Robots

Among all the robots designed by Boston Dynamics, Spot is perhaps the only one so far that borders on being considered "cute" to some degree. Its relatively smaller size and agility have definitely caught the attention of sectors outside the robotics industry, from law enforcement to hospitals to basically anyone with money to burn to buy or build one. The latter is apparently the case with MSCHF, notorious for its viral stunts, who just bought a Spot "dog" robot to create art in the most eccentric and controversial way possible.

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Japan is famous and notorious for products and trends that just blow the mind, in good or bad ways or both. Sometimes, those ideas do strike a chord in people from both halves of the world, making some wish those were easily accessible. Panasonic's latest crowdfunding experiment seems to fit the bill, presenting a robot cat with some interesting features. But whether Nicobo actually looks like a cat and whether its random flatulence can be considered special is still to be determined, it's hard to deny how the "thing" seems to be attracting some very positive attention.

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University of California San Diego engineers have created a soft quadruped robot that doesn't require any electronics to work. The robot only needs a constant source of pressurized air to perform all of its available functions, including control systems and locomotion. Researchers on the project say that the work represents a fundamental step towards fully-autonomous electronics-free walking robots.

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A creature common in California known as the California black worm eats microorganisms in ponds and are sometimes kept as tropical fish in aquariums. What's notable about the California black worm is that they blend together in a swarm of tens, hundreds, and thousands of the centimeter-long creatures. The point of the worm blob is to protect its members from drying out and to help them escape threats like excessive heat. A group of researchers from Georgia Tech has created robots able to swarm together in a robot blob like the worms.

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Boston Dynamic's first commercial robot, Spot, has had an upgrade, with the new version of the charmingly-terrifying robot dog now adding a robot arm and the ability to self-charge. Smallest of Boston Dynamics' models - and a quadruped, unlike the weirdly agile bipedal robots that arguably helped cement the company's reputation as a heavyweight in the segment - Spot has been on sale to businesses since June 2020.

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Automaker Hyundai has a new employee working in one of its showrooms in Seoul, Korea. The employee is an AI-powered automated robot called DAL-e that provides customer services at the showroom. The automaker says it plans to adopt the robot in diverse operating environments.

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Fish swimming in a massive school have complex and synchronous behaviors to help them find food, migrate, and evade predators. The school of fish isn't coordinated by a single fish or a team. Fish also don't communicate with each other about what to do next. How this swarm moves comes from something known as implicit coordination happening when an individual fish makes decisions based on what their neighbor is doing.

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Engineers at Columbia University have created a robot that can learn to visually predict how it's partner robot will behave. The engineers say that the robot has displayed a glimmer of empathy. The breakthrough could help robots get along with other robots and humans more intuitively in the future. The robot learned to predict its partner robot's future actions and goals based on a few initial video frames.

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The folks at Roborock revealed a brand new robot vacuum cleaner today with the Roborock S7. This device has what the company calls the "world's-first sonic mopping system with intelligent lift technology on a robot vacuum." This robot aims to simplify the robotic vacuum and mop experience - as quick as possible, with as little interruption as possible to the life of the user.

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There's a smart home robot coming to your household in the future called Samsung Bot Handy. This is one of Samsung's collection of robot companions called "Bot" and the latest made to work in your home. If you've been following Samsung's robot lineup for the last few years, you've seen several "Bot" devices.

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A major challenge when it comes to using robots to explore other planets is keeping them operating when there's no way to repair them from Earth. Researchers at the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania have conducted what they call very preliminary work on robots made from ice that can repair themselves. The team, including Devin Carroll and Mark Yim, note they have only begun exploring the possibility of making robots from ice.

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The days of a clunky robot lumbering slowly on stiff legs, its head tethered to a bundle of cables, are officially behind us. Boston Dynamics has published its latest robot demonstration video, this one showing multiple robots independently dancing -- quite well -- to the song 'Do You Love Me' by The Contours.

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