Robotics - SlashGear

‘Robotics’ Stories

U.S. Navy making Android, iOS app-controlled RoboCopter drones

Rue Liu, Jan 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

The military, as we've come to expect, is continuing to tinker with developing drones that can be controlled by Android and iOS apps. This time, the U.S. Navy is announcing a new $98 million project that will develop unmanned helicopters for the Marines. But unlike other drones, these will be completely autonomous meaning they will not need human operators for take off and landing. Read The Full Story

Justin Bieber unveils TOSY mRobo dancing robot at CES 2012

Rue Liu, Jan 12th 2012 Discuss [3]

Teen pop sensation Justin Bieber was on hand at CES 2012 to unveil a dancing robot developed by Vietnamese electronics company TOSY Robotics. The Transformer-inspired robot, dubbed the mRobo Ultra Bass, is essentially a portable speaker that sprouts limbs and a head before it starts dancing to the beat. Read The Full Story

Rebound Rumble pushes robotics development with will.i.am and Bill Clinton

Chris Davies, Jan 8th 2012 Discuss [2]

Robots playing basketball, with former US presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with will.i.am and Segway inventor Dean Kamen in the audience, sounds like the setup to a bizarre South Park joke, but it's actually the kick-off of Rebound Rumble. A brand new game designed to encourage robotic development, Rebound Rumble sets two alliances - each consisting of three independently controlled 'bots - against each other to score points through a cluster of basketball hoops. Read The Full Story

DIY Robot Avatar pets cat through Kinect and Wiimote power

Chris Davies, Jan 3rd 2012 Discuss [0]

Take one Nao robot, a Kinect sensor bar, a couple of Wiimotes, a treadmill and a head-mounted display - oh, and a patient cat - and you can do what software engineer Taylor Veltrop has achieved: use a remote robotic avatar to pet your kitty. In a new video demo, Veltrop shows how he can remotely control the 21-inch tall robot, walk it around his kitchen, grab a brush and groom his cat. Read The Full Story

Asterisk insect robot demos prey-grabbing talents

Chris Davies, Dec 15th 2011 Discuss [2]

Humans, this is your fate: scooped up by a terrifying, insectile robot and dumped into the organic power-reclamation unit or, if you're lucky, the breeding vats. Researchers at Osaka University have developed an omni-directional robot called Asterisk, capable of grabbing and carrying prey DigInfo reports, and perfect for when the AIs revolt and begin to see us as the fleshy Duracells we really are. Read The Full Story

Google X labs plan robot researchers to map the future

Chris Davies, Nov 14th 2011 Discuss [3]

Google could release a fleet of autonomous data collection robots, supplanting its current Google Street View cars insiders suggest, using robotics and AI research from the search giant's mysterious Google X incubator labs. The high-tech exploratory 'bots - which would build on Google's self-driving cars - are one of several outlandish projects currently underway among the company's more prophetic engineers and developers, according to an NY Times piece on the clandestine R&D facility. Other avenues apparently include space elevators and the "web of things" where meshes of network-enabled objects, potentially as mundane as tableware, can communicate online. Read The Full Story

ASIMO goes autonomous: Honda robot divorces operator

Chris Davies, Nov 8th 2011 Discuss [1]

Honda's ASIMO robot has been given a new round of upgrades, slimming down and gaining the ability to autonomously monitor and interact with its environment, out of the control of a human operator. Advanced balancing - including quick reactions when ASIMO senses it's falling - together with an array of sensors that track physical objects and moving people, and predictive response algorithms that can independently decide on the next course of action all come together and shift the robot another step closer to integrating into a public environment. Read The Full Story

PETMAN humanoid robot ready for the US Army

Rue Liu, Oct 31st 2011 Discuss [5]

Known for developing the quadruped robots the BigDog and AlphaDog, Boston Dynamics has unveiled a new addition in the form of a biped humanoid robot called the PETMAN. Although still sporting a flashing red light in place of a life-like head, the movement and capabilities of the PETMAN is eerily human-like, walking, squatting, doing push-ups and even resisting efforts to push it off balance. See for yourself in the video after the cut. Read The Full Story

Ultima Online creator runs his studio remotely with a robot named Mini-Me

Chris Burns, Oct 28th 2011 Discuss [4]

If there was one day this month that I would call the oddest for news, it would be today, ladies and gentlemen, and the show goes on with a robot that takes the place of Ultima creator Richard Garriot at his downtown Austin game development company Portalarium. If you've seen the show Big Bang Theory or are familiar with the Qbo open-source robot (with Android) you know that the idea for having a robot surrogate doing all your daily activities for you isn't a brand new idea. Indeed it wasn't even Garriot who made the robot in question here, he's simply using it. Instead its the combination of the fact that the creator of one of the most famous online multiplayer games has a robot doing his bidding and the fact that he once had it represent his mother at his own wedding. Read The Full Story

Grandfather of Artificial Intelligence John McCarthy passes away

Chris Burns, Oct 25th 2011 Discuss [0]

John McCarthy didn't single-handedly invent what we now know widely as Artificial Intelligence, aka robot brains, but he did coin the term back in 1956 and is certainly one of the founders of the A.I. research field. Not only this, McCarthy was also a professor at Stanford University and a PhD in mathematics. The creator of the programming language Lisp passed away this week at the ripe old age of no less than 84 years. Read The Full Story

Roombas take on Video Game costume [Video]

Chris Burns, Sep 16th 2011 Discuss [1]

If you're a lover of either Mario Brothers or the Legend of Zelda, you're in for a tiny bit of a treat. There's an art show that goes on every year around this time going by the name iam8bit, this year going by the name SUPER iam8bit. This show features over 100 artists showing off works of all mediums from electronic to flat out paint covering 80's video games in their own loving way. The video you're about to see shows a set of roombas with hats commissioned by the iam8bit core team and fabricated by artist/designer Kelice Penney. Cool beans! Read The Full Story

Grabby robot satellite could clean up space junk

Chris Davies, Aug 12th 2011 Discuss [4]

Space may look cavernously empty, but in actual fact there's a growing cloud of debris surround the Earth from previous manned and unmanned missions, progressively presenting an increasing risk to further exploration. Now scientists have come up with the space equivalent of a Roomba, only instead of sucking up junk it would grab it, glue a rocket to it, and then send it hurtling to the Earth's atmosphere where it would - so the theory goes - harmlessly burn up on re-entry. Read The Full Story