Hasta La Gadget!

As much as we love our Google homepage, computer search remains a pretty rudimentary affair. You punch in keywords and you get only indirect answers in the form of relevant web results. IBM doesn’t seem to be too happy with this situation and has been working for the past three years on perfecting its Watson supercomputer: an array of server racks that’s been endowed with linguistic algorithms allowing it to not only recognize oddly phrased or implicative questions, but to answer them in kind, with direct and accurate responses. Stuffed with encyclopedic knowledge of the world around it, it answers on the basis of information stored within its data banks, though obviously you won’t be able to tap into it any time soon for help with your homework. The latest word is that Watson’s lab tests have impressed the producers of Jeopardy! enough to have the bot participate in a televised episode of the show. That could happen as early as this fall, which fits right in line with our scheduled doom at robots’ hands by the end of 2012. Ah well, might as well get our popcorn and enjoy the show.

Continue reading IBM’s Watson is really smart, will try to prove it on Jeopardy! this fall (video)

IBM’s Watson is really smart, will try to prove it on Jeopardy! this fall (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is like an Andre 3000 song. What’s cooler than robots? Lego robots. And what’s even cooler than that? Supersized lego robots playing chess. Ice cold, baby. Composed of more than 100,000 Lego Mindstorms parts, the above chess set occupies a 156-square foot playing area and took a four-person team “about a year” to create. Total retail cost is tallied up at $30,000, though you won’t be surprised to hear there are no plans to make it available for purchase — presumably because of its priceless awesomeness. See a game played out on video after the break.

Continue reading Monster Chess supersizes lego robots for ultimate geek synergy

Monster Chess supersizes lego robots for ultimate geek synergy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look out Roomba, MSI has some new robots that want to wipe the floor with you. Tucked into MSI’s Computex booth, alongside Windows 7 Tablets and overclocked Intel CPUs, MSI was demoing a robot floor cleaner that looks like it has an edge on iRobot‘s venerable Roomba. First of all, it will automatically go back to its docking station when it is done cleaning to recharge itself. Also, instead of blindly running into walls, the device uses ultrasound technology to avoid them. The M800 Smart Vacuum Robot is rated to last 110 minutes on a 4-hour charge.
 
The company is also releasing the R1300 Security Vacuum Robot, which comes motion detection and a wireless video camera that can stream video over the Internet.  (No word on whether this robot bad boy could be loaded with a Taser attachment.)

What’s more, MSI representatives to me that it has 8X the suction power as the Roomba, but of course we will need to get it into PC Labs for testing before we can know for sure just how much it sucks. 

MSI isn’t sure about pricing of either robot, or if they will definitely make it to U.S. floors, but it plans to ship the robots in Asia early next year. Until then, check out this video taken on the Computex Show floor.  

It isn’t hard to get behind a company like Willow Garage, who not only has enough funding to invest heavily in building on ROS, an open source Robotics Operating System that’s gaining traction in the robotics community, but also managed to dig up enough spare change to give away $4.4 million in robots to a few lucky research institutions. There were 11 schools selected to receive the Willow Garage-developed PR2 Beta, which stuffs some very high end sensors, two articulated arms, and sixteen CPU cores on top of a rolling base — providing a lot of leg room for advanced functionality. Of course, in the world of robots, “advanced” means stuff like opening doors and not running over your cat, but with a common code base to work from and all this fancy hardware, hopefully these schools will manage to push the industry along a bit during the next two years that the PR2 Beta Program lasts.

Willow Garage starts shipping its PR2 Beta Program bots: get ready for ROS-powered hijinks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not content with the sheer badassery of sending a humanoid robot to the moon in 2015, Japan has just unveiled a mission for 2020 that will involve setting up a whole robotic moon base. It will be unmanned in the flesh-and-blood sense, but will be populated with a 660 pound rolling bot. The station will be self-powered, and will let its citizen roam over 60+ miles of terrain, gathering scientific samples that can be sent back to earth. While rocks are great, we’re even more excited about the HDTV the station will be beaming back as well. The whole project will run somewhere in the ballpark of $2.2, and will be developed simultaneously with Japan’s manned moon program. We’re going to get working on our “I’m 660 pound a scientific exploration robot” costume right away.

Japan building a robot moon base in 2020, and you’re not invited originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 21:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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