Hasta La Gadget!

We all know about the Terminator movie series, but if you were a goose, surely you will hear of the Goosinator robot soon. No, this is not one robot that eliminates geese for fun, but rather, the Goosinator is a bright orange colored robot that is being tested at the moment to ensure that geese do not loaf around the same place for too long a time. Basically, a single goose is capable of dropping a minimum of one pound of poop each day, and when you multiply that by flock after flock, and it would have turned out to be a gross and expensive problem.

Normally, dogs were used to discourage the geese, but these is an expensive solution that amounts up to $500 a day, so this is where the Goosinator comes in handy. Basically, the Goosinator is a remote-controlled, battery-powered robot which is made from orange foam, and has been painted to resemble a devilish, grinning beast, ambling along at up to 25 miles per hour. This is definitely a humane manner of returning wildlife back to the wild, and each Goosinator costs around $3,000 each.

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Secom has come up with an autonomous flying surveillance robot that, when working in a pack or in tandem with one another, would be able to deliver added peace of mind. Considering how the world has turned out to be a more and more dangerous place by the day, it makes perfect sense to enlist whatever kind of help possible to help you in securing your property or area where you live. Just how does Secom’s autonomous flying surveillance robots work? For instance, whenever there is an unauthorized person or vehicle that enters a parking lot of commercial facilities, manufacturing plant, site of a storehouse, or other sites where it patrols, the robot will approach said person or vehicle, followed by snapping photos of it. This would come in handy for security forces to track a suspicious looking vehicle, as well as operate in areas where there are no surveillance cameras or cameras which are too far away to capture a decent shot or video recording.

Of course, it does make one wonder whether someone with malicious intent would just shoot down these robots, and will the robot be smart enough to perform evasive maneuvers? Perhaps, or I might just be getting my imagination ahead of me. Still, this would greatly assist security forces around buildings to perform a more thorough check and patrol of the area for sure, and assuming Secom’s flying robots go about their business quietly, these mechanical automatons might just be stealthy enough to capture a robbery in progress.

The robot will carry a laser sensor, camera, communication device, computer, and LED lamps among others, measuring around 80cm in diameter while tipping the scale at 1.6kg. It has a battery reserve that allows it to fly non-stop for approximately 15 minutes, and we do wonder what kind of CMOS sensor this bad boy to carry, as not all places it is going to patrol will be well lighted, and is there a flash function built-in?

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[ Secom flying surveillance robots offers peace of mind copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Humanity is still very far from coming up with a robot that is so intelligent, it could function in the same way that we see C3-PO and Sonny (from I, Robot fame) interact. Well, this does not mean that we are not going to try (and hopefully, not die trying). A team from Switzerland has taken it up upon themselves to create a humanoid looking robot that intends to come in the form of a realistic robot boy. Known as Roboy, it was developed by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Zurich, and comes across as a tendon-driven humanoid robot which will share a similar physical size as that of a human four year old.

Roboy is unique as it will focus closely on replicating the functions of human tendons, joints, bones, and muscles. Being in the construction phase, the group of researchers behind Roboy intend to raise funds enough to kick start Roboy’s production, and they intend to do so by taking the age old route of advertising, that is, selling logo space on its body. Roboy is tipped to be completed by the time March 2013 rolls around – you down to purchase one if you can afford it?

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Having a human swim across an expanse of water like the English Channel is surely an achievement not to be trifled with, but rather, to be celebrated by the rest of the world, but do we do the same when it comes to robots? After all, robots do not have emotions, and they certainly are not out to chase records and all. The thing is, behind each robot is a human (at least that is the way things are at the moment, not until the robot apocalypse happens ala Terminator and we see robots start to make robots…), and certainly the human behind the robot’s conception and creation must be pretty darn proud if said robot was able to perform amazing tasks. Case in point, this particular self-controlled swimming robot which actually completed a journey from San Francisco all the way to Australia, covering a record-breaking 9,000 nautical miles (that would be 16,668km just in case you were wondering), a trip that required the PacX Wave Glider to spend more than a year in water to achieve.

Liquid Robotics is the US-based company behind the project, where the PacX Wave Glider’s main role is to collect data concerning the Pacific Ocean’s temperature, salinity and ecosystem from the drone itself. The company claimed that the success with PacX Wave Glider’s Herculean attempt is proof that such technology could actually “survive the high seas”, in their own words.

With a name like Papa Mau, this robot takes on a far more personal character, where it was so named in honour of the late Micronesian navigator Pius “Mau” Piailug, whose claim to fame was his innate ability to look out for ways to navigate through the seas without the need for traditional equipment.

Liquid Robotics said, “During Papa Mau’s journey, [it] weathered gale-force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the east Australian current to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay, near Bundaberg, Queensland.” What other record breaking feats from robots that you would like to see?

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[ Swimming robot arrives at Australia, breaks record in the process copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Some of you will think this guy is the best dad ever, while others will think he is lazy. Personally I think he’s pretty awesome. Paul Wallich has entrusted a quadcopter to walk his son to the bus stop.

The quadcopter was keyed in to track a GPS beacon in his son’s backpack. This is high-tech parenting at its best. This flying drone can follow his child from a set distance and make sure the kid stays safe and out of trouble, while pop watches the remote video camera from the comfort of his computer screen.

Getting this device to follow his kid was the tricky part. An RFID solution would have required a bulkier antenna than the craft could really carry. So he used a navigation program that keeps the copter a set distance away from the GPS beacon it is following. This kid is hopefully pretty popular right now thanks to his dad’s inventiveness.

Now he just needs to rig it to fire projectiles at any bullies his son encounters on the way to school.

[via iEEE Spectrum via Geekosystem]