Some time ago, Aldebaran Robotics launched their developer program for their popular Nao humanoid platform. The idea is to prepare the little robot for mass commercialization by releasing it to a select group of developers who will create applications for it. The robot is sold to the devel
From RobotShop we wish you all a happy new year. May 2011 be filled with all the robots you always wished to have. If you are looking for creative and original ways of celebrating the new year, the THKR-4 is a very good choice to have at your New Year's party. This robot is one of the competito
Internet of Things Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson, believes there will be over 50 Billion "connected devices" by 2020. The world's leading telecom provider says that "in the future everything that would benefit from being connected will be connected". This effectively creates the upcoming Inte
So far Robots have been programmed to avoid things when navigating in their environment. Sébastien Lengagne of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan developed a method for robots to use objects (which would otherwise be seen as "obstacles")
Nao, by Aldebaran Robotics, has been busy this holiday season and prepared some cool presentations for us all to enjoy! Below, its official holiday greeting. Robots can have the jitters too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqZHkxbiXWA After conquering its stage fear, Nao was able read A Chri
Aldebaran announced recently an update to the very popular Nao. The little robot has now a more robust body, longer curved arms that allow for further reach, an improved motion engine that allows for smoother movements, a cooler head with better heat management, improved speech recognition
Heartland Robotics, a company founded by Rodney Brooks (founder and former Chief Technological Officer at iRobot, and MIT professor) is developing what should constitute a true robolution. Their main objective is to change the way we currently view robots by making them ubiquitous. Heartland R
Many new things happened at Willow Garage recently. So let's go ahead and have a look at all the awesome news. ROS Turns Three The Robot Operating System celebrated its third anniversary. It has come a long way since its beginning and should go even further in the future. See the video below for
A paper presented by a group of computer engineers from Vanderbilt University at the Humanoids Conference in Nashville describes how robots can be used to diagnose and treat emergency room patients. Medical Droid from Star Wars While human would still take care of the most serious patient
Robot arms skilled at wielding knives and carving meat, can be a bit scary, specially for us fleshy humans. Nevertheless, the HAMDAS-R by Mayekawa Manufacturing is a very impressive machine. It is capable of de-boning ham using a razor sharp knife by adapting to the shape and size variat
Inverted pendulums (i.e. balancing a stick on a moving platform) never ceases to fascinate humans, especially when it is done by a robot. Pencil Balancing Robot The robot illustrated in the video below is capable of balancing a pencil on its tip. The motion of the pencil is tracked by two im
About a week after the Open LiDAR project was announced, the Neato XV-11 has been hacked and now its juicy LiDAR data can be used by everybody. This effectively makes the Neato XV-11 not only one of the most advanced vacuum cleaner robots in the market, but also, the cheapest LiDAR available.
Kinect Hacked The Kinect was quickly hacked a few weeks ago and now, the development around this sensor is advancing very fast. The Kinect is a 3D camera made by Microsoft that not only senses a full colour video, but also sees the depth of objects and scenes. [vimeo 17007842] In the robotics …
Some time ago, we announced the nomination for the Top Ten Coolest Robots of 2010. You voted and now the results are in. Let's have a closer look at the ten lucky robots and find out which one is the big winner. #10 Google Car and Bae Systems Taranis Tied These two robots are tied in the number
For quite some time now, Festo, a leading pneumatics company, has been innovating in the robotics field by creating impressive and very unique robots inspired by nature. The video below, is a good summary of their innovative work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X5KdVS1LFk Make sure you also hav
Everybody knows that robots take jobs that are simply too dangerous or that human do not want to do, filming and taking pictures of bikini models is definitely not one of them. Nevertheless, a very lucky hexacopter UAV got this highly coveted job. UAV Photographing Bikini Model If you want to…
