Hasta La Gadget!

While wandering around the show floor at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, we had to stop and take a closer peek at these cute-looking robots. Conveniently dubbed the Synergy Swan, this 14kg machine from Russian-based R.BOT (or Quanzhou Future Robot Technology in China) uses an Android device as its face and camera, as well as sending movement commands for its neck (with four degrees of freedom) and wheels (maximum speed about 1.8km/h) via Bluetooth. The Android phone or tablet will obviously be equipped with the appropriate apps for either telepresence or automated interaction with people — the latter can simply be the tablet automatically starting to “talk” or play a video clip when a person smiles at it. Interested? You can nab a Synergy Swan for a surprisingly affordable $450, and there’s also a smaller but stationary Synergy Mime for just $250. Jump right past the break to see R.BOT US CEO Dmitriy Subbotin show off his robots.

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iRobot makes robots for all sorts of needs in the military and other business areas. In the consumer space, the company is probably best known for its line of robotic vacuum cleaners, including the Roomba and Scooba. Last year, iRobot started trials of a robot designed to work in hospitals – called the RP-Vita, or Remote Presence Virtual Independent Telemedicine Assistant.

Developed by iRobot and InTouch Health, the robot is a telepresence device that stands about as tall as your typical human. It’s fitted with dual screens, a video camera, Wi-Fi and other sensors and even has its own stethoscope allowing doctors to perform patient examinations remotely. It uses an iPad to control communications, and the robot is able to use sensors to map its environment and navigate autonomously.

iRobot has announced that the RP-VITA has now been approved by the FDA to be used for active patient monitoring in pre-operative, peri-operative, and post-surgical settings. It can work in several areas of the hospital including cardiovascular, neurological, prenatal, psychological, and critical care. These robots are far from cheap and are estimated to cost as much as $4000 per month to purchase and operate, but that still could represent a significant cost savings by allowing doctors to check in on more patients and more frequently.

[via Science World Report]

Unless you have loads of cash at your disposal or work for the federal government, chances are you haven’t heard of Robotex. The start-up, featured here at CES 2013’s Eureka Alley, specializes in creating automated solutions for a variety of security applications (think: SWAT busts, radiation level monitoring, etc.). Traditionally, these high-end robotic solutions carry a price tag in the tens of thousands, but starting this week, Robotex is targeting the consumer market with its Avatar. Set to retail for $299, the blue tank-like bot links up with iOS devices (an Android version’s coming in Q1) via USB to communicate with a companion app over Bluetooth 4.0 for remote monitoring. In its current incarnation, the Avatar doesn’t do much apart from offering telepresence — authenticated by the company’s servers — but the robot has been designed to be open source. To that end an SDK and HDK will be made available allowing tinkerers to craft up their own innovations. Unfortunately, due to the abundance of wireless signals here at the show, Robotex’s reps weren’t able to get the Avatar up and moving around the floor. But in a typical home environment, users should expect to get up to an hour and a half of “driving” time out of the robot. There’s no video of the Avatar in action, so instead, check out the gallery below.

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It’s a mouthful, we know, but the gist of the below video is this: a few months back, iRobot unveiled RP-VITA, a teleconferencing robot with a rolling base. The company’s got all sorts of plans for the ‘bot, but is starting things off with medical applications. It’s co-branded the device with InTouch Health, positioning it as a method for allowing doctors to tend to patients remotely. An iRobot employee took RP-VITA for a spin around InTouch’s Southern California mock hospital location, courtesy of an iPad at the robotics company’s Bedford, MA location.

The interface appears to be quite user-friendly — just touch a location and RP-VITA starts driving, using its sensors to avoid obstacles along the way as a video feed show you where you’re going. Once you reach a patient, you can tap on their image to interact with them (in the case of the dummies in the demo, however, that was easier said than done, of course). Along the bottom, the app offers the doctor large, easy-to-read vitals.

Check out a full video of the demo after the break.

Continue reading iRobot’s RP-VITA mobile telepresence robot iPad app eyes-on (video)

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iRobot’s RP-VITA mobile telepresence robot iPad app eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 09:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you have $16,000 lying around and I hankering to virtually cruise the halls of some distant office, Suitable Technologies has something suitable that it has just debuted. The company has new telepresence robot called the Beam Remote Presence System or Beam RPS.

The robot requires three components, the robotic device itself, the client software, and the Beam Docking Station. The docking station is where the remote user parks the robot to recharge. The bot stands 62-inches tall and weighs 95 pounds. It has a 17-inch screen that shows the operator’s life-sized face to be displayed – assuming your head will fit on a 17-inch screen.

The Beam’s internal rechargeable battery is a good for up to eight hours of use and the robot can cruise around at 1.5 m/s. The robot has an integrated wireless radios for control and has a pair of HD cameras providing a 170° field of view vertically and horizontally. The robot also has a microphone array with six microphone beams to eliminate background noise and echo. It also has an integrated speaker system with LED lamps for lowlight operation.

With much cheaper options coming in a few months, and others coming soon, I’m not sure of the market for a $16,000 telepresence ‘bot, but it’s just more evidence that with time we’re going to start seeing robots roaming the halls sooner rather than later.