By Chris Scott Barr

The whole point of a Roomba is to vacuum for you so that you don’t have to put in any physical labor. Well, someone in Japan with a little too much time figured out a way to put the vacuuming labor back into the Roomba. Why? I don’t think anyone really knows. There are always kudos for new ideas and thinking outside the box, but this really just leads to us being able to pantomime all of the chores we don’t like. Though we could completely avoid the chores altogether.

This thing is still pretty neat considering it’s self-defeating design. It has many different options other than normal back and forth. A plus side is that there may come a real life Chibi-Robo type game out of this. If you have no idea what that is, it’s about a robot who cleans things.

[ Ros-Robot ] VIA [ Technabob ]

Sadly, this is not what I expected from a robot DSLR. I get the color scheme, as it’s taken from a rather famous ‘bot over in Japan. What I really don’t get is why the face and details are drawn on with a marker. I mean, if I’m going to shell out $1,200 for one of these, I’d like someone to take the time to draw some straight lines.

[ Pentax ] VIA [ Crunchgear ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week was National Robotics Week, and over on BotJunkie we posted a lot of great stuff, including a bunch of live event coverage. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s some highlights:

-Video of the first public demonstration of Stickybot III, the latest version of Stanford’s climbing robot that uses the same type of sticky material that gecko toes are made of to stick itself to a sheet of glass.

-Video from the back seat of Junior III, a robotic car that can drive (and park!) itself.

-Video demonstration of the world’s fastest industrial robot, the Adept Quattro, as it goes up against a moving platform controlled with a Wiimote.

There’s more coverage over on BotJunkie.com, so come check it out!

[ BotJunkie ]

By Evan Ackerman

The problem with true three dimensional displays (displays that you can walk around) is that they require pixels to be floating in space. This has been done with lasers and plasma, but such technologies are super expensive and limited in many ways. MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory in collaboration with ARES Lab (Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems Laboratory) has hit upon the idea of creating huge free form three dimensional displays out of individual “smart pixels” made up of micro helicopters carrying LEDs:

Gigantic 3D displays made up of swarms of micro helicopters that can be released into any open space… How awesome is that? More, after the jump.

We’ve talked about the benefits of swarm robotics before over on BotJunkie: it’s relatively cheap because the individual robots are simple, if any one robot breaks it’s easy to replace, and it’s easily scalable since you can just toss more bots into the mix. You can even use swarms to compensate for things like batteries: if you initially launch your robots in waves, you can have a whole other group of standby robots that dynamically replace the performing robots as their batteries run out, flying up with their LEDs off to switch places without anybody noticing.

The tricky part, of course, is getting everything to work together. MIT has big plans for the system, though…

The Flyfire canvas can transform itself from one shape to another or morph a two-dimensional photographic image into an articulated shape. The pixels are physically engaged in transitioning images from one state to another, which allows the Flyfire canvas to demonstrate a spatially animated viewing experience. Flyfire serves as an initial step to explore and imagine the possibilities of this free-form display: a swarm of pixels in a space.

You could even play an HD movie on system… Let me see, to play a movie in 1080p (trying to get it to do 1080i with half the number of bots would be pretty interesting but probably impossible, unless you could get them to do barrel rolls at 60 Hz or something to form the interlacing) you’d need over 2 million micro copters to form the base screen, plus however many more are required to swap out for recharging. Fun to think about, but maybe it would be better to just stick with standard def, since you’d only need about 350,000 bots.

While the video is a rendering, the robots are real enough, and hopefully we can expect to see some live demos of the entire system sometime soon.

[ Flyfire ] VIA [ BotJunkie ]

By Evan Ackerman

Next door to CES is the Adult Entertainment Expo, and as a journalist, it’s my obligation to go. And I heard that the world’s first sex robot was going to be making its (her?) debut. On Friday I spent about 10 minutes interviewing the CEO of True Companion about the robot to get an overview and some background, and we’ve been promised a live demo today.

