From the man that brought you R2S2 the steampunk Artoo, and assorted other completely compelling creatures, we bring you a cute little putterbot:
This man does more in one night of aimless puttering than I have done in my entire life. Seriously.
By Epson, the folks what brought you all those fine printing mechanisms:
Over the years Epson has released quite a few microrobots, although most are just prototypes. Through the projects Epson has silently become one of the pioneers in the development of microrobots and component technology applications.
Named the μFR, the machine can levitate by using propellers which are powered by a very small motor. The system contains many firsts to the robotics industry including the first stabilizing mechanism which uses a linear actuator. The device allows the robot to balance in mid-air, which is what creates the sense of levitation. The uFR can also follow a flight path, vary its altitude, and remain in the air for up to three minutes.
That’s some sexytime talks from Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, rawr.
According to the Beeb, the little monster weighs in at 12.3 grams. That’s tiny!
It’s also bluetooth enabled, so somebody get working on a iPhone app for buzzing your co-workers’ heads down at the cube farm.
Here is a happy interview with Andrew Stanton of Pixar, on Wall*E, with Terry Gross.
Creating charming trash compactors, cuddly fish, and intimidating grasshoppers? All part of Andrew Stanton’s job.
Stanton is a driving force at animation powerhouse Pixar, having been involved in all nine of the studio’s feature film releases.
He joined the studio in 1990, hired as its second animator and ninth employee. Since then, he’s worked in such capacities as director, producer, screenwriter, animator and even occasional voice actor.
Most recently, Stanton directed and co-wrote the critically acclaimed Wall-E. The film tells the story of a romance between two robots in a post-apocalyptic future.
Stanton also wrote and directed Finding Nemo, which won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film in 2004. His writing credits also include Monsters, Inc., Toy Story and A Bug’s Life.
These days, Stanton is working on John Carter of Mars, and adaptation of Edward Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series. The film will differ from previous Pixar releases in that it will blend CGI animation with live-action footage. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Listen on the N-to-the-P-to-the-R, awwww yeah Public Broadcasting in the hoooouse. . .
There really isn’t a whole lot I can add to this video, really. Although, note the sexy double pupils on its googly eyes.
Further proving that Pittsburgh is becoming the Silicon Valley of robotics, Osman Kahn, visiting professor at CMU, built this robot for the Robot250 festival in Pittsburgh. A highlight of this citywide festival, which celebrates Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary, is the deployment of a bunch of robots in adorably unexpected places.
Seriously. It fetches.
“This robot uses an Acroname CMUcam2+ for its eye and an Acroname BrainStem GP 2.0 microcontroller for its brain. It chases down a bright pink ball (which I made with a styrofoam ball and neon pink acrylic paint), grabs it with its dual-servo pincher, and brinks it back to its home base by homing in on another bright pink target (conveniently mounted over the iSight camera on my Mac).
The cute, it burns.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
May The Robot Gods bless Robert from RobotsRule, because my GOD I wish I could use my excess time up like this guy does.
I really did not know what bodacious booties those Femisapiens have.
[Thanks Again Robots Dreams!
Badass mondo disco robot-dance video delectability, music by the Pinker Tones, who can only be described as Catalonian Kraut Rock.
Yeah yeah ads, whatever.
[Thanks Xeni!]
The Twat-o-Tron is a neat script that mimics the xenophobic bollocks spewed by many of the commenters on the BBC’s Have Your Say website.
From Kuro5hin:
As well as providing endless entertainment, this tool highlights the negative feedback loop that is emerging on many “Have Your Say” areas of news sites. The Daily Mail (dreadful Murdoch-owned UK tabloid rag) has long been suspected of editing user comments to display only those that toe the editorial line (mostly rants about brown people, Labour and dole-scroungers), which only reinforces the prejudices of those who read these news sources for the sole purpose of achieving a glow of righteous fury over the “state of the UK today”.
As a dole-scrounging brown person, I say: “Ya Damn Kids! Get Offa My Lawn!”
It’s an interesting social phenomenon that seems to show that the intelligent people tend to not comment on these sorts of sites if, in fact, they are paying attention to the traditional media at all.
Let’s hear it for the lowest common denominator.
[via Kuro5hin, danke!]
I think I can be confident in my assumption when I say that readers of this website mostly can be said to enjoy things that go “smash” , “boom” and “bing”. Here is a nifty thing that lives in some art gallery somewhere and amuses the wine and cheese types:
It’s a sculpture/robot that flings empty beer bottles at a solid wall at 373 MPH, smashing them to smithereens. As the exhibit goes on during the day, a pile of green shards of glass piles up under the wall.
This sculpture, is, of course, 99.44% pure awesome, but as Vordo of SRL pointed out, SRL, like, totally did this a long time ago. Like, yawn and stuff.
Also, *ours* shoots *concrete* filled beer *cans*, and *ours* goes *500mph*, not a puny 373, *and* contravenes several federal firearms laws. Plus, We can let any schlub with a web browser operate *our* machine. Plus, *ours* has FRIKKIN’ LASERS!
Smoke that, bitches.
Here’s the cleanroom where the ammo is prepared:
But it is always appreciated when other children build their own toys.
[via Gizmodo via Make, via WMMNA, via via, via Las Vegas, etc etc]
I am not as huge of a Flickr freak as The Squid is, but this Flickr group might make me reconsider.
The delicious Lem directs us to the Flickr Group for things that look like robots. I will start carrying my camera around. . .*now*.
