We have yet to arrive in the age of SkyNet, which is a good thing when you think about it, but chances are we might very well be on the way there already. We have seen how the military, whether in the sky, on the ground or under the water have begun to make use of robots for their operations in the battle to overcome the enemy. Jody Williams, from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, has mentioned to the BBC that such weapons of mass destruction (meaning, killer robots) that while do not exist at the moment, can be regarded as “repulsive” when the day eventually arrives.
Hence, in the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, they are currently pushing for a pre-emptive ban so that it will be able to halt the production of weapons that are capable of attacking targets without the need for any human intervention. Of course, there will be some scientists who are on the side that current laws will be able to do enough to regulate their use assuming near-autonomous killer robots one day end up as a reality. The UK government has reassured folks that they do not have any plans to develop such technology. Do you think an international ban as a pre-emptive strike might be the solution to this potentially explosive situation?
Teotihuacan, an ancient, abandoned city about an hour north of Mexico City, was once one of the largest cities in the world. It collapsed centuries ago (thanks either to an internal uprising or foreign invaders, depending on who you ask), but it’s never been completely deserted, since the ruins have always been a magnet for squatters, archeologists, and hordes of tourists. More »
Can’t afford the sweet Kuratas mech? Maybe you can pass on your dream of riding a robot to your kid. Japanese company Sakakibara Kikai recently released a video showing an updated version of its Kid’s Walker machine. It looks a lot more toy-like now, but it’s also more menacing because it has a gigantic drill on its left limb, in case Junior wants to play some Bioshock IRL.
Check out a Newtype lucky kid testing the Kid’s Walker NT in the video below:
I’m not sure if the Kid’s Walker NT is already for sale, but if the price of the previous model is any indication you’ll need tens of thousands of dollars to earn the title of world’s best parent.
Northrop Grumman is one of the largest defense contractors in the United States and the company works on a wide variety of projects for the US military. Many those projects have to do with aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles, but some of the projects aren’t designed to fly. Northrop Grumman has announced the launch of its latest generation CUTLASS unmanned ground vehicle.
The ground vehicle is specifically designed for remote handling and surveillance of hazardous threats. Northrop says that the vehicle uses a modular design to allow the end-user to deal safely with a range of hazardous threats from a distance. The vehicle can be used for detecting and disposing of explosive ordinance among other tasks.
The design allows the vehicle to accommodate a wide range of payloads, sensors, and tools. Northrop says that the CUTLASS’ ability to accommodate a wide range of payloads means that users don’t have to deploy two standard unmanned vehicles. The main tool for the CUTLASS is a three-fingered gripper arm with nine-degrees of freedom.
The mine-degrees of freedom gives the robotic arm greater movement capability and agility allowing it to move inside limited spaces. The arm also has specialized sensing systems allowing for a high level of dexterity and minimizes damage to property. The high level of dexterity for the arm also allows for the preserving of forensic evidence. The vehicle is able to reach speeds of up to 12 kph and features a six-wheel design allowing for mobility on all sorts of terrain and in all sorts of weather conditions.
Sharks have certainly received their fair share of negative attention in the past, especially with the success of the film “Jaws” that sent swimmers and beach tourists scampering for a while. Of course, most of us know by now that sharks rarely attack humans, and when they do, it is because us humans on surfboards were mistaken for something else. It is not as though they have a penchant for human flesh like zombies do…and to study sharks in their natural habitat for the long haul can prove to be rather challenging. I guess this is where modern day technology comes in handy, case in point a new underwater robot which is capable of tracking great white sharks and other underwater predators to pick up more details on their habits.
Researchers tend to rely on anecdotal reports from commercial fishermen in order to know more about sharks, and since the shark industry is relatively small, anecdotal information would in turn, be scarce. Enter biologist Chris Lowe from California State University Long Beach and engineer Chris Clark from Harvey Mudd College, who have worked on a shark-tracking robot for the past three years. This robot has been programmed not to disturb the shark’s natural behaviour, lurking anywhere from 300 to 500 meters behind at all times, and in a previous experiment, they achieved success by tracking a leopard shark off the coast of Los Angeles last summer. Hopefully it won’t run into any anti-shark devices…
There are DIY projects, and then there are DIY projects – the ones that separate the men from the boys. Case in point, check out this particular six-legged robotic walking machine that is known as the Mantis, created by a man who happens to hail from Winchester. Matt Denton is the founder and chief designer of Micromagic Systems, where the Mantis is a labor of love which required four years of development, where it is powered by a 2.2 litre Turbo Diesel engine.
