SOBEaR the robot panda bartender thinks you’ve had one too many

Robot bartenders are nothing new, but rarely does one shut down drunks as adorably as SOBEaR here. Built as a “robot friend for anyone who does not know their own limits, or has problems controlling themselves,” the cuddly little bot dispenses drinks based on the user’s blood-alcohol level — you breathe into his face, and he pours the right ratio of cranberry to fun vodka into your glass. Of course, that implies that there’s a pre-programmed max BAC in the code somewhere, so we’re guessing some hardcore party panda mods are soon to come. Video after the break.

Continue reading SOBEaR the robot panda bartender thinks you’ve had one too many

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SOBEaR the robot panda bartender thinks you’ve had one too many originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 May 2009 07:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Robot that can jump twenty-five feet in the air coming to the US military

Boston Dynamics — which previously made a robot called the BigDog — has been enlisted by Sandia National Laboratories (a US government-funded lab) and DARPA to make a new, hopping robot. Called the Precision Urban Hopper, the robot’s goal will be to be capable of jumping over large obstacles in city combat situations. It will boast one extremely tough leg to assist it, in addition to its four wheels. The Hopper is supposedly going to be able to jump 25 feet in the air once completed. So far, only a very small prototype (pictured above) is finished, but Boston Dynamics is due to present its next model sometime during 2010.

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Robot that can jump twenty-five feet in the air coming to the US military originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 May 2009 10:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fukitorimushi cleaning bot is just like a pet — only cleaner, quieter, better behaved, and more pillow-shaped

Panasonic recently unveiled a new kind of cleaning robot at the Tokyo Fiber Senseware Expo in Milan. Called Fukitorimushi, the small service bot is covered in Nanofront, a nanofiber polyester fabric which can absorb oil and pick up small paricles of dust. It moves a bit like an earthworm, crawling about the floor using several light sensors to root out the dirt, and can navigate itself back to its charging station when it needs more juice. Designers of the spiffy little guy seem to think that owners will bond to it as if it were a pet. No word on when these dudes will be commercially available, but we’ll let you know as soon as we score one of our very own — we’re thinking about calling it Sal. There’s a video of it doing its rather unnerving business after the break.

[Via Robots.net]

Continue reading Fukitorimushi cleaning bot is just like a pet — only cleaner, quieter, better behaved, and more pillow-shaped

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Fukitorimushi cleaning bot is just like a pet — only cleaner, quieter, better behaved, and more pillow-shaped originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 May 2009 23:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Underwater robot has sense of touch, class and style

At the Fraunhofer Institute in Bremen, Germany, a group of researchers, in conjunction with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence DFKI, is developing an underwater robot with a sense of touch. The octopus-esque robot is equipped with a strain gauge which triggers electrical resistance changes when an an obstacle is encountered. The strain gauges — which are printed onto the robot — which are ten micrometers wide (about half the width of a human hair), are made up of atomized nanoparticles, and are extremely sensitive. The researchers intend for the robot to be able to distinguish between actual obstacles and water currents. The robot’s first stop will be a public trade show at the end of May in Nuremberg, after which it will presumably make it’s way to the dark depths of the sea to meet up with Captain Nemo and the giant squid.

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Underwater robot has sense of touch, class and style originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 May 2009 10:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ibn Sina Robot is joining Facebook, seeks friends

Named for a medical doctor, the Ibn Sina Robot (pictured, scowling at a meat-bag) wants to shed his scholarly ways and you know, hang out, make friends, have a bit of fun. The prototype robot is based on a PeopleBot machine from ActivRobots. It features face recognition and language modules that allow it to carry on real-time conversations with its database of friends. The plan is to put the bot on Facebook where according to the BBC:

The page will be populated with interactions the robot has with people as well as photos of the time it spends in human company. Its creators hope that embedding it in a social web will give rise to a sustainable friendship can grow up between man and machine.

