Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen robots do some pretty heroic things in our time, but engineers from Georgia Tech, the University of Pennsylvania and Cal Tech have now developed an entire fleet of autonomous rescue vehicles, capable of simultaneously mapping and exploring potentially dangerous buildings — without allowing their egos to get in the way. Each wheeled bot measures just one square foot in size, carries a video camera capable of identifying doorways, and uses an on-board laser scanner to analyze walls. Once gathered, these data are processed using a technique known as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), which allows each bot to create maps of both familiar and unknown environments, while constantly recording and reporting its current location (independently of GPS). And, perhaps best of all, these rescue Roombas are pretty team–oriented. Georgia Tech professor Henrik Christensen explains:

“There is no lead robot, yet each unit is capable of recruiting other units to make sure the entire area is explored. When the first robot comes to an intersection, it says to a second robot, ‘I’m going to go to the left if you go to the right.'”

This egalitarian robot army is the spawn of a research initiative known as the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Collaborative Technology Alliance Program, sponsored by the US Army Research Laboratory. The ultimate goal is to shrink the bots down even further and to expand their capabilities. Engineers have already begun integrating infrared sensors into their design and are even developing small radar modules capable of seeing through walls. Roll past the break for a video of the vehicles in action, along with full PR.

Continue reading Rescue robots map and explore dangerous buildings, prove there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’ (video)

Rescue robots map and explore dangerous buildings, prove there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’ (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 17:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BMW continues to fight the good fight: making sure you hit fewer people with its luxury vehicles. The German automaker is developing a vehicle warning system aimed at curbing collisions caused by drivers making left turns — a leading cause of accidents and motorcycle fatalities. The system, which can be enabled for vehicles making left or U-turns while traveling under 10mph, detects movements using the vehicle’s navigation system and a single camera. Once a left turn is recognized, three lasers are used to scan for hazards up to 328-feet away — if one is detected, the car will automatically brake and throw up corresponding alerts for the driver. The company is set to show off the system as part of INTERSAFE 2, this week in Wolfsburg, Germany. In the meantime, the rest of us will have to rely on things like mirrors and looking over our shoulders.

BMW left turn assistant uses lasers to help you avoid running people over originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 21:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After rolling out the world’s first GLONASS-enabled smartphone, Russia is thinking bigger — it’s tablet time. This 7-inch Froyo-powered panel runs on a 800MHz processor, and sports 512MB of RAM, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and support for both GPS and GLONASS navigation. Russian provider Skylink hopes this new Android tablet, called the Xpad, will set a trend for future navigation devices — utilizing data from both satellite positioning systems for increased accuracy in urban environments. The future of enhanced navigation hits (Russian) shelves for 14,000 Rubles in Q4 2011; that’s about 500 greenbacks, if you were wondering.

[Thanks, Yakov!]

World’s first GLONASS-enabled tablet unveiled in Russia, plays nice with GPS originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 09:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is the first column in a new biweekly series introducing newsletter content provided by our local research partners, INterRIDE Inc..

Mobile GPS apps

2010 saw several social media GPS apps join the bulging ranks of digital tools already out there for Japanese consumers. International names like Facebook’s Places — launched in Japan last September as its first market outside of the U.S. — and Foursquare were joined by the likes of local giant mixi also offering their own version of geo-fun. Mixi’s Check In was used 2 million times in its first month alone, indicating the strong potential for these services.

Japanese GPS services can currently be categorized as map-style apps (e.g. Navitime), “spot” or site-searching apps (Hot Pepper FooMoo), gaming apps (CoroPura), or the newer SNS apps (including Tou.ch).

The local growth isn’t surprising when set against the overall global advance of geo-services, predicted to continue expanding until 2014 and reach $134 billion. Advertising on GPS services was a mere $2 billion back in 2009 but is expected to increase to some $59 billion by 2014.

Last February saw another major release, RecoCheck by Recruit, which has information on over 4 million sites and integrates Twitter. It aims to be the number one service of its kind by March 2012. Yahoo!’s Loco, set for release in June, also promises to be the biggest in Japan and to push the market yet further.

However, as reported by SPiRE, GPS is still a minority interest for most consumers. In a survey of over ten thousand mobile phone users only 20% used the apps, of which the leader was the rather generic Google Map.

Lawson x GREE

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its Ponta loyalty card, convenience store chain Lawson launched a campaign with mobile game platform GREE’s virtual reality shop, Omeseya-san. Users collected digital items in order to complete their Ponta mascot-themed Lawson uniform avatar. Omeseya-san’s one million members had to get five items (including digital representations of Lawson products) to claim their prize.

Liberal Democratic Party

While last year Japan’s politicians tried to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, the Opposition Liberal Democratic Party (or Jiminto) took a different approach. In February they became the first local party to open an official Facebook page. Within four days a 1,000 people had “liked” the page; this has since grown to over 3,000. Not a lot but in proportion to the numbers of Facebook users who are LDP supporters it might be a large number indeed!

In an age where Presidents are announcing their bids for re-election via their Facebook pages this might not seem a radical move, but considering the opacity and intransigence of local politics, and the stolid growth of Facebook here, it’s an interesting development.

Osaifu Keitai for Smart Phones

As smart phone sales continue to prove healthy there will be innovations to localize them, or adapt other technology to work with them. This is especially true of popular Japanese mobile actions like reading QR codes, infra-red data transfer, and e-money functionality via FeliCa chips (osaifu keitai).

Previously mophie announced plans to create an add-on casing to the iPhone so that it could work with FeliCa readers, and Softbank more recently began selling a cruder solution in the form of “e-money stickers” that could be placed on your handset to allow it to connect with an e-money system like Waon or Edy.

Now BUG (pronounced as an acronym, not an insect) has developed the Smart Sound Touch system, where stores uses readers at the POS to allow even non-FeliCa-integrated smart phones to be scanned and read, to launch apps or connect to coupon websites. This ultimately means that smart phones will be able to offer loyalty programs and e-money services. (The readers apparently also work with FeliCa-integrated handsets too.) All the SST hardware requires now is for service providers to develop apps for consumers to download.

It’s been a few years but iriver just released an updated version of its NV GPS navigator with SPINN UI. Wa… wait a second, that’s a Samsung logo. Sorry, this is the Samsung SENS-240, a hybrid car navigation system / tablet that plays nice with your Android-powered Samsung smartphone or, uh, tablet. According to Akihabara News, the SENS-240 uses Bluetooth to take over your voice, data, voice search, and even “video features” from your smartphone when driving. You can then control the SENS-240 using your smarpthone or tablet as an “advanced” remote when idle. The details behind how this works, or why you’d want to do it, is a mystery. We do know that the SENS-240 comes packing 256MB of RAM, USB-host mode, and an SD slot in addition to a 1.43GHz processor (of unknown origins) said to be powerful enough to handle 3D maps, video, or DMB TV on that 7-inch, 800 x 480 pixel display. Oh, and it’s Korea-only for now.

Samsung SENS-240 Navigation Tablet is strange and familiar originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 03:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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