Creepy Animatronic Doll Will Dance for You, Not a Good Thing

This is the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a long time. This life-sized animatronic doll will do a dance just for you. A creepy dance that leaves you feeling bad and sad and creeped out.

creepy robot dancingmagnify

When I first saw this I was like, oh cool. A sexy robot doing a dance. Should be cool. Nope. Not cool at all. From the neck down it all looks good, but then you see that weird lizard-like face and watch it dance, you are sorry that you are sharing the same planet with it and want to kill it with fire. And its gaze follows you.

Jordan Wolfson’s imagination brought this animatronic figure to life. He had some help from his friends at Spectral Motion. The piece is currently being exhibited at David Zwirner Gallery in New York, where I will never ever go now. It incorporates facial recognition technology, allowing her to focus on, and follow visitors at the exhibition until they shiver and run away crying.

[via Metafilter via io9]

Curio is an interactive animatronic toy you can program and play with (hands-on)

SONY DSC

It’s always nice to have a little buddy around that’s trained to do what you want it to. Some of us get dogs or other furry creatures, but a start-up called Curio is hoping there’s a good chunk of folks who would like to have a robotic companion, too. You see, Curio is a cute little bot platform filled with a pair of motors that move its mouth and head, and has a small LCD screen that serves as its face. The toy clips to any smartphone or tablet running the associated app, which in turn allows users to set its facial expression, determine its movements and even tell it what to say.

While the app will come with a bunch of pre-set actions, expressions and sounds, its makers are also working up a programming portion of the app, so tinkerers can create their own custom Curio mods. This programming interface is a series of parallel timelines that allow you to chronologically lay out different facial expressions, movements and audio simply by dragging and dropping them where you like. And Curio’s built to be physically customized, too. Company founder Mike Kneupfel thinks that his bots can take advantage of the 3D printing craze by letting folks make their own tails, ears, and other accessories that clip onto Curio. He tells us that he aims to put a bunch of accessory blueprints on MakerBot’s Thingiverse to make it easy for folks to print stuff out, but he’s hoping that users will get creative and design their own as well.

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Ray Charles Robot Caught Performing In Japan

Ray Charles has been long gone since June 2004, but his memory still lives on in his fans, especially in Osaka, Japan where a life-size animatronic of the legendary musician can be seen performing some of his most notable tracks.

The animatronic Ray Charles can be found belting out tunes in front of Osaka Castle where its creator has made him look and act nearly identical to the real-life version. Well – maybe not look exactly like Ray Charles, but considering this was made by a regular person, we can certainly overlook how terrible its hair looks and that his skin is entirely made of paper clay..

As the music plays, the robo-Ray moves his mouth along with the words to the song and plays the keyboard as well. The music doesn’t come from the keyboard, as many would probably guess, but instead it comes from a small speaker located in his chest. We guess you could say this animatronic Ray Charles carries his music in his heart.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Oreo-Separating Robotic Butler HERB Shows Us How Its Done, Compressorhead Is A Three-Robot Band That Can Play Better Than You,

    

Disney Research robot plays catch and juggles with humans, won’t replace their parents (update: cameras explained!)

Disney Research robot catches and juggles with its human lackeys, won't replace our parents video

It’s entirely possible for robots to juggle or play catch. They’ve usually been relegated to playing with their own kind, however, which is as good an excuse as any for Disney Research to experiment with a ball-tossing robot tailored to games with humans. The animatronic creation uses a depth-aware motion camera — there’s conflicting mentions of using both the Microsoft Kinect and ASUS’ Xtion Pro Live that we’re hoping to sort out — to track any mid-air balls as well as throw them back to a human participant. Disney’s robot does more than just move the robot’s arm to account for imperfect tosses, too, as it knows to feign a dejected look after a botched reception. The company suggests that its invention would ideally bring two-way interaction to theme parks, so it’s more likely to show up at Disneyland before it stands in for a parent in the backyard. It’s just as well; when the Robopocalypse comes, the last thing we’ll want at home is a machine that can toss grenades.

Update: Team member Jens Kober has filled us in on just why both cameras are mentioned. The team started off using the Kinect and switched to the Xtion Pro Live, once it was available, to get hardware-synced timing between a regular camera and the depth camera. The project didn’t require the panning motor or microphone array of Microsoft’s system.

Continue reading Disney Research robot plays catch and juggles with humans, won’t replace their parents (update: cameras explained!)

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: Popular Science

Animatronic Admiral Ackbar: It’s a Costume!

Admiral Ackbar is the only fishhead in the Rebel fleet who can smell a trap from miles away. That makes him one of the smartest characters in the Star Wars galaxy. Anyone would be proud to dress up as the Admiral on Halloween, but your costume won’t be as cool as this one.
ackbar
I present to you the most amazing Admiral Ackbar costume ever. Built by a guy named Mr. Bungle, this costume has actual facial expressions for when you need to alert others of a trap. The head and gloves were each custom molded then loaded with electronically controlled servo motors for realistic movements. Check Ackbar out in action in the video clip below.

Your Rebel force will be in good flippers for sure if you’re wearing this costume.

[via The RPF via Obvious Winner]


Stuffed Toys Alive! replaces mechanical limbs with strings for a much softer feel (hands-on)

Stuffed Toys Alive! replaces mechanical limbs with strings for a much softer feel handson

It worked just fine for Pinocchio, so why not animatronic stuffed bears? A group of researchers from the Tokyo University of Technology are on hand at SIGGRAPH’s Emerging Technologies section this week to demonstrate “Stuffed Toys Alive!,” a new type of interactive toy that replaces the rigid plastic infrastructure used today with a seemingly simple string pulley-based solution. Several strings are installed at different points within each of the cuddly gadget’s limbs, then attached to a motor that pulls the strings to move the fuzzy guy’s arms while also registering feedback, letting it respond to touch as well. There’s not much more to it than that — the project is ingenious but also quite simple, and it’s certain to be a hit amongst youngsters. The obligatory creepy hands-on video is waiting just past the break.

Continue reading Stuffed Toys Alive! replaces mechanical limbs with strings for a much softer feel (hands-on)

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