Tandy Trower, the 57 years old retired Microsoft employee and creator of the Microsoft Robotic Studio, launched a new Seattle-based start-up called Hoaloha Robotics. The main goal is to produce a unified programming environment and robotic interface (à la ROS) in order to commercialize afford
The Evolution Robotics Mint is a smart floor wiping and moping robot that will take care of floors in a new and and innovative way. Instead of using brushed and vacuum, this robot wipes the floor with well known microfiber cloths (e.g. Swiffer and Pledge). Mint Robotic Floor Cleaner The Mint uses…
We are lucky enough to have received one of the early Neato XV-11 engineering samples. We took this chance to take a few pictures and shoot an unboxing video in order to share with everyone this awesome experience. The only difference between this sample unit and the regular XV-11 is the former s…
In an heroic effort to learn everyday household skills, this robot arm form the Italian Institute of Technology has learned the indispensable pancake flipping skill every robot needs (as thought by Dr Petar Kormushev andDr Sylvain Calinon). Despite the great difficulty of this task (who hasn't w
Earlier HERB Intel has been developing for some time a Home Exploring Robotic Butler (HERB, for the relatives). It features, among other things, two Barrett arms with grippers (since it was upgraded from the previous one-armed version) , a Segway RPM base, and a Hokuyo UTM-30LX Scanning Laser
As announced previously, the Neato Robotics XV-11 is now available for pre-order at RobotShop. The first shipments of the XV-11 will begin in August. You can find it along its robot vacuum friends on the RobotShop catalogue. The demand for these little smart vacuum cleaning robots will be very h
We are happy to announce that the PR2 from Willow Garage has a very good friend, the Kawada HRP2-JSK. Since robots do not have emotions (yet) or know the concept of friendship (yet), by "fiends" we mean that they can use the same open source code to perform the same tasks. This might not seem…
At RobotShop we know that the Arduino is very popular among roboticists, hobbyist and professionals alike. Its success is mainly due to the openness of its design, and its utter ease of use. Also, the fact that it is an affordable platform that can be programmed using an Open Source ea
As a follow up of our recent Beer-Fetching post, we are happy to report that the PR2 is making a remarkable progress in this area. The people at Willow Garage have been busy (and thirsty) programming the PR2 so it can fetch beer as dictated trough a web interface by their human masters. The projec…
For ages, humans have wanted robots to do one simple task: to go to the refrigerator and bring refreshments such as Beer, and food to the lazy human watching TV. We have shown lately a beer-fetching robot. Now, the people at the Denver based Gamma Two Robotics have created a voice controlled beer
The iRobot Roomba has reigned supreme in the robot vacuum market for a long time. But recently, many new vaccum robots have been released by very prominent manufacturers such as Phillips, Samsung, Asus and MSI. The new generations of robots features, in general, smart maping capabilities that al
After some trepidations and delays, Neato Robotics has announced they are launching their new XV-11 spatially smart robot vacuum on July 15th. On this date, the robot will be available for preorder at various retail locations and will ship out in August 2010. Neato Robotics XV-11 For those wh
Nestlé already designed a robot called Nesbot some time ago in order to promote its Nespresso brand. It prepares coffee (espresso, 6 different flavors), serves it and moves among the guests! The start-up behind the design of this robot is Bluebotics. More information in the complete PDF…
Karotz is the new name for Nabaztag. Mindscape acquired French company Violet but the development of the Wi-Fi rabbit has continued and a new version should be released in 2010. We assure you: the design will stay the same. In addition, 2 USB ports will be added as well as a webcam. There will…
The iPhone controlled flying robot, AR-Drone, which was debuted at CES this year, now has a price tag. Parrot has announced that the autonomous quadracopter will retail for $300 USD and be available in September. While Gizmodo says, "ouch!", we say "wow!" because I was fully expecting a >$500 …
RobotShop has only just created a nice promotion (package) on domestic robots, this time for pet lovers: cats and dogs. Starting with cats: -Domestic Robot Package for cat lovers: save 50 dollars. This includes an iRobot Roomba 562 vacuum, a Litter-Robot Litter Box, an automatic food dispenser a…
