "Sloth" is a Bradypodidae-inspired 'bot made out of NXT Mindstorms LEGO. Sure, its three-toed hustle is painfully slow, but it manages to climb and release without any assistance. But you know what it can't do? Steal your heart with its widdle nose. See it ascend after the break. ...

Robots that take their inspiration from nature are an old hat, and it's hard to fault the engineers. Whether you're a firm believer in evolution or you're in camp I.D., there is no denying that nature is an efficient and elegant designer. Carnegie Mellon's Biorobotics Lab used snakes as the basis for their latest creation, and dubbed the slithering bot "Uncle Sam," most likely due to its red, ...

A U.K. inventor has developed a 4-foot-tall plastic robot child for he and his wife that, believe it or not, is creepier than Haley Joel Osment in 'Artificial Intelligence: AI' (way to be redundant, Spielberg). According to The Daily Mail, Tony Ellis and his wife, Judie, don't have any kids or pets, but they do operate a toy robotics company called Conceptioneering (which is almost as bad of a ...

Have you bought yourself a Slinky, but just can't find the time to play with it? Or, are you an obsessive compulsive Slinky-er, and absolutely can't stand the thought of your precious toy going to waste? Or maybe a high-paid executive whose Newton's Cradle has lost the thrill it once had? Well, inventor Jim Sellers has you covered. Sellers has created the Slink-O-Matic, a machine that will ...

The Roomba may be an efficient and discreet way to tidy up your filthy shoebox of an apartment, but don't you wish it had a little extra personality? Wouldn't you like to actually see your robotic housekeeper doing work, instead of just making dust and snack shrapnel mysteriously disappear? Well, now you can, with WowWee's Roboscooper. As Engadget reports, the wide-eyed robotic maid runs on ...

In case you're not familiar with him, Hiroshi Ishiguro has made a name for himself by creating the creepiest humanoid bots this planet has ever seen. But, whereas his past creations have been uncanny stand-ins (albeit horrifyingly soulless ones) for their human counterparts, his latest creation, the Telenoid R1, looks like it crawled out of the fiery pits of the nether-world to feast upon our ...

Folks, we hate to keep repeating ourselves, but all those old sci-fi scenarios are really, truly coming to pass. Take the Acroban robot, for example. Child-like, doe-eyed robot? Yes. From a futuristic manufacturer with a creepily sunny name? Yup: the bot's developers refer to themselves as Inria Flowers. Super-creepy, lo-fi video of real human children playing alongside said robot? Check. (After ...

We can't help but admire at a distance when robot technology advances in any measure. Call it habit, fear or just pent-up animosity from watching way too many sci-fi films, but the truth of the matter is robots are frightening. Take, for instance, Cornell University's Ranger robot, which just set the world record for untethered robotic walking, going strong for 14.3 miles in only 11 hours. Yikes, ...

No matter their size, everybody has purchased clothing online, and then discovered, upon delivery, that it didn't fit right. But a European company has a solution to this problem -- shape-shifting robots. According to BBC News, an Estonian company has created moving mannequins that allow shoppers to view clothing items on more than 100,000 different bodies' shapes and sizes before they make a ...