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PeopleStaff, an employment agency in Japanese, is adding robots to its usual roster of people. PeopleStaff is recommending companies recruit Hello Kitty Robo and Ifbot. The positions are receptionists and hospital care, respectively. One wonders if the company is also considering a name change.
The Autonomous Light Air Vehicles (ALAVs), built by Jed Berk and Nihil Mitter, are three helium inflated balloons that roam about their invironment and interact with each other and humans in a very life-like way. The blimps use a new technology from Sun Microsystems called SunSPOTS. The devices si…
If you are near the Museum of Science in Cambridge tonight around 7 PM, stop in for a unique concert. 'Invasion of Technology' is a show featuring a mixture of music and musicians. Playing a blend Western and Balinese, Evan Ziporyn and Christine Southworth will be jamming with machines Bot(i)Cello…
The 2005 Engadget Award for "Robot of the Year" is now open! After a rigorous nomination procedure this year's nominees are Albert Hubo, Honda Asimo, iRobot Scooba, Stanford's VW Touareg "Stanley", and Wow Wee Robosapien.The winner of last years competition was the Honda Asimo,…
We have been wondering about what a Robo-one champion does in the off-season. Lem at A Robot's Dreams has brought us the answer: they go skiing! Click here to see the video.This is quite inspiring. Now to find some skis in my Robosapien's size.
Sadly, we roboticists cannot spend every minute of every day building 'bots. No, we need culture, too, and there is no better way to get it than by taking a trip to the museum.To see what, you may ask? Robotic sculptures, of course! This week past, news came in of an exhibit at the Coleman Gallery…
The title is a mouthfull. I've had these three links lying around for a while so I thought I'd get them off my chest.First is Michael Shiloh's linux powered robot at linuxrobots.org. It looks like this site could turn into a good resource for all of you trying to put the penguin on a 'bot.Second, i…
Korea's Center for Intelligent Robots is creating a 40 member panel to discuss the feasiblilty of creating robotic security forces for the nation. ``If the robots prove to be viable technically and commercially, we will be able to begin developing them late next year,'' said Lee Ho-gil, head of …
Hospitals in Pennsylvania have purchased several Tug robots. These haul carts to and fro, saving the nurse's time and the administration's dime. The robots are expected to save the hospital "$240,000 over five years."Technically, the Tug is impressive. It hauls up to 500 pounds. It runs …
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has announced its 2006 competition: Aim High. Papers all over the country have coverage. Like a strange combination of basketball and soccer, robots score points in Aim High by shooting nerf balls into hoops or rolling them thru goa…
If you, like me, were too busy hob-knobbing with the elite to visit CES2006 this year, have no fear! Google Video has your hook-up for checking out Honda's presentation of Asimo. Close to ten minutes of cheesy dialog and music give you a pretty good idea of how amazing this robot is. He maint…
I just can't get over how much power you can get out of something this small. They call it the "worlds tiniest 12V DC-DC power supply." It plugs directly into the ATX power supply plug on a standard mini-ATX motherboard. It was unveiled at CES and looks amazing. It can supply 120 Watts and is compl…
As artificial intelligence begins celebrating its 50th birthday (thanks Simon and Newell!), word comes in on the British Computer Society's Annual Prize for Progress towards Machine Intelligence. The winner is David Bell’s team from Queen's University Belfast. Their robot, IFOMIND, navigates…
It just seems just yesterday that WowWee was talking about the RoboRaptor, RoboPet, and RoboSapien V2, but now they're talking about the 2006 RoboSapien product line. PC Magazine and Pocket-Lint both have lots of pictures. ... the Robosapien RS2 Media introduces a USB port, LCD display on the che…
Brendan I. Koerner has an excellent article up on WIRED about the development of the LEGO Mindstorms NXT kit. It's a sneek peek at the February issue of WIRED, that will feature Mindstorms NXT. The article tells the story of how John Barnes, David Schilling, Steve Hassenplug and Ralph Hempel becam…
The other exciting news from CES, relating to LEGO's big announcement, is that they also want you, the Mindstorms fans, to help develop the product further. They announced, ... a call for entries to secure one of 100 seats on the newly expanded LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ Users Panel (MUP), an ex…