See, Dr. Nikolaus Mavridis and his co-researchers are hoping that they’ll learn to overcome people’s reluctance to interact with robots. Hey doctor, here’s a hint: try giving your robot a less menacing expression — perhaps make it female even, with big doeful eyes and a taste for short mini-skirts. Then your robot will have more “friends” looking to interact than she’ll know what to do with.

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Ibn Sina Robot is joining Facebook, seeks friends originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 May 2009 05:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CareBot Will Nag You to Good Health and Safety

geckobot.jpgOne day, we’ll all have armless, boxy, nagging robots in the home to remind us to take our meds and that it’s time to watch Jeopardy! This is the dream behind GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.’s CareBot personal robot.

Under development for over a decade, the CareBot prototype is a mobile automaton that can easily, if very slowly, navigate among people and objects. It’ll follow grandma around the house, let other families watch her from afar (via internet-based video teleconferencing) and contact someone on the outside if grandma falls down and can’t get up. According to GeckoSystem company execs, it can also operate for up to 14 hours on a single charge.

Video: robotic marimba player grooves autonomously with jazz pianist

We’ve seen an orchestra’s worth of robotic musicians, but we’ve yet to see one that integrates this perfectly into a piece without any human intervention. Shimon — a robotic marimba player created by Georgia Tech’s Guy Hoffman (formerly of MIT), Gil Weinberg (the director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology) and Roberto Aimi of Alium Labs — recently made its stage debut by sensing the music from a piano and reacting accordingly in order to provide complementary percussion. Unlike many alternatives, there’s absolutely no delay here. Instead, it analyzes the classification of chords, estimates the human’s tempo and attempts to extract features from the human’s melodic phrases and styles. What you’re left with a robot musician that goes beyond call-and-response and actually meshes with the Earthling’s playing throughout. The full performance is posted after the break, and make sure to leave a donation as you exit through the doors on the left.

[Thanks, Guy!]

Continue reading Video: robotic marimba player grooves autonomously with jazz pianist

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Video: robotic marimba player grooves autonomously with jazz pianist originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Husqvarna’s SMS-enabled Automower 260 ACX: ur lawnz mowed kk?

Good news for unmanned lawnmower enthusiasts (we know there are at least two of you out there). Husqvarna’s latest, the Automower 260 ACX, can be programmed to send you an SMS text message if something should interrupt the mow job — because sometimes looking outside to see if your robot is still tending to the lawn is just too much to ask. This bad boy gets an hour on a single charge — which should be plenty of time to take down about half an acre of lawn — and upon returning to its docking station, the battery is recharged in roughly forty minutes. Recommended retail price: €4,000 (that’s over $5,200). No word yet on a stateside release.

[Via News Market]

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Husqvarna’s SMS-enabled Automower 260 ACX: ur lawnz mowed kk? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Robots star in Swiss play about a nerd

We’re not the biggest theatre-goers around here (though we’ve been known to take in the odd Phantom of the Opera performance), but this is one play we would jump at the chance to see. Called — quite fittingly — Robots, the musical stars three autonomous robots developed by Bluebotics, a company which specializes in service bots. The story revolves around a lonely human man who lives in isolation with just his robots, and what happens when a woman threatens to visit him in the not too distant future. Yeah, like we haven’t heard this one a million times. The play opens on May 1st at the Barnabe Theatre in Servion, Switzerland, and will run until May 17th.

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Robots star in Swiss play about a nerd originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: WiiNxtBalance tools around, doesn’t fall down

This little bot– the NXTway-GS — is a self-balancer, and he’s pretty cute, to boot. Thanks to some clever modifications, he’s now controllable via Wiimote. Using the LEGO NXT system, and some custom firmware, the little dude is connected to a computer via Bluetooth. The video of the robot in action is after the break — but if you want to see full instructions for making one of your very own — hit the read link. And may we suggest you slap a powdered colonial wig on yours?

[Via Hack A Day]

Continue reading Video: WiiNxtBalance tools around, doesn’t fall down

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Video: WiiNxtBalance tools around, doesn’t fall down originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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