They say it doesn’t matter how long you live, the world will continue to
provide with "first-time experiences." That adage apparently goes for
landmark buildings as well. This year with the iconic Empire State
Building celebrating its 82nd birthday, its new LED lighting system lit
up the skyline in syncopation with the July 4th fireworks on the Hudson
River.
The Asimo robot, made by the folks over at Honda, is one of the most recognizable robots in the world. He may have been able to charm the press into giving him some air time, but he is having a hard time charming museum guests at his new job as a tour guide in Tokyo.
Though it may look like a gigantic
tablet, Hewlett-Packard’s Slate21 does not include a built-in
battery. The company seems to be trumpeting the device as a
power-efficient, if underpowered, home PC.
A team of engineers at the German
Aerospace Center have made a new robot designed to walk more like a man. The robot is called Torque Controlled
Humanoid Robot, or TORO for short, and he is an upgraded version of an older robot that you may have seen in the past, the DLR-Biped.
A robot system for milking a cow can cost as much as $800,000, but an increasing amount of farmers have been turning to them, as a way to make the milking process to be more cost effective. The milking systems, which work with the help of an app, can help some farmers.
A team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has recently completed a new test on robots. In what could be dubbed the ultimate in remote contol a team on the International Space Station has been able to control a robot on earth in real time. This test will help with future bot visits to other planets.
A strange sporting contest is currently taking place in the Ducth city of Eindhoven. The town is currently home to about 40 teams of robots that are playing soccer. The tournament, which has been dubbed RoboCup is looking for the best in sports androids. The eventual goal, to beat human players.
The UP from Jawbone helps to monitor your health via your smartphone, and a stylish writstband. Think of it as your personal fitness trainer, there 24 hours a day.
We’ve been hearing rumblings that the FAA wants to start letting you use certain gadgets on airplanes through the “terrible 10,000 feet,” and according to the WSJ, it’s about to do just that. A 28-member industry and government panel’s draft report strongly recommended relaxing blanket rules against electronics that have been in place since 1966 due to massive changes in technology since then. The committee also cited reports showing that passengers often forget to turn off gadgets without any consequences and that airlines, left to enact their own rules, are much too conservative. If it goes along with the document, the FAA will likely allow the use of certain devices, like e-readers and music players, during all phases of flight — though the ban on cellphones is expected to continue since the panel wasn’t authorized to broach that controversial issue. As for other devices, the details are still being bandied about, and the FAA is unlikely to announce a formal decision until the end of September. Still, now might be a good time to start fortifying that music and book collection ahead of your next big trip.
Filed under: Misc
Source: WSJ (subscription)
When it comes to fighting fires there are a lot of methods that can be used. Many of them, if not all, involve some kind of a risk to the lives of human beings. The use of new fire fighting robots can help change that. One prototype is currently in development at Perdue University.
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