Robots Resources for the Masses.

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Friday, August 31, 2001

Computerized pets become some people's best friends (8/29/2001)
BY SHANNON TAN
Knight Ridder

Tiger Electronics' i-Cybie, a robot dog, is hitting the shelves following the successes of other ``intelligent'' toys such as Furbies, Tamagotchis, a host of cyberpets such as Sony's Aibo, and Hasbro's crying, crawling, singing, My Real Baby.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Boston Globe Online / Business / Robots to wear
By Scott Kisner, 8/27/2001
`We put people in robots.''
That isn't the official slogan of Yobotics, a South Boston company spun off from one of MIT's best-known robotics labs, but it might as well be. It's a phrase that captures the most promising new direction in robotics. Forget about C-3PO and Rosie the Robot Maid. Some of your best friends will be part-robot, surviving thanks to devices like the Abiomed artificial heart - essentially an implantable robotic pump - or wearing robotic braces like those being developed by Yobotics to assist them in walking and climbing stairs.
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Monday, August 27, 2001

Ananova - Professor invents 'skiing robot'
Story filed: 11:50 Friday 24th August 2001
A Japanese engineering professor claims to have invented a skiing robot which can perform somersaults and mid-air twists.
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The Globe and Mail: Breaking Business News :: Sony's breeders rear Aibo 2
By JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update

The new version, which Sony unveiled Tuesday in Toronto, is also lighter than its predecessor, has more sophisticated software to demonstrate a wider range of emotions, more motors (13 of them running 20 joints) for more tricks and it can now understand spoken commands instead of musical ones. Its brushed-titanium coat also comes in three colours — blue, champagne and black.[...] And it talks. Endlessly.
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NATIONAL POST ONLINE | Columnists | Columnist Story :: Robot dog requires nurturing. Too bad
$2,300 virtual pet simulates the real thing's neediness
Rebecca Eckler
National Post

TORONTO - I haven't seen the movie A.I., so I had no idea what to expect yesterday when I headed out to pick up "AIBO," my very own robotic companion, and bring him home with me for the afternoon.
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I decided to try to make AIBO mad, just for fun. So I said, "Bad AIBO!" with a sharp tap to his head. And he started flashing red.
And then I felt bad. I started petting him on the head, and said, "Good boy!" AIBO started flashing green and making happy, beeping noises. And I felt better about myself.
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Japan Today Japan News - Japan's Leading International News Network :: Robot industry gets boost
Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 19:00 JST
TOKYO — The government plans to launch a project to foster the robot industry, viewed as a possible dynamo for economic growth, in fiscal 2002 with subsidies and related legislative measures, government officials said Friday.
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Like a Child, `Smart' Robot Learns Gradually
August 17, 2001 07:40 CDT
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According to Knight Ridder Newspaper, that's the way John Weng, a robotics expert at Michigan State University, is teaching a robot to learn like a child, to obey spoken commands, trundle down a hall, find and pick up toys with its mechanical hand.
Weng is breeding a new kind of "intelligent'' robot that learns in a novel way: by experience, the way animals and people do.
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