Just how the heck does one control something that is so huge? Well, it relies on a Wi-Fi connection to get the job done, where it stands tall at 2.8 meters and tips the scales at nearly two tons – that is approximately 1,900kg. Good luck trying to find a garage that fits this behemoth in, right beside your coterie of vehicles. The Mantis might plod along slowly, but it is capable of handling just about any terrain thanks to its “six-axis” body control that will level itself automatically for the pilot, in addition to grabbing scampering humans with its arms. Nay, I meant objects. Too bad the Mantis is not up for purchase, but if you would like to make a splash, you can always hire it for private events. Check out a video of the Mantis in action above.
When it comes to the hands and fingers of a robot, we might take for granted that it knows just the right amount of force to exert to hold a particular item, which is a no brainer of sorts for us humans, but how can a robot tell whether it should handle an egg gently, while carrying a brick requires it exert the adequate amount of pressure and force to prevent said brick from slipping away? After all, robots lack nerves that us humans do, but the researchers over at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have come up with an affordable tactile sensor meant for robotic hands, enabling said bionic hands to be sensitive enough to function as a dextrous manipulator.
The sensor is known as TakkTile, and according to co-creator Leif Jentoft, a graduate student at SEAS, “Despite decades of research, tactile sensing hasn’t moved into general use because it’s been expensive and fragile. It normally costs about $16,000, give or take, to put tactile sensing on a research robot hand. That’s really limited where people can use it. The traditional technology also uses very specialized construction techniques, which can slow down your work. Now, Takktile changes that because it’s based on much simpler and cheaper fabrication methods.”
It relies on a small barometer that senses air pressure to get the job done, and the chip itself is hardy enough to handle a strike from a hammer or a baseball bat, despite being sensitive enough to detect even the slightest of touches. Now this is definitely progress, no?
Sure, we have our Roombas and a few AR Drones here and there, but researchers expect that we’ll have many more – and better – robots within the next few years and that the overall market should hit $6.5 billion by 2017.
According to ABI Research’s Consumer Electronics Research Service, the consumer robotics market is currently at about $1.6 billion and growing. A slow economy and fairly expensive parts has stagnated things for the time being but improved devices and more interesting implementations – home helper robots, for example – could push the market up considerably.
As we’ve seen in our visit with Bossa Nova Robotics, devices like the Mobi ball bot can move through crowded spaces and help out in unique situations. While it’s still no Rosie the Robot, I could imagine a cleaning bot that could also help move heavy objects as a team effort and robots that can inspect chimneys and drains. Interestingly, the problem of safety begins to crop up when talking about consumer robotics.
“What happens if a robot falls down the stairs while someone is walking up, or gets caught on a lamp power cord and pulls the lamp down and starts a fire?” added Solis. “This is a gating factor to take-up of more complex personal robots – solvable but with additional cost.”
Obviously the question remains: did the robots start the fire on purpose?
Assembling that new cabinet or entertainment center can be a real pain in the butt. Mostly because you need an extra pair of arms. It helps if you are an octopus. If you are tired of assembling IKEA furniture, researchers have created a new robot to help.
This robot uses a force sensor and a vision-tracking system to learn how a user wants it to move. Then the robot basically becomes an extra pair of hands to help you with the task at hand. The robot moves freely when the user tugs on a table top and can become stiff as a person screws in the legs.
So it isn’t just an extra pair of hands, but a pair that knows what they are doing. Take that IKEA. Now can you explain where this extra screw was supposed to go?
I first saw the Sphero robotic ball about 2 years ago at CES, but I never really got a chance to play with one hands-on until now. When I first saw it in action, all I wanted to say was “Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.” This little orb is packed with cool technology that lets you use it as a remote-control vehicle, a game controller, and tech toy/plaything.
Made by Orbotix, the Sphero itself is a durable polycarbonate-shelled orb which fits nicely in the palm of your hand. This is no accident, since this makes it work perfectly as a controller or plaything itself when it’s not rolling around on the floor. Inside of the ball are its brains, wireless circuit, motion sensors, motors, a small rechargeable battery and multicolor LEDs.
