Hasta La Gadget!

If you have $16,000 lying around and I hankering to virtually cruise the halls of some distant office, Suitable Technologies has something suitable that it has just debuted. The company has new telepresence robot called the Beam Remote Presence System or Beam RPS.

The robot requires three components, the robotic device itself, the client software, and the Beam Docking Station. The docking station is where the remote user parks the robot to recharge. The bot stands 62-inches tall and weighs 95 pounds. It has a 17-inch screen that shows the operator’s life-sized face to be displayed – assuming your head will fit on a 17-inch screen.

The Beam’s internal rechargeable battery is a good for up to eight hours of use and the robot can cruise around at 1.5 m/s. The robot has an integrated wireless radios for control and has a pair of HD cameras providing a 170° field of view vertically and horizontally. The robot also has a microphone array with six microphone beams to eliminate background noise and echo. It also has an integrated speaker system with LED lamps for lowlight operation.

With much cheaper options coming in a few months, and others coming soon, I’m not sure of the market for a $16,000 telepresence ‘bot, but it’s just more evidence that with time we’re going to start seeing robots roaming the halls sooner rather than later.

Life can get pretty hectic sometimes. There’s school if you’re a student, work if you’re already working, and work plus school if you’re getting a graduate degree while doing some hard labor. With all the stuff you have to do on a daily basis, your life can pass you by, if you’re not careful.

So why not get one of these Autographers when they come out, so you can keep track of your life and see if you’re living the kind of life you’ve always wanted to live?

The Autographer is a wearable camera that automatically captures images based on the data that its five sensors – specifically, a magnetometer, color sensor, infrared detector, accelerometer, and thermometer. It uses this data, along with a special algorithm to automatically snap images of meaningful changes throughout the day (and your life).

Like a miniature version of the life-recording camera from several years back, the Autographer was originally created for users with dementia, so they can remember what they’ve been doing easily. But fortunately, some people convinced its creater, OMG, to also make it available to consumers.

The Autographer is priced at £399 (~$649 USD) and will launch in the UK this November. Launches for Japan and the US will follow afterward.

[via PetaPixel via Dvice]

We can thank the Japanese for another wacky gadget that has just been unveiled. The device is called the Shippo, and is a concept right now. It’s a white, fuzzy cat tail that reacts based on the wearer’s mood.

It looks like the perfect complement to Neurowear’s mind controlled robotic cat ears we talked about a while back. The idea is that the wearer would have some sort of sensor on their head that would detect their mood and wag the tail in relation to how they felt. When excited, the tail would wag rapidly.

When relaxed, the tail would wag slowly, and when scared apparently the tail wouldn’t wag at all. The tail works in conjunction with a smartphone app that allows the user to search out places where other users of the Shippo where relaxed. You can even list where wearers found someone else they like wearing the tail, in case they want to meet up. Check out the video above for a glimpse at all the cat tail weirdness.

[via io9]

Have you played Minecraft so much that sometimes you see the world in voxels? This isn’t one of those times. The blocks below are real and even react to being hit by a pickaxe, thanks to the clever work of creative technologist Ben Purdy.

Purdy installed piezoelectric sensors on the cardboard boxes to detect force, i.e. when the boxes are hit. An Arduino microcontroller sends input from the sensors to a computer, which then uses a program written by Purdy to produce the appropriate animation. Finally, the animation is beamed to the paper-covered boxes via two projectors.

You can check out a cleaner video of the Minecraft block on Purdy’s website. I wonder if its possible to use this tech to create an interactive Punch Out! game this way.

[via Kotaku]

Have you ever wanted to control the lights with your smartphone? Now you can, thanks to LIFX Smartbulbs. There have been already some LED lightbulbs that could be controlled by a remote. Now, you can use an app to control the mood of your room – or your entire house – from the comfort of your phone.

LIFX Smartbulbs are naturally energy efficient. One LIFX smartbulb will last 40,000 hours or 25 years, and reduce power consumption by up to 20% from conventional bulbs. Bulbs can be turned off and on, and change the color of the glow to suit your mood. And unlike some remote bulbs, you can control multiple bulbs and multiple locations from a single smartphone iOS or Android app. The app can also match the mood of your tunes, wirelessly. It will beatmatch the music that you are listening to.

The bulbs are also able to detect when you arrive home and turn on the lights for you, and can even be programmed to wake you up naturally, gradually glowing brighter and brighter.

LIFX was launched as a Kickstarter project, and at the time of writing, it had amassed over $1,100,000 of a humble goal of $100,000 – with 55 days of funding left. Needless to say that this project will be made. You’ll have to pledge $69(USD) to get one bulb, or $119 for a pair, or $196 for four bulbs. Further discounts are available for larger quantities. Expected delivery for the LIFX smartbulb is March 2013.