It seems logical that if you’re designing a flying robot, you might borrow a few ideas from Mother Nature’s airborne repertoire. But researchers at NYU instead too their inspiration from under the sea for this unusual robotic craft that flies through the air the same way a jellyfish moves through the ocean.
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No cowboy hat. No chaps. Not even a six gun. The latest helper to round up livestock is a robot. What has the world come to? Earlier this month in Sydney, Australia, a team from the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics tested the four-wheeled remote-controlled robot called Rover.
“The cows readily accepted the robotic herder and were easily controlled by it,” Dan Kara, a research officer for analyst firm ARISPlex, wrote in a report. “Groups of 20 to 150 cows were calmly and efficiently herded.” That’s because cows are stupid. They don’t fear robots they way they should. This robot is working so well that future Rovers will be used to gather data at night to monitor pregnant cows, as well as to detect holes in fences and problems in the soil.
The robot is $1 million right now but it is still basically a prototype. There’s another job taken by robots. Sorry cowboys.
Next they will be herding humans. It won’t be long now.
Northrop Grumman’s newest infomercial about its unmanned autonomous air, land, and sea vehicles feels like one of those typical foretelling montages that you see in dystopian sci-fi movies.
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ATLAS
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In what some are calling the first robot suicide (issues of sentience aside), a Roomba reportedly activated itself in an Austrian home and rolled itself over to a hot stove top, where it pushed a cooking pot off the surface and proceeded to wheel around the hot area before eventually melting to the surface and […]
It’s always nice to have a little buddy around that’s trained to do what you want it to. Some of us get dogs or other furry creatures, but a start-up called Curio is hoping there’s a good chunk of folks who would like to have a robotic companion, too. You see, Curio is a cute little bot platform filled with a pair of motors that move its mouth and head, and has a small LCD screen that serves as its face. The toy clips to any smartphone or tablet running the associated app, which in turn allows users to set its facial expression, determine its movements and even tell it what to say.
While the app will come with a bunch of pre-set actions, expressions and sounds, its makers are also working up a programming portion of the app, so tinkerers can create their own custom Curio mods. This programming interface is a series of parallel timelines that allow you to chronologically lay out different facial expressions, movements and audio simply by dragging and dropping them where you like. And Curio’s built to be physically customized, too. Company founder Mike Kneupfel thinks that his bots can take advantage of the 3D printing craze by letting folks make their own tails, ears, and other accessories that clip onto Curio. He tells us that he aims to put a bunch of accessory blueprints on MakerBot’s Thingiverse to make it easy for folks to print stuff out, but he’s hoping that users will get creative and design their own as well.
When Robocop
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If there was a particular gift that I would like to have, it would be the ability to understand all the different languages in the world. What a great gift that would be! I know of some people who are fluent in 6 or 7 languages, bless their souls, and the ease at which they switch from one language to another never ceases to amaze me. I suppose robots would be able to handle languages easily with enough processing power and the right kind of algorithm provided for them. Case in point, the fictional C3-PO from the Star Wars universe who is well versed as a protocol droid in thousands of galactic languages. This particular robot that you see above is not that nifty, but it is still able to carry out a conversation in 19 different languages.
Coming in a form factor that is roughly that of a toddler’s, it was constructed by Paris-based robotics company Aldebaran, where it was programmed with language-learning software which was developed by the voice-technology company known as Nuance. This robot is able to move around with a basic walking movement, and has the ability to develop its own personality each time it improves on its speech via repetition. Marine Fabrea, Aldebaran’s head of communications, shared, “He lives his life on your side at home. You can discuss with him, you can ask him to tell a story to your kids.
Robot Does 19 Languages, Could Be Blueprint For Future C3-PO original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Quick, where’s your phone? Within arm’s reach? On your desk? Next to your computer? Charging? Or possibly, in your hand at this very moment? Yeah, we can’t get enough of our phones. Big Lazy Robot VFX poked fun at humanity’s addiction to smartphones in this clever toy robot video iDiots. Yeah, we know what we are.
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One thing is for sure – getting caught in a cave in is definitely not an idea of fun, especially for those who are claustrophobic in nature. In fact, it makes perfect sense for tunnels, including those that make up a subway route or mountain roads will need to be inspected on a regular basis just to make sure that no structural degradation has taken place, and if so, something needs to be done about it as soon as possible.Most of the time, the naked human eye would be the one that makes such an inspection, but the European Union ROBINSPECT program might offer an alternative that does a better job than normal humans.
A semi-autonomous robotic unit will run proceedings, where it comprises of a tiny unmanned vehicle that has a crane mounted on top of it. Right at the end of the crane lies a robotic arm that sports a plethora of sensors, where it will get to work throughout the entire length of the subway, motorway or tunnel to perform an inspection. It is touted to be sensitive enough to figure out cracks, faults like rust stains and corrosion, as well as exposed reinforcements, which could have been missed by regular human inspectors. The inspection speed stands at approximately one meter per second. It is said that a working prototype is tipped to be prepared by 2014, with the London underground being one of the early test beds.
ROBINSPECT Is A Tunnel Inspecting Robot original content from Ubergizmo. 
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