The spherical robot is capable of traversing a variety of surfaces, including hardwood floors, tile, grass, concrete and low-pile carpet (it has a hard time on thicker carpets). It’s even waterproof, so you can drive it around in the bathtub or in a puddle. To juice up the Sphero, simply set it in its inductive charging cradle, and it’ll go for up to an hour on a single charge.
You control the Sphero using either iOS or Android apps, which range from the main Sphero R/C controller app to games, interactive toys, augmented reality and macro programming apps. The library of Sphero apps continues to grow too, since there’s a full Sphero API and SDK available for developers to make their own applications. Many of the current apps are free, while the few that cost money sell for $1.99 or less.
Playing with Sphero is a blast, and it’s stupid-simple to use. Simply pair it with your Bluetooth device, load up an app of your choice, orient the Sphero properly and start playing. It’ll operate at distances up to about 50 feet from your device. Setting the Sphero’s orientation is simple. Just place the ball on the ground and use two fingers to maneuver its secondary blue “tail” LED to point towards you. If you should pick up and move the Sphero, you can do this again in a jiffy.
The main Sphero app is a great place to start, as it lets you drive the Sphero and play with its colors with ease. You can choose from a touch-based or motion-based control scheme, as well as several pre-set macros for things like circles, Figure 8′s and a flashing light show.
The Sphero app can also capture stills or video of your escapades and save them to your device.
And if you log into the Sphero ecosystem, you can record fun achievements, track stats and compete with others for Sphero supremacy.
I tried out just about every Sphero app I could find on the iTunes App Store, and here are my personal favorites: 1) ColorGrab – a frustrating, but fun multiplayer game in which players must quickly pick up the Sphero when its flashing in a specified color; 2) Draw & Drive – which lets you simply draw a path for your Sphero to follow; 3) Etch-o-Matic – this turns your Sphero into the controller for an Etch-a-Sketch inspired drawing pad; and 4) Sharky – an augmented reality app which turns your Sphero into a funny looking beaver that you flick virtual cupcakes at. It’s completely silly, but a fun tech demo.
The hacker in me got the most joy out of the MacroLab app, which lets you create complex programming sequences for the Sphero, adjusting all of its available parameters. These include movement, rotation, light color, speed, and basic programming constructs like delays and loops. The only thing I wish is that you could take your saved macros and load them into the main Sphero application for playback. Apparently, the Android version can even control multiple Spheros at the same time.
If you and your friends have more than one Sphero, they can be independently controlled for races, running obstacle courses, or even for playing Sphero miniature golf (which can also be played solo).
All in all, I really have had a good time playing with the Sphero, and I can only imagine that kids and geeks of all ages would get a kick out of having one. It’s also great for tormenting your pets. The fact that it’s programmable and has a software development community means that even if you get bored with it for a little while, there will be more apps coming down the pike to give it new life. And if you’re a real tinkerer, you can even make your own apps.
Disclosure: Orbotix provided the Sphero for review in this article. However, all reviews are the unbiased views of our editorial staff, and we will only recommend products or services we have used personally, and believe will be good for our readers.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
We have yet to arrive in the age of SkyNet, which is a good thing when you think about it, but chances are we might very well be on the way there already. We have seen how the military, whether in the sky, on the ground or under the water have begun to make use of robots for their operations in the battle to overcome the enemy. Jody Williams, from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, has mentioned to the BBC that such weapons of mass destruction (meaning, killer robots) that while do not exist at the moment, can be regarded as “repulsive” when the day eventually arrives.
Sharks have certainly received their fair share of negative attention in the past, especially with the success of the film “Jaws” that sent swimmers and beach tourists scampering for a while. Of course, most of us know by now that sharks rarely attack humans, and when they do, it is because us humans on surfboards were mistaken for something else. It is not as though they have a penchant for human flesh like zombies do…and to study sharks in their natural habitat for the long haul can prove to be rather challenging. I guess this is where modern day technology comes in handy, case in point a new underwater robot which is capable of tracking great white sharks and other underwater predators to pick up more details on their habits.
When it comes to the 
