Inserting an IV is as common a medical procedure as stitching up a wound, but finding a vein through trial and error means it can still be painful for a patient. And researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem want to change that with a handheld robotic device that uses infrared and electrical sensors to precisely pinpoint a vein and painlessly insert an IV.
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John Ptak recently posted an interesting 1916 cover from Illustrated World magazine showing the futuristic "Electric Titan" robot fighter. Though rarely in humanoid robot form, the multi-soldier death machine of tomorrow was a surprisingly common idea during World War I. Why so outlandish? Because the military predictions of the time were rarely made by the actual military.
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The Roomba cleans your house, but who will keep the Roomba fresh and clean? ColorWare will. The company known for customizing computers, consoles and media players now customizes iRobot’s popular Roomba 780 robotic vacuum cleaner. They’ll even make it look like dirt if you want.
As always, ColorWare offers a variety of metallic and solid colors to paint the Roomba 780. You can specify different colors for seven of the cleaning robot’s parts. However for some reason, ColorWare won’t touch the robot’s butt; that part will always be black. So don’t make fun of my Oreo-themed Roomba. I did the best I could.
The only thing more fun than customizing the Roomba 780′s colors is hearing about its price. If you already have a Roomba 780, ColorWare will give it a paint job for $249 (USD). Don’t have the robot? ColorWare will gladly hand you a custom painted Roomba 780 for $899.
[via Design You Trust]
Have you moved on from the broom to the vacuum cleaner in order to keep your humble abode nice and clean? If you have answered in the affirmative, then you might have also “graduated” to a robotic vacuum cleaner, where the Roomba brand from iRobot would definitely be something that most people are familiar with. What then, is the next evolutionary step for a robotic vacuum cleaner like the Roomba? Juan Lee’s take on the next generation of robotic vacuum cleaners would come in the form of gel-based robot balls.
So far, this particular device has yet to be christened, but it does resemble a Roomba (you do not reinvent the wheel after all), where it is capable of sending out gel balls that are reminders of those sticky hands that you used to purchase for a quarter. The balls themselves will carry tiny robots that are able to “chat” electronically with the main hub, which will in turn suck the balls back in once those tiny critters have gotten the job done – at least to the best of their ability. The hub will then ensure that the small gel-based robot balls will be cleaned up, before they are sent out for yet another cleaning mission. It is right now but a concept, although it would be cool to see it become reality in due time.
Gel-Based Robot Balls Help To Clean Your Pad original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Have you ever wanted ride shotgun in a robotic car as it drives around your neighborhood? Sure, autonomous cars are still very expensive, but how about miniature version? I bet you hadn’t though of that, but a couple of engineers came up with this scaled-down version of Google’s driverless car.
The RoboTech SuperCar is a toy car kit, powered by an Arduino controller. It has RGB LED headlights and tail lights, an ultrasonic sensor, and a 24-pin RC bus that can interface with its microcontroller. The car can operate in several modes, including full RC, computer-assisted RC, or fully-autonomous driving.
The benefit is that it’s low cost compared to a full-size autonomous car, and I’m sure that you can have your own robotic invasion fleet ready soon. It’s definitely something quite ingenious to have around if you want to spy on your neighbors.
[via MAKE]
Forget playing with toy cars; I just want to watch robots do it. In this GIF. For the rest of my life.
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As the Chernobyl and Daiichi Fukushima nuclear disasters illustrated in unnerving clarity, mankind commands technology capable wreaking destruction we can’t clean up without putting people’s lives at risk. That’s why DARPA is hosting the DARPA Robotics Challenge, in hopes of jump starting development of tomorrow’s mechanical first responders.
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How does a robot know that a human is not feeling comfortable at all? I suppose an entire bunch of sensors as well as the right algorithms will be able to do the job, but there is a recent University of Auckland study that showed how a preference for humanlike features on a robot’s display screen might change the way robots work in the future. Around 60% of the participants prefered a robot that displayed the most humanlike skin-colored 3D virtual face, compared to a robot that lacks a face, while a robot that has silver-colored simplified human features on its “face” stand at a 10% approval rate. I guess this means that future robots that are being developed for healthcare as well as home care ought to feature a face that is as close to that of a human as possible in order to build a “bridge” of sorts between human-robot interaction.
Dr Elizabeth Broadbent from the University’s Department of Psychological Medicine, shared, “It’s important for robot designers to know how to make robots that interact effectively with humans, so that people feel comfortable interacting with the robots. One key dimension is robot appearance and how humanlike the robot should be.” Would you mind if future robots were like Sonny in I, Robot?
Robot’s Face Determines Level Of User Comfort original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Synesthesia—a condition in which you confuse one sense for another, like "hearing" the color blue—has inspired some amazing art over the centuries, including works from Wassily Kandinsky and David Hockney. But the latest synesthetic art isn’t made by humans at all. A London audio artist has programmed these five robots to make noise when they run across colors—and the result is electronic symphony base on hue.
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A robot with a tail is not exactly new, as we have seen the likes of it before in the past such as the X-RHex Lite robot. Well, this time around, here is a new take on a robot with a tail, where it has been aptly known as the TailBot, which also holds the distinction of being possibly the only miniature robot that can run, jump and maneuver mid-air, where all of it is made possible because it comes equipped with a tail.
Jianguo Zhao, a doctoral student in electrical engineering at Michigan State University, who also happens to be one of the MSU students who developed the TailBot, said, “When lizards jump up, they use the tail to control the body’s orientation. Because we wanted to design a robot like that, we borrowed ideas from biology to see if we can mimic the abilities found in those animals.” The tail will move to shift the center of gravity of the robot mid-flight, giving it a far higher chance of landing correctly. Despite measuring 3” in height, the TailBot can spring to over 30” into the air, now how about that for a high level of performance? Majority of the TailBot’s pieces were constructed using a 3D printer.
TailBot Robot Leaps With Ease original content from Ubergizmo. 
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