Want to get a robot for your home? Get some inspiration on how you can use robots to make your life more enjoyable.
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…
Engineers and researchers form the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Tübingen, Germany and making some interesting "scientific research" about the way humans perceive motion by riding a giant industrial robot arm from Kuka while playing video games. As depicted in the video b
Telenoid R1 Frightens Humans Hiroshi Ishiguro is a master of creepy robotics, and now has managed to produce the creepiest robot by far: Behold the Telenoid R1. The robot is intended to be a telepresence companion that will emulate the facial expression and body gestures of the human cont
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
Some time ago, the RobotShop team decided to build a telepresence system. Usually, these kinds of systems are sadly limited to a web-cam and a screen on wheels, and are simply a glorified videophone. This is not the case at RobotShop since we love robots and are all for crazy projects. This is why,
Robo Pong by Newgy is a robot which can train you in table tennis by throwing the ball to you. Along the same principle as ball throwers in tennis, Robo Pong throws the ball to you at regular intervals. The big advantage of this machine is that it also retrieves the balls that you return to it …
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…
Philips has also just released a robot vacuum model. Called HomeRun, it looks like a Samsung Navibot. Adaptable to any surface, it is best on tiles or hard surfaces. Its video camera allows it to see the room and surfaces to clean. With a 1.40 hour battery life, the HomeRun returns to its bas…
