Hasta La Gadget!

So it seems that not only will robots be taking over the place of Chinese workers in Apple’s production factories, but they may very well start invading our restaurants too. For those who remember, Cui Runquan produced a noodle cutting robot called Chef Cui a while back, and it seems that he has made good on his promise to produce these robots en masse and who may very well start invading various noodle bar establishments located in China.

According to one particular chef, not only is the Chef Cui robot more efficient and better at slicing noodles compared to their human counterpart, but they are cheaper as well. Priced at $1,500, this is cheaper than hiring a chef whose salary could cost restaurant owners $4,700 a year. According to its creator, the only reason for Chef Cui existing is because the younger generation are not willing to spend their lives cutting noodles. As an interesting note for those who are into Japanese cuisine, it has been said that sushi chefs start off by washing rice and that is their sole job for many years until they are finally allowed to start preparing sushi. In any case you can see the Chef Cui robot in action in the video above.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Chef Cui, the noodle shaving robot, Honda unveils the Miimo robotic grass cutter destined for European markets in 2013,

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to slice all of those noodles in China, and Chef Cui is taking on the task. This noodle-slicing robot was developed by Cui Runguan, a Chinese restaurateur and it is now being mass-produced and sold in China.

He slices noodles into boiling water and that’s it. The robot has no fancy bells and whistles. Although it does light up for some reason. Maybe to slice noodles at night. This might actually be cheaper for restaurants to purchase instead of employing humans – assuming that there’s some worker standing around whose only job is to cut up noodles all day.

These robots cost about $2,000(USD), while the average worker makes about $4,700 a year. Too bad for the workers. There goes another job that humans used to do.

[via Eater via Geekosystem]

Why hire workers, when you can use skilled robots that are more efficient and productive? Apparently the trend has skyrocketed, particularly in China and Netherlands, where companies such as Philips and Foxconn are planning to utilize a new wave of robots in its factories. Philips is already using roughly 128 robot arms to do the same work in its factories while Apple device manufacturer Foxconn is planning to install more than a million robots within a few years to supplement its work force. However, the Taiwanese multinational electronics manufacturing company did not disclose how many workers will be displaced or when.

“With these machines, we can make any consumer device in the world,” said Binne Visser, an electrical engineer who manages the Philips assembly line. Although this could prove to be an asset or a liability to China’s labor cost advantage, veteran roboticist Bran Ferren thinks that the dream is elusive. “I had an early naivete about universal robots that could just do anything,” said Ferren. “You have to have people around anyway. And people are pretty good at figuring out, how do I wiggle the radiator in or slip the hose on? And these things are still hard for robots to do.”

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: NASA reveals mission to study Mars’ core, Solar-powered Wave Glider robot tracks down sharks,

The hunter becomes the hunted – but in a good way, of course. I am referring to this solar-powered robot created by scientists, where it will harness the power of the sun to keep it going, while it will do its job to track down sharks in order to keep tabs on their travel patterns as well as remaining numbers in the wild. Teams of scientists from Stanford University and Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey Bay have spent the better part of their lives tagging and tracking sharks so that they can better figure out these magnificent beasts’ mysterious migration patterns. (more…)

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I’ve always wanted to play with R/C aircrafts, but even with my “easy to fly” AR.Drone 2.0, I find myself crashing the thing into walls and the ceiling indoors. Thanks to some impressive work by MIT’s Robust Robotics Group, we might someday be able to fly autonomous planes that are so smart that they can avoid obstacles on their own.

By using a special set of algorithms to calculate the plane’s trajectory, as well as its state (i.e. location, orientation, velocity and acceleration), the fixed-wing plane is able to fly quickly through cramped quarters, avoiding obstacles with ease. In fact, this plane can fly within centimeters of obstacles at a high rate of speed without crashing. The plane uses a laser rangefinder, accelerometers and gyroscopes to figure out its state, and a hugely complex series of computations to navigate through its environment.

While autonomous helicopters and quadrotors have been around for a while, a 2-meter-wide plane that can negotiate confined spaces with aplomb poses a much greater challenge, as it cannot hover, go sideways or make up arbitrary motions like those other aircraft. At this point, it appears that the system requires at least a rough, pre-existing 3-D map of its environment to work properly, but I’m sure with time they can figure out a way for the environment to be mapped in real-time as well. Kinect, anyone?

At this point, MIT isn’t specifying the exact applications for their design, but beyond military and rescue operations, I REALLY want to see a consumer version so I can stop crashing my AR.Drone.