Sometimes you are in the mood for something moody, something fantastically stylish and ALSO something confusing and intriguing.

Behold: mannequins, automata, style for days and also …

people behaving … as … such???

(click through to the ‘tube for embiggening)
and thank you, the ever amazing Coilhouse!

A new installment to the Deus Ex series has been released, and to celebrate the launch Rob Spence was commissioned to report back on the current state of bionic prosthetics.

Rob Spence lost his right eye and replaced it with a video camera, earning the self-proclaimed cyborg the nickname of Eyeborg!

The video contains a good deal of game footage of Deus Ex: Human Revolution in order to compare the cybernetics in the game to their closest real counterparts.

DISCLAIMER: Skip to 0:16 if you want to avoid footage of Rob Spence’s eye being operated on.

Enjoy:

Welcome to Hooman Samani’s Lovotics – an area of research dealing with human-to-robot relations.

Across 11 research papers, Samani has outlined — and begun to develop — an extremely complex artificial intelligence that simulates psychological and biological systems behind human love. To do this, Samani’s robots are equipped with artificial versions of the human “love” hormones — Oxytocin, Dopamine, Seratonin, and Endorphin — that can increase or decrease, depending on their state of love. On a psychological level, by using MRI scans of human brains to mirror the psychology of love, the robots are also equipped with an artificial intelligence that tracks their “affective state”; their level of affection for their human lover.

Observe as this lovely combination of R2D2 and Roomba strives for your affection:

After reading this article I immediately visited this tv-tropes piece, knowing all-well that I could suffer a similar fate as this fellow.

I came to the conclusion that one of my favorite responses to “What is this thing you call love?” was from a jolly assassin droid by the name of HK-47:

“Definition: ‘Love’ is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, love is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and fewer would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose, against statistically long odds.“

Now please, stop asking us about pleasure bots.

I blame the Svedka robot.

Video courtesy RobotCity

Can you freaking *imagine* huge, buzzing quadrotors on a skyscraper building site somewhere in Southeast Asia (I can only imagine it would happen in Southeast Asia first for some reason)? It would be so Terminator.

Granted, it’s *really* hard to scale up this sort of machinery (ask any humanoid developer) but the day when the low rumble of back-hoe sized armies of autonomous, insect-like manipulation robots capable of multiple degrees of movement and bent on their one and only overriding task will soon be at hand! Whee!

Video done up by Daniel Mellinger at the University Of Pennsylvania, Philly, creating tomorrow’s robot world domination today!

[Thanks New Scientist!]

Check out this article by Phillip Torrone chronicling the development of wearable electronic tech -  Ranging from music and video players/recording devices, to a huge variety of USB devices, and much much more!

I’ve always wanted to utilize my wrist real estate to my shoes for electronics of some kind. Many of the “wearables” I’m going to share are from my project archives, some are now “real,” and others are products that are out now. I think we’re finally entering an era where wearable electronics can look good and work well.

Mentioned in an earlier post dissecting Hero Jr., Jeri Ellsworth spotted in the depths of this article, this time with her Nintendo Purse!

Special thanks to Make Magazine.

“The patient, called “Milo”, aged 26, lost the use of his right hand in a motorcycle accident a decade ago.

After his stump heals in several weeks’ time, he will be fitted with a bionic hand which will be controlled by nerve signals in his own arm.”

The initial horror over an elective amputation was quickly overcome by intrigue over the mechanical new appendage:

“Such bionic hands, manufactured by the German prosthetics company Otto Bock, can pinch and grasp in response to signals from the brain that are picked up by two sensors placed over the skin above nerves in the forearm.”

Watching the video of another case in the article amazes me with how far the technology has come.

Previously, I was concerned with the plausibility of my USB-Hand that would allow high-fiving, fist bumps, and slapping people through the internet.

My dream yet lives.

-The Intern

We’re waking up with Electric Six a lot around our house these days. Here’s a totally non-gratuitous Robot Themed Song by those crazy awesome dance masters. Grids, romance, loose wires, gazing and blank stares, man railing against faulty technology.

Just in time to rock the weekend!

I always cry at weddings, but this made me laugh. The full story of the i-Fairy wedding officiate in today’s news. Thanks, Neatorama!

Who doesn’t like coffee, coffee making, a robot with pony tails and a jaunty instrumental driving it along? I’m afraid I may watch this a few thousand times and fall into a virtual caffeinated stupor. Can’t read the text on mujakiclockwork’s youtube page or on clockwork.shikisokuzekuu.net, but I gather the robot’s name is Hina. There are a few pix on the blog suggesting Hina’s fabricational history. Could be my new BFF! If you have any further insight into this delightful creature, please let us know. My Moccamaster KBT 741 is pining for an introduction.

Boy do we have a party for you. Join ComBots, Laughing Squid and the Robotics Society of America for a night out to benefit this year International RoboGames. Guzzle tasty beverages made by your favorite robot bartenders, see works in progress and other junk made out of art, and hobnob with some of the leading lights of robotic society.

Get a martini from a robot!
Buy great robot art!
Drive a combat robot!
Get a robot-made roasted mashmallow (made w/a flame thrower!)

image courtesy Scott Beale.

Door charge is a sliding scale, all proceeds go to making RoboGames 2009 better than ever! Give til it hurts. We do.

Follow http://twitter.com/robogames for the latest updates.

Saturday, May 9, 2009, 7:00pm-2am
Secret Location