It looks like 2006 is gearing up to be the year of robot toys. The Associated Press say, "If children didn't get their fill of high-tech toys during the 2005 holiday season, they should brace themselves for more wizardry later this year." Apparently, the allure of iPods and Xboxes is caus…
Have you heard the one about the Volkswagen that drove itself, won the Darpa Grand Challenge, shone at the Detroit International Auto Show, and was awarded editor’s choice in Engadget’s Robot-of-the-Year contest? Of course we mean Stanley, built by Sebastian Thrun’s team at Stanf…
(Press Release, see also our First Look at Robot Magazine.)Robot Magazine is offering readers the opportunity to win a unique robot featured in the publication’s Winter 2005 premier issue.Editorial Board contributors Jamie Hyneman and Grant Imahara from the Discovery Channel’s popular …
In our original post on Pleo, Dave Thompson shared this link to the DEMO 2006 video. Thanks!In a word, it’s all about anthropomorphism. Let us start with the company’s name, which turns out to be pronounced "You Go Be". No remote required. Then there are the three laws,…
"The street finds its own use for things. It's all in the mix.” -- William Gibson Feral Robotic Dog project is proof of this. It started with Natalie Jeremijenko, who advocated hacking robotic dogs and using them as a tool for exploring the environment. These wild dogs in effect became low cost
Previously I'd told all of you to go out, exercise your democratic right, and vote in Engadget's "Year's Best" elections. Well, whether you did or not (you better had ... ), the results are out! And the winner is, the Honda Asimo! The Engadget editors picked Stanford's VW Touareg "St…
Here's finally some video of Ugobe's Pleo robotic dinosaur. If you're not up to speed on Pleo, check out our previous post on the little guy. For about $200 he's supposed to have "life-like" motion with 14 motors and over 40 sensors. From the video, he does actually look pretty life-like.…
A robot created by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), with help from MIT, has taken 7,000 photographs of an ancient greek vessel that wrecked in 350BC. For over 2,300 years the vessel has remained hidden. The ship, which was laden with over 400 ceramic jars, was photographed by the &quo…
Here's an insightful article from the Wall Street Journal about Lockheed Martin's foray into the robot done market. Lockheed, which helped develop the Dragon Eye, and the Desert Hawk is trying to play catch-up to larger robotic drone makers, like Northrup Grumman and Boeing. There're working on inn…
In a tribute to Joseph Weisenbaum, Andrianne Wortzel has wired up a Robosapien to a chatbot and a webcam. The Robosapien sits in the studio and provides psychoanalysis over the Web. The project is Eliza Redux and is named after Weisenbaum’s famed Eliza. Curious idea, though more as an art piece th
iRobot and John Deere are continuing work on their R-Gator autonomous vehicle. According to a recent press release, they have selected LynuxWorks to provide an embedded Linux RTOS. One wonders why the R-Gator team selected LynuxWorks over Wind River, maker of the software running on the M…
As a followup to our previous story about Ugobe, it appears that they've just announced what their breakthrough product is - Pleo the robotic dinosaur. The official press release says, Pleo is modeled after a 1-week-old Camarasaurus sauropod, or long neck dinosaur, and incorporates basic trai…
Need a break from the 6-wheel boggy design? Looking for a Martian rover that offers something new? Then take a look at this month's Popular Science, which poses the question "Is This the Machine That Will Finally Find Life on Mars?"The machine is the latest from Carnegie Mellon Universit…
Caleb Chung, the creator of everyone's favorite obnoxious furry robot pal, Furby, is helping start a new company that claims to revolutionize the robot toy industry. The new company, dubbed "Ugobe", which sounds vaguely like an African nation, is creating a lifelike pal that will, ".…
Nothing phenominal here. Just a neat commercial from Nike showing robots wreaking havok in a city playing spots with cars and such. Funky music and cool graphics to ensue.This is similar to the music video, Scent of a Robot.
Don't like the thought of a shiney metal arm pounding on your flesh? Well, neither do I. However, a company called Meilus Muscular Therapy & Sports, Inc. thinks it's a good idea Their Therbo Robots are called, A "New Tool" to traditional techniques like massage, physical therapy …
