I live in L.A., a land of 20-lane interchanges, parking lots the size of football stadiums, and mind-bending, soul-crushing, life-altering traffic. Every day, I meet people who don’t even know we have a public transit system and see places in my neighborhood without any sidewalks. This is because, a half-century ago, my city decided to redesign itself for cars, not humans.
     |
Roboray is the latest humanoid robot created by Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology. Using visual recognition software developed by a team University of Bristol, the ‘bot can now build real-time, 3D visual maps of its environment. It basically looks at its surroundings and creates a map of them as it moves. This also allows it to remember where it has been before.
Roboray also walks like a real person. Where most humanoid robots walk by bending their knees to keep their center of mass constant, Roboray falls a little bit with each step, which is how we walk.
Between mapping it’s own environment and walking just like us, it won’t be long before robots are walking among us on the streets. After that they will easily disguise themselves as humans and really give us a reason to be scared.
[via Geekosystem]
Scientists and researchers continue to emulate animals when designing and building robots, since animals know what they are doing. For instance, if you want a robot that can crawl over sand really fast(Just because) you should check out sea turtles. And that’s just what Georgia Tech has done here.
Researchers Dan Goldman, Nicole Mazouchova and Paul Umbanhowar designed this robot to scamper across loose sand dunes, inspired by the motion of baby sea turtles. Their hypothesis was that key to the turtle’s surprisingly speedy movement is the way they flex their wrists. To test that theory, they designed FlipperBot.
Their experiments will help them learn how fins and flippers are used as arms and legs, and potentially improve robot mobility. Watch the video or read the paper for an explanation of the tech behind the robot.
[via Geekosystem]
I’m sure many of you still dream about owning the so-called “Ultimate FPS Simulator.” If you can wait for a few more months, you just might have one in your home, albeit at a smaller scale. A company called Virtuix is currently working on Omni, an omnidirectional treadmill controller for virtual environments.
The Omni can sense not only when you’re running or walking but also when you’re jumping. It can also emulate crouching movements by bending over. The Omni will supposedly work with all PC games when it’s released, which is certainly a neat plus. Here’s a quick video showing how one moves about on the Omni:
Here’s the Omni being used with Skyrim, with the help of a Kinect for head targeting:
Finally, here’s the Omni with the year’s most anticipated gaming product, the Oculus Rift, comboing to present a new way to play Team Fortress 2:
You can see a couple more videos of the Omni in action on YouTube.
Keep in mind that the Omni isn’t a mechanical treadmill – it’s a passive walking surface on which you wear a pair of special low-friction shoes to walk. The waist support in the middle is designed to keep you from falling over, of course. You can read more about how it works over on their FAQ.
Virtuix is planning to launch a Kickstarter fundraiser later this May or June. The retail price for the Omni may be between $400 to $600 (USD), which isn’t surprising considering what it can do. Mirror’s Edge is about to become a fitness video.
[via The Verge]
Roboticists continue to take inspiration from animals to create new types of robot movement. This robotic salamander can swim, crawl and walk just like the real thing – only it’s not the real thing. It’s just a very good artificial copy from the Biorobotics Laboratory at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Continue Reading…
Walking might be good for us, but it’s sure as hell boring too. So let’s change all that by making sidewalks a place to have some fun. More »
Well, there goes my plan of hiding on a rock cliff from robots who can’t get me because they don’t know how to walk a tightrope. It appears they can now walk tightropes with the greatest of ease. Then again, I’ll just bring some scissors with me. That’ll teach ‘em.
Check out this video of a humanoid robot walking a tightrope with no problems at all, complete with techno music to accompany the feat. It takes its time doing it, but still it’s doing it way better than most humans. The robot spreads its arms to help maintain balance and slides its feet one at a time.
So I have my supplies ready, including scissors and I have a nice high spot picked out to survive the robot apocalypse. Even if they deploy a high wire, I can cut it with cable cutters. I will probably starve up there after my supplies run out, but they can kiss my cold dead corpse.
[via Hackaday via Geekosystem]
As head-mounted displays and motion controllers improve, the possibility of truly-immersive virtual reality in our living rooms continues to get closer and closer to our reach. However one of the big challenges is that you’ll still be standing still or walking in place in any game that involves moving around. While there are omni-directional treadmills that solve this problem, you won’t be able to afford one (or fit one in your living room) any time soon. Now, there’s an odd little gadget in development that aims to solve this problem without any moving parts at all.
Created by Julian Williams, the WizDish is a disc that you stand on, while wearing special shoes (called, of course, WizShoes), which enables you to move around in any direction, while standing in one place. The action isn’t exactly what I’d call walking, though – it’s more like shuffling. The 14 pound device relies on a small amount of friction between the bottom of the shoes and its platform to allow you to move around – without falling like you might do wearing socks on a slippery floor.
According to its maker, “The WizDish exploits the fact that you have 29 bones in each foot to balance with. You slide your feet over a slick concave surface in a simulation of walking that gives surprisingly similar proprioceptive cues to real walking. Once you can see where you are going [using an HMD] you take more confident strides and quickly forget it’s a simulated walk. The key advantages of the WizDish are that you can start, stop and turn with absolute ease…”
Personally, I’m not yet convinced, but then again I think that the cumbersome headgear and eye-strain inducing optics of HMDs still have some big hurdles to overcome before I’ll be strapping one to my head for a 3-hour gaming session.
(I have high hopes for the Oculus Rift HMD though. Please let it be as good as it sounds.)
[via Road to Virtual Reality]
We’ve seen the concept of electromotive (movement-based) charging before, but it usually comes at the cost of either a clunky design or a limitation to very low-power devices like watches. Apple has been experimenting with a concept that could power gadgets as big as iPhones and iPods with that spring in your step — and without the bulk of any extra wires. A newly published patent application uses flat, printed coils to generate electromagnetic induction through movable magnets; as the device bounces around in your pocket, the magnets slide past the coils and run them through the magnetic fields they need to build electricity. It all sounds grand, but it’s hard to tell from the very recent June filing whether the technology is enough to keep devices completely powered or simply delays the inevitable. We’d still suggest getting back into shape, though, in the event that morning run can one day save you from hunting down a wall outlet.
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video
Apple trying for patent on electromotive charging, could use that confident stride to charge iPhones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | 
USPTO | Email this | Comments
If you’ve ever wanted your own little humanoid robot to do your bidding, there’s a new kid in town you might want to check out. It’s called the HOVIS Eco, and it comes from Korea’s Dongbu Robot company.
The medium-sized humanoid Eco robot measures about 16.4″ tall by about 7.6″ wide, weighs just under 4 pounds, and has 20 degrees of freedom thanks to a large number of servo actuators. Unlike some humanoid robots, Eco has a friendly, modern look about it that’s not freaky or intimidating in any way. In fact, the little robot looks like it would be at home in a science-fiction movie that doesn’t involve a dystopian future.
Under its hard and shiny shell, Eco is powered by an Atmega 128 controller, which can be programmed using using bundled graphical editing software, or via a variety of APIs, using C++, Java, Python or the Android SDK. It can also be controlled by wireless remote. It comes with distance and sound sensors, and can be upgraded with an optional gyro sensor as well. The robot even comes packaged in a handy tool case making it easy to maintain and store.
While I can’t find a video of the Hovis Eco in action, here’s some footage of the Hovis Lite, the Eco older, uglier brother pulling off some impressive moves:
Priced at $900 (USD), the Hovis Eco is no toy, but it’s a serious hobbyists robot. If you’re interested in getting your hands on one, you can find it over at RoadNarrows Robotics.
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.
