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This week's news on robots.

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Robots dance the Nutcracker Suite

10 Mar

Boing Boing
Jenise sez, "I work for Kiva Systems, a small robotics company in Woburn, MA, and the bots are amazingly fun to watch. A few years ago, one of our interns shot this video of the bots dancing to the Nutcracker Suite, and I thought it would tickle your ample sense of whimsy."
Ample whimsy: tickled.
(Aside: Whenever I hear the Nutcracker Suite, my stupid brain insists on supplying the lyrics from the "Smurfberry Crunch" breakfast cereal ad: "Smurfberry Crunch is fun to eat/A Smurfy fruity breakfast treat/Made with crunchy strawberries/They taste so sweet and [garbled]/Very fresh and very true/And very very Smurfy blue!")
(Bloody Smurfs.)
The Nutcracker performed by Dancing Kiva Order Fulfillment Robots(Thanks, Jenise!)
Previously:
Read more over at www.boingboing.net
Learning to love to hate robots

10 Mar

New Scientist - Robots

Robots have begun to make their way into homes and workplaces, but they aren't always model friends or colleagues

Read more over at www.newscientist.com
Robots to help repair aging water pipes

9 Mar

msnbc.com - Technology & Science

Robots are great for going where humans can't, and the cramped confines of municipal water pipes are the perfect example. A new initiative is working on building robots that can access and repair aging water pipes from the inside.

Read more over at www.msnbc.msn.com
Plan to teach military robots the rules of war

8 Mar

New Scientist - Weapons Technology

New software is a step towards getting robotic attack aircraft to make their own, ethical decisions about wielding lethal force

Read more over at www.newscientist.com
Video: Inside the house of robots

8 Mar

www.guardian.co.uk

Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn explains the possibility of robots as companions or as a therapeutic tool for children with autism
Linda Nylind
Elliot Smith

Read more over at www.guardian.co.uk
Robot Tiles

8 Mar

BED Online Magazine
“Walk like an Egyptian” is so eighties! Now you can walk like a robot, well almost. Check out these uber-cool Robot Tiles which repositions themselves when you walk ahead. This awesome feat is achieved thanks to the in-built sensors in the electrically-conductive textiles.
Via Design Boom
Brought to you by: BED Online Magazine - The Bed Blog - We are crazy about beds.
Robot Tiles
BED Contemporary, BED Home, BED Technology, Bedroom, Home Gadgets, Livingroom, robot tiles, ronot, tiles
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Read more over at bedzine.com
Empathy with robots depends on exposure

8 Mar

New Scientist - Robots

Brain regions responsible for relating to others "lit up" when volunteers watched a robotic hand

Read more over at www.newscientist.com
Beware robots bearing snacks

6 Mar

The Guardian World News
Yes, they can rustle up an omelette and serve noodles, but didn't we learn anything from HAL?
The robot butler has a long and frequently chequered history. From Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet (who could bring a nicely shaken martini) through to HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (which served food via a hatch, then later killed you), the idea that there must be a better method of getting refreshments handed out than making a person push a trolley is one that just won't go away.
So in the search of that most elusive of robotic holy grails, Paul Rybski and his team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have spent two years and $20,000 to build a "snackbot" with laser navigation, sonar sensors and a Point Grey Bumblebee 2 stereo camera (that's its eyes).
And what does it do? Delivers snacks. True, its first task in front of a watching New York Times reporter – delivering a granola bar – would hardly tax the average three-year-old. "Hello, I'm the Snackbot," it said as it headed over. "I've come to deliver snacks to Ian. Is Ian here?"
The Snackbot is only one of dozens of robots that are emerging to make food. You can get a cooking robot from Fanxing Science and Technology, in Shenzhen, China; it can fry, bake, boil and steam Chinese delicacies. Not to be outdone, scientists at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, built the Chief Cook Robot. Its speciality: omelettes.
Why? Because omelettes seem like a nice, non-threatening sort of meal. In fact, the whole idea of robot chefs (and snackbots) is to get us used to the idea that they're just nice servants which, once costs fall far enough, will be all around us.
Perhaps. Then again, it's Japan that's leading the way in robot food preparation, with the Famen restaurant in Nagoya using two robots able to cook up to 800 bowls of ramen (noodles) daily. The problem is that they do cost about £80,000 each. And when there aren't enough customers, they indulge in a pre-programmed knife fight. Remember HAL? Then keep clear of the ramen robots.
- Robots
Charles Arthur

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Read more over at www.guardian.co.uk
Will somebody think of the robots?

6 Mar

MAKE Magazine

As part of their campaign to raise money for a new facility, the hackerspace i3 Detroit produced this cute video imploring you to please think of the robots and help their cause. In the short number of months they have been open, they have really established themselves as outstanding members of the community, helping to put on a Mini Maker Faire, sponsoring FIRST robot teams, and offering classes and events, so it is great to see them already looking to expand. Good luck, robots!
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Read more over at blog.makezine.com
M3 Neony And M3 Synchy Robots

4 Mar

Ubergizmo

Robots seem to get cooler (and yet somehow also scarier) everyday. Now two professors from Osaka University have come up with two new robots, dubbed the M3-neony and M3-synchy. The “M3” mentioned here actually stands for “Man-Made-Man”, which is probably just another fancy way of calling it a robot.
The M3-neony is used to research the development of fine motor skills, such as learning to crawl through trial and error, as well as human assistance through physical contact. It’s about 50cm tall, weighs in at 3.5kg and sports a pair of CMOS cameras for sight and microphones for hearing.
The M3-synchy is a mass communication robot that focuses on verbal and non-verbal communication, such as facial expressions and arm gestures. This 30cm, 2.5kg robot is armed with a single wide-angle lens CCD camera, two microphones, a speaker and 15 LEDs which can make the robot blush bright red.

Press release (Japanese).

Permalink: M3 Neony And M3 Synchy Robots from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

Read more over at www.ubergizmo.com