The Human Brain Project The human brain is arguably the most intriguing and complex part of our bodies and the way it works has puzzled scientists for most of human history. Enter The Human Brain Project; a European commission charged with the task of recreating a human brain inside a super
Pinokio Face Tracking Lamp Students from Victoria University (Toronto, Canada) created a real-life version of the Disney Pixar lamp and called it "Pinokio". This playful robot can detect and track faces and also express emotions using its movements and reactions. It uses servo motors to actuate …
CIROS Robot Cuts Cucumber The Korean Institute of Science and Technology had the very good (read "terrible") idea of giving a very sharp kitchen knife to a robot and teaching it how to use it. Fortunately until now, CIROR, the knife-wielding humanoid robot, can only cut cucumbers with its new too
Heartland Robotics, founded by Rodney Brooks as reported before, changed its identity to Rethink Robotics. And rethinking robotics they do as they recently released Baxter, a robot with common sense as they brand it. Baxter overview Baxter redefines industrial robots since it allows small an
Boston Dynamics' Cheetah Boston Dynamics' "Cheetah" robot just broke its own speed record. This in and of itself is quite an achievement, considering it was already the fastest legged robot in existence, but it also broke Usain Bolt's record (100m and 200m sprinting world champion)! The cheeta
CRX10 Educational Robot The CRX10 is designed to satisfy the demand for versatile, affordable and safe educational robots. This capable little rover is easy to use and links theory and practice in order to help students learn the principles of robotics. The robot includes wireless communication,
We all certainly love robots and we are thrilled to see new advancements in robotics. However, sometimes we wonder if humans have already gone too far in their quest to make ever more capable (and dangerous) robots. The "LaserSnake" illustrates well this well: LaserSnake Cutting Through Metal Res…
Kinect@Home Discerning shapes and recognizing objects takes humans several years to learn and it is an essential skill to survive and interact with the world around us. Machines also need to learn this important skill and although some researchers have made progress in recognizing objects, shap
Biotac Sensor Robots just gained a new sense: touch! Researchers from the University of Southern California, developed a sensitive robot finger that is filled with fluid and features a fingerprint just as human fingers do, they call it Biotac. As shown in the video below, they are usi
Kuratas Ride-in Giant Robot The Japanese did it again. This time they are fulfilling the dream of pretty much any robotic geek: to have your own functional giant Battle Mech that can be piloted by a grown adult and used to cruise through the city and defeat all your arch-enemies. Suidobashi heavy…
Researchers from the Vere project are using an fMRI machine to "read" thoughts from a human user and use those signals to control the motion of a small humanoid robot as demonstrated in the video below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXFmRzNZHqc This project is very interesting because the use o
Not many robots enjoy full autonomy; humans often prefer to supervise them and make sure they are doing their job right. However, there are some situations where direct supervision is impossible. For instance, when sending robots to explore space, the communication latency increases as they get far…
Heartland Robotics Heartland Robotics (covered before) is a company that promises to bring the robotics industry to North America by creating a low-cost robotic manipulator that will make complex-robotics available to everyone. But... you probably knew all that already. What is new and exiting i…
Smart Pebbles 2D Duplication An MIT research group created tiny robots called "smart pebbles". Although individually these robots do not have a lot of intelligence, they can collaborate and function together in order to replicate simple objects as shown below. The video below shows only
HERB, the Home Exploring Robot Butler by Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, is now able to Microwave meals completely autonomously as illustrated in the video below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k715Rd9mJJw For those of you not familiar with this robot, allow him to introduce himself in t
The giant Internet retailer Amazon announced earlier this week the acquisition of Kiva Systems, the creators of a ground-breaking robotic order fulfillment system. The transaction will amount to a whooping 775 M$. See the video below to have a better understanding of why Amazon believes this ro
