Hasta La Gadget!

The Phoenix Frankenprogram to harvest the corpses of expired satellites and cobble together new ones seemed like one of DARPA’s more daft ideas, but this one has actually kicked off its first phase of development. The plan is to first launch a service craft — replete with robotic arms and enough processing horsepower to work independently if needed — followed by the tiny base-unit skeleton satlets. The service mothership would dip into an orbital area called the “graveyard”, grabbing pre-chosen cadavers and picking off usable parts, especially valuable antenna arrays, with its robo-limbs. Those parts would be jury-rigged to the bare-bones units, creating usable Pentagon satellites and saving the $10,000 per pound launch cost. So far, a $2.5 million contract to develop the needed technology has been put in place, and bids for the no-frills satlets went out last week. Plenty of dirty work is still needed, so check the video after the break to see if the overly-elaborate plan can un-moot $300 billion of orbiting cold metal.

Continue reading Pentagon starts Phoenix trial to harvest defunct satellites, MacGyver new ones from orbit

Pentagon starts Phoenix trial to harvest defunct satellites, MacGyver new ones from orbit originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan got itself in the good graces of many a Futurama fan after creating Bender’s ancestor. Then again, another Japanese robotic creation — one that specializes in rock, paper, scissors — may actually have more in common with the morally questionable, beer-guzzling bot. That’s because this sneaky little future overlord wins 100 percent of its matches by using an oh-so human trait known as cheating. See, the researchers at the University of Tokyo’s 4chan, er, Ishikawa Oku Laboratory programmed the “Janken” robot to recognize its human opponent’s hand shape and counter it within a millisecond. Adding to the troll factor is the fact that it was unwittingly named the “Human-Machine Cooperation System” because, well, it needs the cooperation of some poor human sap to work its magic. The achievement joins other man-versus-machine milestones, including losses by humans in chess and shogi. Of course, the question now is, what happens if you pit two “Janken” machines against each other?

Continue reading Japanese robot trolls humans at rock-paper-scissors, sadly wasn’t named the UMADBRO 9000 (video)

Japanese robot trolls humans at rock-paper-scissors, sadly wasn’t named the UMADBRO 9000 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers at Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology have created a one-foot tall robot that does nearly everything that a real DJ can do. The robot–called Shimi–is an interactive “musical buddy” that acts as an Android smartphone docking station. Once Shimi gets access to the music library stored on your Android device, the bot can offer song recommendations, pick up the beat of the music, dance along to it and play songs based on feedback.

Shimi can also take advantage of the smartphone’s camera and use its face-detection software to follow anyone as they move around a particular room while the bot continuously positions its speakers in the listener’s direction for the best sound experience. If a listener taps or claps out a beat for Shimi to analyze, it can look through the music library and play up songs with a similar rhythm and tempo. When the music starts playing, get ready to see Shimi dance.

Now a dancing robot that follows you around is pretty cool, but it looks like Shimi still has a bit of growing up to do. Future plans are in the works for apps that will allow any music listener to shake their head or wave a hand at the bot, which Shimi will use to change or skip songs and learn more about the listener’s taste in music.

Professor Gil Weinberg, director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology is expected to reveal the Shimi bot today at the Google I/O conference. SlashGear will be covering the events today, so check back  to see if the Shimi robot is spotted in action!

Shimi is an Android smartphone-enabled robot that can dance is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
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This rudimentary robot hand, developed by the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory in Japan, never loses at Rock, Paper, Scissors. It has a perfect record against everyone who’s ever challenged it, but that’s only because it can see and react faster than any human being can. More »

With technology improving at a rapid rate, we’re starting to see that being incorporated into live shows and tours more than ever. This includes holographic projections of artists who have passed (i.e. Tupac and Elvis), along with LED lights shaped that the bodies of dancers, so we guess dancing robots did not exactly come as a surprise. In South Korea, Dongbu Group has announced that they will be release robots that look and dance like the country’s famous K-pop (Korean pop) idols, such as Super Junior and Girls’ Generation.

The project dubbed “K-pop Star Robots” is a joint effort by Dongbu Robots, Intelligent Recreational Robots and Ocean Bridge E&T. These robots will come with a high-powered motor that allows them to bend 20 of their joints, ranging from their neck, their waists, their thighs to their hips which will help to simulate the fluid dance moves from these Korean pop groups. The K-pop Star Robots are expected to see a launch by the end of the year which means that at the moment, there aren’t any video examples to be had. So what do you guys think? Any particular musician/group you’d like to be seen made into a robot as well?

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