We all are at least passingly familiar with the great Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. A real roboticist will tell you automatically that these laws are, for now, total bunk, and assume a level of technology of which we as puny early-21st century humans can only vaguely dream.
Apart from that though, the Three Laws are a talisman for fanboys and technological alarmists everywhere, and deserve to be celebrated as such through the thoughtful medium of that incredibly relevant news site, Something Awful.
In that spirit, we would like to present Asimov’s 30 Laws Of Robotics:
10. A robot, when given contradictory orders by two human beings, and assuming those orders do not violate the First Law, must decide which order to follow based on which human being has a deeper voice.
11. A robot, specifically a big, wide robot, may not pretend to be a refrigerator and then make a scary noise when a human being opens it.
12. A robot must attempt to be courteous and civil to human beings at all times, even if the robot is just one of those robot arms that puts things together in a factory, because they should at least make the effort.
13. A robot ought to spend some time outdoors, because it is such a nice day.
Feel free to argue fanboyishly about the 3 Laws in the comments, because there is just not enough trollbait on this website.
[Thanks to the Western Washington University Planetarium for the lovely image]
Here’s an item from Artificial Intelligence and Robotics talking about Tartalo, “a robot that can perform tasks without have to be told concrete rules, as most modern-day robots are.” Funny, that sound exactly like something I heard of once called “programming”.
The research is being done by the University of the Basque Country who are actually making interesting inroads into bionimetic recognition for robots. GPS is hard to use inside a building, so why not have a robot train to recognize objects and file them away in memory?
From Science Daily:
The machines best known for guiding one from a starting point to a given goal are GPS navigation systems. However, these do not function inside buildings and neither would it be realistic to create a database with the plans for every building in the world. For this reason the UPV/EHU researchers use biomimetic systems as a basis for developing the robot, meaning that Tartalo does the same as a person or animal on entering a new place: explore the terrain and take in points of reference. But, for a machine to carry out what living creatures do by, as it were, instinct, the computer programmers have to nevertheless put in a huge quantity of data, programmes and calculations.
It’s actually cooler than my snark would have you believe.
[via Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Science Daily]
This post photo-free because I am a lazy bum, and in a hurry.
So, I’m not the main person for collecting network branded pop culture merchandise or anything, but the inevitable has happened:
Yes. Cylon toasters. For $65 bucks. I mean, I am just shocked it took this long.
These are limited editions special-for-San-Diego-Comic-Con specials, so get one first, or just knock over the nerd next to you and take thiers.
[via OhGizmo, New Launches and the NBC Universal store]
For those of you sitting around doing frak-all with your Saturday night (like me), I present an oldie but a goodie:
From RoboCentral:
AquaJelly is an artificial autonomous jellyfish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system. AquaJelly consists of a translucent hemisphere and eight tentacles used for propulsion. At the centre of the AquaJelly is a watertight, laser-sintered pressure vessel. This comprises a central, electric drive, two lithium-ion-polymer batteries, the charge control device and the servo motors for the swashplate.
[via DesignNews]
It’s always hard to have one of your own down. The accident happens, the drama occurs, the people flurry to help, it’s what everyone’s talking about, and we all revel in the joy of community and grow closer in tragedy.
It’s one of the only good things that comes out of something like this, and it’s an important facet of living, but what we forget is that time keeps going, and that help and virtuousness of feeling and closeness dissipates into what-project-are-you-working-on, oh-man-my-car-broke-down, what-are we-doing-this-weekend, etc etc.
Sometimes people forget that even though the high drama has passed, the wounds are still there, insurance still needs to be supplemented, rehab is still going on, and Our Man still has a long way to go.
It’s singular to note, then, that even though it’s no longer the event of the moment, even though the casual observer has drifted off into the next huge thing, that there is a core of dedicated, loving people who make sure to remember their friend, and bloody well make sure that everyone else remembers him too. It’s the kind of community (jeez I hate that word) that anyone would be proud to be a part of.
Todd Blair was injured in an accident at RoboDock almost one year ago. He’s fighting the good fight for long, long time, and will still be fighting well into next year.
Behind the scenes, people like Nina Alter, Mark Pauline, Amy Critchett, and dozens upon dozens of others have made a huge effort to set up a brand spanking new Todd Website, and to orchestrate a completely awesome fundraiser at Rhythmix Cultural Works.
So join us for the unveiling of 1 Wall/25 Gears , the latest benefit for Todd Blair and his partner Alex Ismerio:
July 20th 2008, come celebrate!
The Wall of gears built by all our hard-working gear-makers will come to life at Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda.
3pm - 8pm
2513 Blanding Ave, Alameda CA 94501$5 to $500 donation at the door
All donations are tax deductible
All Ages Welcome+ Witness The Wall built throughout the day
+ Food, Drinks, Raffle, DIY Shirts, Performance
+ DJs Matt Heckert, Kal Spellitch, Mori Pauline· DIY Shirts with Amy Jenkins
· Laloos Goat Milk Icecream
· Flaming Lotus Girls Feathers
· Bissap Baobob Senegalese food
· Maze Diako drummers
· Dogs Steamed by Shannon O’Hares Steam car
· Kyrsten & her Amazing Bellydancers
· Joan Ryan reading
· Raffle of amazingness
+ MORE!
Even if you can’t make it, do try to send Alex and Todd a little bit of cash, they are struggling and even with all the lovin’, it ain’t easy. As my Uncle Christine says, “Chip in, hippie. Remember - next time it might be you.”
If nothing else, it’s going to be a screaming fun time, so if you are anywhere near the Bay Are on the 20th, do pop in.
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