Hasta La Gadget!

If a seemingly infinitely programmable mini computer like the Raspberry Pi is just too… limiting, we’ve got good news: the Gertboard extender has started shipping. The $48 companion board reaching customers’ doorsteps converts analog to digital and back for Raspberry Pi fans developing home automation, robotics and just about anything else that needs a translation between the computing world and less intelligent objects. The one catch, as you’d sometimes expect from a homebrew project, is the need for some assembly — you’ll have to solder together Gert van Loo’s Arduino-controlled invention on your own. We imagine the DIY crowd won’t mind, though, as long as they can find the fast-selling Gertboard in the first place.

[Image credit: Stuart Green, Flickr]

Filed under: Misc

Gertboard extender for Raspberry Pi ships to advanced tinkerers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering how much of an asset wheelchairs can be for the physically disabled, they still have some pretty substantial limitations — the biggest being the inability to climb stairs. Most public places have elevators, but sadly they’re not available everywhere. A new wheelchair concept, however, has the ability to climb stairs and perform other leg-like movements.

Engineers from the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan have come up with a robotic wheelchair concept that gives physically-disabled individuals the ability to climb stairs without moving a single leg muscle. The wheelchair has five axes that it moves on. This allows the wheelchair to lift up off the ground and move in a walking fashion.

It can climb steps and move around various obstacles whilst remaining surprisingly stable. It can even turn 360 degrees around its center. The wheelchair also has a ton of sensors that detect incoming obstructions and automatically deals with them as they come, and if the sensors fail, wheel torque can be automatically adjusted to act as a backup.

The video shows the robotic wheelchair in action, and we have to say that it looks extremely advanced for just being a concept. Hopefully, this is just the beginning and we’ll see the wheelchair gain even more features in the future. The designer wants a lot of people to try it so that he can fine-tune the wheelchair as much as possible.

[via TechHive]

Robotic wheelchair concept provides leg-like movements, climbs stairs is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Have you ever wondered just when did the world of mobile phones make the jump to that of a full touchscreen display? Well, I guess the Palm Treo (did you remember that particular smartphone? I had a Treo 600, and was in love with it for a long time) was one of the first few commercially successful models, but none of them really caught the imagination of the masses until the iPhone from Apple came out. Fantastic marketing, a decent product, with a ripe market, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for success. The iPhone has not looked back since, and has gone on to break new records with each successive release. This also introduced an era of touchscreen displays for smartphones, leading up till today when T-Mobile talked about their Tappy device testing robot.

According to Grant Castle, vice president of engineering services and quality assurance for T-Mobile USA, Tappy is a custom built software testing robot, and T-Mobile is proud to announce that they are the only carrier in the US to offer such a robot at their disposal.

Tappy will play the role of the consumer, where he has been specially programmed to simulate just what kind of real world scenarios that users or customers will face when using a touchscreen display on their smartphones, and since this is a robot that needs not rest, eat or sleep, the robot is able to test an entire week’s worth of use over the course of 24 hours, ranging from the keyboard to user interface speeds which is the responsiveness of the software is to the user’s commands, battery life, music, voice calls, gaming, text messaging, e-mail, web browsing, and app downloads amongst others.

It is not that easy to pass Tappy’s test, as the device being tested will need to run non-stop for 24 hours, while executing hundreds of tasks without running into a single hiccup, stall, freeze or glitch.

Tappy’s debut half a decade ago, coupled with numerous quality improvement programs, has effectively allowed T-Mobile to reduce device return costs by 75%, now how about that?

As a T-Mobile customer, are you happy with what T-Mobile has done?

Press Release

[ T-Mobile’s Tappy is a device testing robot copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Tomorrow’s robots and security systems could be able to face-recognize three times as many people using a fraction of the processing power, according to NEC. The company’s new large-scale image processing tech can track and identify faces and clothing – as well as potentially suspicious behavior – for three times the number of people in-frame simultaneously, compared to existing systems, a potential boon not only to security installations in airports and shopping centers, but for your friendly home robot.

Facial recognition in robotics so far has generally been a compromise between power, accuracy, and speed. The open-source Qbo robot, for instance, uses a combination of local and cloud-based processing, able to learn and the recognize familiar faces and objects, as well as crowd-source identification of objects other Qbo ‘bots have been trained to identify.

However, early home robots – such as Sony’s Aibo – were altogether more humble in their capabilities; the robot dog, for instance, was able to spot and track a colorful ball, but its face recognition was rudimentary. Similarly, identification systems for phones and laptops, where systems can be unlocked after recognizing the user, have struggled to balance the responsiveness those users demand with the accuracy required for true biometric security.

NEC’s system could streamline that process, by reducing server load for tracking smaller numbers of people at any one time. The primary implementation is likely to be in security systems, however, where the more efficient monitoring will allow fewer staff to keep on top of greater numbers of potentially dangerous people.

NEC boosts people-spotting tech for robots and CCTV is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we’ve had the chance to catch up with the folks at iRobot who have let us in on several new robotic cleaning machines in their Scooba and Roomba lineups. In our interview with the group we started out with the iRobot Scooba 390, a device that works with a four-stage cleaning process for a scrub-tastic cleaning of your large flat floor – toss out your mops! We had a peek at the iRobot Scooba 290 next, made much tinier to make with the small bathroom cleaning – gotta get behind those porcelain thrones, after all.

The iRobot Scooba 390 uses a four-stage cleaning process that starts with preparation step, moves on to washing, follows up with a scub, and finishes it all off with some squeegee action. This unit is said by iRobot to remove up to 98% of your common household bacteria and is, in the end, the best item in your home to destroy your mop in a robot battle. You wont need a sweep with this device either, just set it down after you’ve added the necessary components inside (like clean water), and let it roll.

This interview filmed at Showstoppers during IFA 2012!

Next is the iRobot Scooba 230 which is, again, made much smaller to get in your smaller areas where the 390 never could. This unit is another floor washing robot that’s made to take the place of your mop. It’s able to clean around your toilet, under cabinets, and on tile, linoleum, or sealed hardwood floors. Like its bigger brother, the Scooba 230 uses a multi-stage cleaning process, this time just three required to take out 97% of common household bacteria. This time you DO have to sweep, mind you, but it’s just so cute!

The Scooba 230 will cost you $279.99 from iRobot’s online store, and the 390 will run you $499.99 USD – with free shipping, even! Also check the tail-end of the video out for the hero line of iRobot’s Roomba line – getting better all the time! Then make sure to head to our iRobot tag portal to see the rest of our iRobot coverage from the past and keep on picking up robots for your home!

iRobot Scooba 390 and 290 hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.