We’ve got a video after the break that’s probably NSFW, since it shows a scantily clad (but not naked) android and there is some mild discussion of sex. I’d probably call it PG-13, but certainly not R or X. If this type of thing bothers you, no worries, just skip this post.

Here are the facts from the press release:

-Roxxxy TrueCompanion is anatomically consistent with a human

-She can hear you, speak to you, feel your touch, carry on a conversation, and have an orgasm

-Artificial intelligence engine lets Roxxxy learn your likes and dislikes

-Comes preloaded with 5 separate girlfriend personalities, including:

-Frigid Farrah (reserved and shy)
-Wild Wendy (outgoing and adventurous)
-S&M Susan (“ready to provide your pain/pleasure fantasies”)
-Young (“she is oh so young (barely 18) and waiting for you to teach her”)
-Mature Martha (“she is very experienced and would like to teach you”)

-You can design your own personality profiles and share them online

I’m not really sure what I can possibly add to that, so here’s the interview:

If you have questions, now’s the time, we’ll pass them on to Douglas (the guy in the video).

[ Roxxxy TrueCompanion ]

By Jonathan Kimak

A while ago my now deceased grandmother had to move into a nursing home. The stress of moving into that place was nearly overwhelming for her and had it not been for our dog Tommy my grandmother might have died within the first month. The companionship between our dog and my grandmother gave her(in my opinion) 4 more good years of life. It also gave her someone to pet and talk to without worrying about what he thought.

It is this sense of companionship that robotics engineers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan focused on during the 12 years spent creating Paro.

Paro is a fur covered robot that resembles a baby seal. Its function is to act as a therapeutic pet in situations where a real pet could not or should not be used. It helps both kids in hospitals and seniors in nursing homes relax and socialize and can really extend their life or at least their enjoyment of life.

Some nursing homes in the US already carry Paro and it’s likely that more will follow.

[ Paro ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Jonathan Kimak

Researchers at Queen’s University have created a robot that can play a decent game of pool, billiards or snooker. Dubbed Deep Green(likely a nod to the chess playing computer Deep Blue) the robot is ceiling mounted and uses a Global Vision System to see all the balls on the pool table. It also has a Local Vision System which detects objects in front of the cue ball so as to better select the right shot.

The robot can produce power from none to 3 m/s for the average shot and up to 12 m/s for the initial breaking shot using a pneumatic break cue actuator.

There have been pool playing robots around since the 1980′s but this one is touted as the best of the best. It is ranked at slightly above amateur status for now but improvements are being made constantly so that eventually the robot could become a true pool shark.

With the name Deep Green it’s clear the designers want it to eventually challenge a true professional in some televised(and sponsored) matches.

[ Computer.org ] VIA [ Tech Digest ]

This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announced today that it was developing what it calls a Personal Transport Assistance Robot known as Winglet. TMC says that it is still in the process of refining the Winglet and it plans the device to be a small and compact robot that will offer ease of movement and expand a user’s range of mobility.

I can’t tell from that description if it intends the Winglet to be a scooter for the masses to use rather than a car, or if this is one sort of assistance device for those with problems walking like the elderly. At any rate, TMC has created three different Winglet models that only vary in how tall they are. The height difference for the models is from the different length handles used that give riders something to grasp.

The models include the “L”, “M” and “S” and all of them share some common features. The Winglet body has a projected area about the size of an A3 sheet of paper that measures 265 mm long by 464 mm wide. Inside the housing resides the motor, two wheels, and internal sensors that detect the rider’s position and adjust power to maintain stability.

The “L” model uses a hands-free riding style is 462 mm tall, weighs 9.9kg, and has a 5 km cruise range. The “M” model is 680 mm tall, weighs 12.3 kg and has a cruise range of 10 km. The “S” model is 1,130 mm tall, weighs 12.3 kg, and has a 10 km cruise range. All three models have the same 5 km/h cruise speed, 0 meter turn radius, and a full battery charge takes one hour.

Via Gadgetoholic