This guy is totally using his powers for good. Canadian Rob Spence had an unfortunate mishap in his teens that led to losing an eye on his right side. He’s decided to one-up nature and become: EYEBORG. With the help of a few of his friends he has developed an eye prosthetic that can broadcast its video, and eventually will be available as a public feed for those who want to see through another (Canadian, filmaking) person’s eyes.

Eyeborg Phase II from eyeborg on Vimeo.

Never underestimate the power of bored nerds to solve excellent problems. How long ’til it’s elective, like tattoos or unusual piercings or suspensions or sideshow performers? I am excited about the cyborg revolution.

[Via Le Boing and IEEE, whee!]

[Thanks Wondermark, Le Boing, and everyone else who posted this]

A cunning little thing from Japan that is a lot cooler than it looks at first blush:

Thanks Ralf Burgert!

More cool stuff at Citadrobo’s YouTube page.

Israeli Scientists are doing a thing with some handshake robots, it should be cool (sorry for the lack of liguistic precision but it’s late and I’m tired and PopSci has done a better job on this anyway).

Image Courtesy Robot Magazine

From Popular Science:
Sure, you can make a robot walk or cook or even play beer pong, but can you make a robot friendly? Ben-Gurion University of the Negev wants to know, so the Israeli university will host the world’s first international competition to build a robot that can shake a human hand.

This is actually a lot cooler than it sounds, because handshaking is a more complex problem than puny humans realize. The conditions, pressure, etc are different every time; differences between hands necessitate decision-making on the fly and – okay remember what I said before? They do a better job explaining things over there at the bigfancy tech magazine, so read and enjoy.

I will indulge in one wholesome and heart-swelling demonstration of sentiment and say that it would be super swell if the folks who sign up for this competition refine their creations, and come to RoboGames 201l as a lovely demonstration of symbolic friendship and brother hood across all nations, creeds and climes. Science and love conquer all.

Yeeegh okay that’s enough. Back to the carnage-loving and haphazard robotic reporting so near and dear to this website’s heart. LOOK! Here’s a contest that rewards the robot who does the most inefficient and laboriously done trivial task! Stupid robot trick yeah!

Okay now I really have to go to bed.

Cris Rose has so many talent chops, that I’m thinking about writing this post in a spreadsheet.

Artist, Designer, Fabricator, Collaborator, Customizer, Collector Whew! He’s busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest who designs, builds and sends original robot toys all over the world to collectors and galleries. Though the figures have no traditional “working parts”, they do have incredibly believable details and lovely backstories. Cris is particularly interested in the relationship between robots and nature, and each character shows its wear and tear with pride. I hope to catch up with Cris soon and find out more about his robots, their histories and the art of decay.

[Via Neatorama!]

Moreover, this was built by RoboGames Regular and Lego aficionado extraordinaire, Steve Hasseplug

You can see MonsterChess in action at Brickworld 2010 this weekend in Chicago.

Kazu Terasaki, longtime SB friend colleague and contributor, comes at us with a new variation on a familiar theme:

iPad walking robot!
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Whee.

[Thank Lem!]

Jameco Electronics, find purveyors of components, useful bits and pieces, and things that go “bing!”, has a nice review of exactly how much fun they had at RoboGames 2010.

[apologies for the extreme lateness of this post, but if you were following my twitter feed, yo will note that my upgrade horcked all over me the other afternoon and thusly I will appease the Blogging Gods by actually posting here more often.]

Equals OSM:

“Chinese students built this awesome robot sculpture for their graduation project. Almost all of the parts come from an old truck and the total budget was 300,000 yuan. The final robot is almost 32 feet tall and weighs over 8,800 lbs.”

Via Instructables