Posted on 27 February 2010 by admin
You don’t think the Robot Apocalypse is upon us, but we assure you, it is. The HUMAVIPS project, which will span three years and hopefully result in robots being developed with “social skills,” might seem innocent — even beneficial — at first blush, but let’s consider it. Will “humanoids with auditory and visual capabilities in populated spaces” have more power than you, as an Earthling, would like? If all goes well, these robotic dudes and dudettes will be able to mimic what’s known as the “cocktail celebration effect,” which is superior explained as “the human ability to focus attention on just one person in the midst of other people, voices and background noise.” So yeah, this definitely goes two ways — on one hand, you could finally have a live-in robot that pays attention to your feelings as the world around you crumbles, but on the other, these guys won’t have any issue overlooking your wailing when it’s them bringing everything down. Yikes.
HUMAVIPS project could lead to humanoids with social skills, humans being tricked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 26 February 2010 by admin
You don’t think the Robot Apocalypse is upon us, but we assure you, it is. The HUMAVIPS project, which will span three years and hopefully result in robots being developed with “social skills,” may seem innocent — even beneficial — at first blush, but let’s think about it. Will “humanoids with auditory and visual capabilities in populated spaces” have more power than you, as an Earthling, would like? If all goes well, these robotic dudes and dudettes will be able to mimic what’s known as the “cocktail celebration effect,” which is better explained as “the human ability to focus attention on just one person in the midst of other people, voices and background noise.” So yeah, this definitely goes two ways — on one hand, you could finally have a live-in robot that pays attention to your feelings as the world around you crumbles, but on the other, these guys won’t have any issue overlooking your wailing when it’s them bringing everything down. Yikes.
HUMAVIPS project could lead to humanoids with social skills, humans being tricked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 23 February 2010 by admin
Roomba has ruled the roost when it comes to domestic chores for a long time — too long. It’s getting some serious competition from Samsung, which is finally going to unleash one of its robovacs onto the rest of the world. Well, to Europe anyway. The Navibot is set to spread its wings across the EU in March, having been apparently warmly received in limited Italian tests last year. The bot captures 30fps video of your abode, documenting your feng shui and charting the most efficient course around your coffee table and the display case that houses your TMNT collection. It’s even sophisticated enough to pick up where it left off should it run out of juice mid-stride, after returning home for a recharge, but that kind of smarts will cost you: €399 for the basic model with a single virtual wall, and €499 for a slightly posher version with touch-sensitive buttons and a second virtual wall. There’s no word on an American release just yet, meaning Roomba’s home turf is safe — for now.
Filed under: Household, Robots
Samsung’s Navibot robot vacuum charting European living rooms in April originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 16 February 2010 by admin
We’ve seen plenty of toy robots at the International Toy Fair this week, but none quite have moves like Senario’s Zibits. The salt and pepper shaker-sized bots, which will be available for $9.99 a piece at Toys R Us in March, come with a small AA battery powered remote that lets you drive the three wheeled little guy forward, but also spin him around in circles. Apparently these R/C toys are meant for eight to ten years olds, but us really mature adults are itching to buy a couple of these Zibit characters along with some Hexbugs, and stage the ultimate battle of $10 bots. Stop judging us and our Star Wars lunch box and watch the handheld bot in action after the break.
Continue reading Zibits mini remote control robots spin right ’round, baby
Zibits mini remote control robots spin right ’round, baby originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 01 February 2010 by admin
You’ll say the whole Robot Apocalypse meme is played out. We say it’s your lack of focus that’ll eventually be the downfall of society. Gurus at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique F
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 24 January 2010 by admin
When we saw
Asimo do
his Fred Astaire act a while back we knew he’d star quality — and now it looks like the feisty robot is finally getting his large break.
Living With Robots, which just premiered at Sundance Film Festival, was directed by Joe Berlinger (who directed Metallica’s
Some Kind of Monster) and tells the story of a humanoid robot that gets stranded at home while his family flies overseas for Christmas. Instead of calling the police, he stays home —
alone — and bravely fights off Joe Pesci and some other guy whose name we can’t remember. [Editor’s note: This is patently untrue. Actually, the film promises to investigate “humankind’s keen interest in robots and how robots can challenge the impossible by saving lives while also holding the promise to become more integrated and helpful in daily life.” So there.] Interested? We bet you are! Check out the PR, and the eight minute
commercial short film, after the break.
