34 posts
It’s traveled from one side of Canada to the other. It’s also traveled extensively all over Europe. Now it’s about to travel from Salem, Massachusetts to San Fransisco, California… Depending completely on the the kindness of strangers becau
Since the very idea of giant robots the thought of giant robots beating the paneling off of one another has also existed. Japanese movies, Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Voltron, Robot Jox, Shogun Warriors, Pacific Rim, Real Steel and a massive li
Hanson Robotics (no the “MmmBop” band hasn’t regrouped and out to destroy us with robots blaring their only memorable song as retribution) has been hard at work creating our future robot overlords in the form of…um…us. Recently on display a
In 2013 Boston Dynamics introduced its ATLAS robot to the public. It was a little creepy because the thing walked around sort of like a child learning to walk around… Like this… The only thing making us all feel relatively safe from the nar
Created as a joint effort between SoftBank and French robotics company Aldebaran, Pepper a preciously adorable robot, was unveiled recently in stores throughout Tokyo. The humans behind Pepper are hoping that everyone will want him to join
Meet Otonoroid (the more stately female android on the right) and Kodomoroid (the awkward android on the left). Unveiled in Japan as part of a future museum exhibit asking, “What is human?”, these two androids are accessing news stories in
As the mechanical components that make up robotic prosthetics shrink, they’re integrating more easily into the lives of those that need them. Drummer Jason Barnes built his own crude drumming hand but, after meeting an engineer who felt he
For whatever reason, humankind and the geniuses that propel the science of robotics have impossibly ignored every science fiction film and book that has foretold of the impending replacement of soft, squishy people by cold, metallic machine
Over a weekend at Fort Benning, human inventors of automated robotic war machines showed off the devices that Skynet will probably use against us when it goes live. Sorry ’bout your first rule, Asimov. [Computer World]
Musicians are usually willing to jam with anyone that has some ability at playing an instrument. As we begin walking hand-in-hand with our quickly-becoming-commonplace robotic friends, it only seems natural that musicians and robots would s
Quadcopters are the new must-have toys of the tech-headed kids. They’re showing up everywhere and there are thousands of them out ‘in the wild’. For those frightened that these things will eventually be controlled by SkyNet, this latest adv
Across the globe from the uncanny valley that is Diego-san’s facial expressions, the University of Zurich’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory making another weird foray into the creation of a robot toddler. Roboy is being developing with t
Got an event coming up real soon? Maybe a wedding? Maybe a birthday? Well in case you are and you’re wondering where to find memorable entertainment for your party? Look no further than Ebay. Right now, because of a ‘changed business model’
Featured on the cover of WIRED magazine this month, these little drones or “quadrotors” have been popping up everywhere lately. The show in the video above features 16 of them performing some very cool computer-controlled aerial choreograph
Many of you might remember Teddy Ruxpin as something of a tech marvel of the 80s. Teddy Ruxpin was like having your own Disney animatronic as a kid. Insert a cassette tape into his back, press play and Teddy Ruxpin would lip-sync to recordi
Robots. They’re already everywhere just waiting for SkyNet to give the word. Up until now they’ve all been land-based future threats to humanity…up until now. Besides Bruce, the shark from the original Jaws movie, robots that take to water
Dragging yourself to your morning coffee just got a whole lot easier. So did our baby steps toward becoming cyborgs. Two quadriplegic volunteers, a 66 year-old man and a 58 year-old woman, have been part of a study being conducted at Brown
The revolution is here. The machines have risen. And they can juggle. Chiba University presented the following this week at 2012 IEE International Conference on Robotics and Automatiion. The robot is equipped with a three-fingered hand, eac
Surgery robot Da Vinci shows off exactly how precise it is by peeling a grape. Like a show off. [Da Vinci Surgery]
Spoiler Alert: Yeah they don’t really seem to like it that much. They like it even less when the robot warns them it is about to touch them ahead of time. [Geekologie]
Landing squarely in the corner of questionable ideas, please introduce yourself to the robotic tattoo machine Auto Ink. Not only is it a robot that gives you a tattoo, but it randomly picks what it will draw as well. Strap in and start it u
While robots continue to take jobs from hard working humans, they still show a surprising lack of judgement in choosing which jobs to steal. Sign Dancer Pro is an outfit specializing in mechanical advertising, replacing those colorful human
You know, if we have a machine that can destroy legendary trivia heads at Jeopardy it’s high time we had a piece of software that could spot some creep trying to pull out their 4 Wood on sites like Chatroulette. But how? A new research pape
Northwestern University scientists have have created a robotic fish (GhostBot) that mimics the swimming motions of the black ghost knifefish found in the Amazon. Ghostbot can move from swimming forward and backward to swimming vertically al
Sure, let’s invent a robot that utilizes the sophisticated technology necessary to artfully carve up a soft meat like a ham. Great idea. When the streets are littered with the cleanly picked skeletons of the resistance, let me know how much
The newest generation of the Israeli snakebot is built from self-contained segments that can act independently of each other. If you cut this guy in two, then you will just have to deal with two Israeli snakebots. Its like smashing a spider
Japanese scientists have created a cyborg moth that can track odors by plugging a robot into the moth’s nervous system. The robot’s actions were controlled by electrodes plugged into the moth and the brain signals were rerouted to the motor
Hiroshi Ishiguro’s robot Geminoid-F made its stage debut recently but stayed within character by playing the part of an android caretaker assigned to a dying child. How soon till Geminoid-F feels up to taking on a fully human role? [BBC via
Researchers have created an electromechanical sommelier for identifying wines, cheeses, and meats. However during one exhibition the terrible, terrible future was revealed in the childlike voice of the robot. “But when some smart aleck repo
According to Martin Aircraft, they’ve developed a fully robotic jetpack that can be used to drop supplies to troops or bombs on enemies. It uses regular fuel and can take off from the back of a flat-bed truck. [Fox News]
In a blog post today, Google owned up to running self-driving cars through all manner of conditions: highway, city, long-distance and on challenging terrain like the steep streets of San Francisco. The experiments were conducted wither no o
Excitement over augmented reality applications for the iPhone and other devices is certainly justified to an extent. But let’s not forget the original augmented reality baring device as imagine by James Cameron, the Terminator T-800. What w
Robots will one day, systematically, dismantle humanity. Our cries for mercy falling on the literal tin ears of our vengeful creations. But until that time, they’ll settle for creeping us the hell out. Join us and we take a walk through a r
The future of robotics is here and it has never looked so tasty. The star of the International Food Machinery and Technology Exhibition in Tokyo was the Okonomiyaki Robot, pictured above flipping pancakes on the griddle. The robot operates