Jan 20
Back in 1968, the videophone was supposed to be just around the corner
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Jan 18
When we last met Play-i’s charming robots Bo and Yana they were busy pounding out tunes on a little colorful Xylophone and raising $1.4 million in crowdfunding cash. Now, however, they’re very nearly ready to ship and are doing some really impressive things that will help kids learn programming while having fun.
You can think of Play-i’s toys as sort of like the simple programming language, Logo, in physical form. You can program the robots using your iOS device and there are a series of introductory games that teach you the rudiments of programming including functions, subroutines, and loops. For example, the app asks you to play certain notes on the xylophone using Bo’s robotic arm – say five blue notes and five pink ones. To do this you must program the robot to hammer down five times, move over a few spaces, and hammer down five more times.
You can also add accessories to the robots and create, say, a platform for your LEGO creations or a mobile spy platform. While I’m always very skeptical of tech toys – they end up in the junk box far too soon and are often far too expensive – I’m impressed with how far the team has come in just a few short weeks. It looks like the product will soon be ready to ship and we will all have weird, blue robots running around our house busily hammering out jaunty tunes on our pets.
Jan 17
A few NASA rovers have been working their way through the Red Planet, each working to expand scientists’ knowledge of Mars and its history. As part of this, large quantities … Continue reading
Jan 17
Robots have certainly captured our imagination over the years, where these soul-less automatons do their bit to make life here on earth a whole lot more bearable and convenient. After all, without robots, how are most of the stuff in a self-respecting factory going to get assembled efficiently and quickly? Having said that, here we are with the Versaball robot which is the creation of Empire Robotics. Tipped to begin shipping later this month, the Versaball is a robot which was specially developed to grip items.
Versaball Robot Picks Up Just About Anything original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 16
Robots that are made to perform certain tasks require a lot of processing power and lots of programming. If you bring in another similar robot, you have to complete that programming again. That may change in the future with a group of researchers testing out something akin to a robot brain based in the cloud called RoboEarth.
The test is the result of a project funded by the EU that has spanned four years. The researchers say RoboEarth is like the World Wide Web for robots. The idea is that robots could upload the steps needed to complete certain tasks to the RoboEarth platform and that way only one robot would need to be programmed and all others could get the steps from the cloud.
“At its core RoboEarth is a world wide web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other,” said Rene van de Molengraft, the RoboEarth project leader.
The RobotEarth system is being tested in a mock hospital room at Eindhoven University. One robot will roll into the mock room and make a map that will be shared with other bots via the RoboEarth system. The other robots will then navigate the room and give the fake patient drinks.
It all sounds really cool, and scary at the same time, like some sort of SkyNet precursor.
[via BBC]
Jan 16
Drones, for the most part, have made the news because of their warfare capabilities. After all imagine being able to land an airstrike on a target without anyone actually being in the plane, that would be pretty nasty, wouldn’t it? However we’ve also seen how drones can be used for good, such as to detect and fend of poachers of endangered animals, but now according to reports, it seems that Russia has developed an interest in drones as well, but not the flying type, but the ground type and possibly even amphibious models as well, meaning that the wars of the future might be fought with robots instead of human beings on the battlefield. Wars aren’t necessarily a good thing but we guess better robots take the heat than human beings.
The drones that Russia is reportedly interested in developing are apparently larger than what the Pentagon had demonstrated back in 2013, and those were pretty impressive and dangerous as it is, so we can’t imagine how much more dangerous and bigger Russia’s drones can get. Will Russia’s drones prove to be more effective than the US and other countries around the world? We’re not so sure we want to find out.
Russia Reportedly Developing Amphibious Drones original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 16
Russia is developing weaponized ground drones, including some big amphibious models like the one you can see here. Add the thousands of combat air drones from many nations already flying through the world and it’s not crazy to think in a full robotic war happening before 2020 somewhere in the world.
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Jan 15
In the last fourteen years, the US Border Patrol has found more than 170 tunnels they believe are used for smuggling contraband between Mexico and the States. Since American law enforcers don’t want to enter the tunnels themselves, they’re sending in cute little robots to do their dirty work.
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Jan 15
Anyone who has been to an underwater aquarium exhibit or have gone diving in waters where there are just so many jellyfish around would be able to share with you the seemingly calm way that these creatures move along in the water, and you almost want to touch them – until you remember that most of them pack quite a deadly sting, fatal at times to some. Well, here is another modern day project that pays homage to the jellyfish in the way it moves. This new small robot will fly through the air and not swim through water in the same manner that a jellyfish swims.
Small Robot Looks Like A Flying Jellyfish original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 15
There are several teams participating in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The contest is to see what team can create a robot that is capable of performing a set of specific … Continue reading
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