Continue reading Asimo stars in Living With Robots, promises not to forget the ‘little people’ (video)
Asimo stars in Living With Robots, promises not to forget the ‘little people’ (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 23 January 2010 by admin
When we saw
Asimo do
his Fred Astaire act a while back we knew he had star quality — and now it looks like the feisty robot is finally getting his large break.
Living With Robots, which just premiered at Sundance Film Festival, was directed by Joe Berlinger (who directed Metallica’s
Some Kind of Monster) and tells the story of a humanoid robot that gets stranded at home while his family flies overseas for Christmas. Instead of calling the police, he stays home —
alone — and bravely fights off Joe Pesci and some other guy whose name we can’t remember. [Editor’s note: This is patently untrue. Actually, the film promises to investigate “humankind’s keen interest in robots and how robots can challenge the impossible by saving lives while also holding the promise to become more integrated and helpful in daily life.” So there.] Interested? We bet you are! Check out the PR, and the eight minute
commercial short film, after the break.
Continue reading Asimo stars in Living With Robots, promises not to forget the ‘little people’ (video)
Asimo stars in Living With Robots, promises not to forget the ‘little people’ (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 19 December 2009 by admin
Ask any home audio enthusiast and they’ll tell you: there’s nothing quite like precisely adjusting settings via a giant knob. However, they can’t all be massive or our living rooms would be covered by the things. Enter the Puck: a wireless RFID reader that also contains an accelerometer, controlled by an Arduino Mini and created by Eric Gradman along with Tyler and Brent Bushnell. RFIDs mounted to walls or other surfaces tell the PUCK what function to control, and then the accelerometer serves to increase or decrease the value as it’s turned, truly turning it into a virtual knob. If you’re done snickering, there’s a video after the break showing one Puck controlling three separate light colors individually, perfect for dialing in the perfect mood or concert lighting — if only it could dial down the amplitude of dude’s fauxhawk.
Update: We received a note indicating a grave factual inaccuracy in this post. We’ve been told that the hair depicted in the video below is, indeed, a genuine mohawk. We’ve yet to receive photo confirmation of this fact (the mood lighting in the demo is a bit too dark to tell), but in the interest of accuracy we’re providing this update just the same.
Update 2: Photo proof received; mohawk confirmed. And a quite impressive one, too.
Continue reading Puck makes any surface interactive, probably even Surface (video)
Puck makes any surface interactive, probably even Surface (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 18 December 2009 by admin
Ask any home audio enthusiast and they’ll tell you: there’s nothing quite like precisely adjusting settings via a giant knob. However, they can’t all be large or our living rooms would be covered by the things. Enter the Puck: a wireless RFID reader that also contains an accelerometer, controlled by an Arduino Mini and created by Eric Gradman along with Tyler and Brent Bushnell. RFIDs mounted to walls or other surfaces tell the PUCK what function to to control, and then the accelerometer serves to increase or decrease the value as it’s turned, truly turning it into a virtual knob. If you’re done snickering, there’s a video after the break showing one Puck controlling three separate light colors individually, perfect for dialing in the perfect mood or concert lighting — if only it could dial down the amplitude of dude’s fauxhawk.
Continue reading Puck makes any surface interactive, probably even Surface (video)
Puck makes any surface interactive, probably even Surface (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 14 December 2009 by admin
Lab rats beware — there’s a new turbo-charged robotic cousin of yours on the block. This tiny autonomous fellow, Tetra, has just wowed micromouse hobbyists with a 4.766-second finish time in a maze (which had to be mapped by the micromouse first) in a recent demonstration, beating the previous All Japan Micromouse contest record by a big margin of 1.6 seconds. Sadly, Tetra wasn’t the winner of this year’s contest as it failed to finish the final Expert Class event — probably something to do with the lighting conditions which affected its tracking. We have the ability to still admire Tetra’s awesomeness in the video after the break though, followed by some thoughts from a few micromouse experts.
Continue reading Tetra the micromouse needs no cheese, completes maze in under five seconds (video)
Tetra the micromouse needs no cheese, completes maze in under five seconds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
