Akihabara Newss: WPC Expo 2004 JVC J4 details
We already talked about this BT robot, but found out at WPC 2004 that the fingers are also controllable… cool!
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The Korea Times : Network-Based Robot to Debut
Intelligent Robots Will Serve Customers at Post Offices Next Year
From late 2005, two kinds of sophisticated network-based robots will greet people when they pay a visit to Korean post offices according to a grand scheme of the government.
A 1.5-meter tall male-model-like security robot will guard the post office around the clock and sometimes shoot a net to capture unexpected intruders during the night time.
By contrast, a female-type counterpart will take care of customers, for example, by showing fun video clips to waiting clients through its embedded monitors.
The project, codenamed the ubiquitous robotic companion (URC), is now being spearheaded by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC).
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Nagoya robot developer to release ‘Hello Kitty’ robot
Robot developer Business Design Laboratory Co. on Monday unveiled a ‘Hello Kitty’ robot to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the popular feline character developed by Sanrio Co.
Business Design, based in Nagoya, will release the robot on Hello Kitty’s birthday on Nov. 1 at an expected price of just over 400,000 yen. It hopes to sell 2,000 ‘Hello Kitty’ robots this year by accepting orders through the Internet and other marketing routes.
The robot, which is 52 centimeters tall and weighs 6 kilograms, can recognize up to 10 human faces through a built-in camera, the company said.
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CRI NEWS
New Skin Makes Robot Sensitive
Scientists in Japan are devising an electronic skin that could give robots a sensitive touch, just like human beings.
The skin is made from a sheet of rubbery polymer, saturated with flakes of electricity conducting graphite.
The electrical resistance of the sheet changes when it is squeezed, and this change is detected by an array of transistors beneath the rubber.
However, the touch sensitivity, despite the efforts put in vision and voice recognition for robots, is still in its elementary stages.
According to its developer, the skin can also be used in other fields, like sports, security and medicine.
(Photo source:sina.com)
Mini Cooper Robot : Be sure, this is a fake!! It’s an Ad for Mini Cooper / BMW : good idea, really!!
😉
Vehicle to autonomous biped robot conversion for the Mini Cooper r50.
I first had the vision to build a robot while working as an engineer on the old Mini Coopers in the late 1960s. There were no real robots at the time of course, so it was purely science-fiction. But I always believed a robot would be the most natural complement to the automobile – a full biped, intelligent version having great strength, dexterity and a library of mechanical knowledge. I imagined a robot with the ability to repair vehicles, direct traffic and watch over high-accident crossroads to preempt accidents.
This ambition started to look possible when work began on the new Mini. I’ve always believed BMW overbuilds many of their parts, so the over-building of certain Mini applications for my robotics use went unnoticed. In 1998, I began tests in a remote location outside Oxford.
In 2000 I thought my formal connection to Mini might be severed when Rover was sold by BMW. Luckily, BMW chose to retain the Mini brand. Subsequently, a few engineers would need to stay in England – Oxford to be exact. I was slated for retirement and was originally from the Oxford area so it raised little suspicion when I offered to stay. From then on, progress was swift.
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Wired 12.07: The Humanoid Race
Machines are getting more and more like the rest of us. A piece-by-piece guide to the globe’s most advanced bots.
It was an astounding request. A year ago, neuroscientist Mitsuo Kawato called on the Japanese government to commit 50 billion yen ($446 million) a year for the next three decades. The dream: an Apollo-like program to build a robot with the mental, physical, and emotional capabilities of a 5-year-old child. Kawato called his plan the Atom Project, named for the popular postwar cartoon Tetsuwan Atom (known as Astroboy in the US), the story of a superhero boy robot.
Today the Atom Project remains little more than an audacious proposal. But the science behind it is quite real. With each advance in computing speed, battery capacity, camera and motor miniaturization, and software capability, the world grows closer to the ultimate goal of robotics: a walking, talking, feeling android worthy of our cinematic inspirations.
Consider the progress of just the past 15 years. There are now robots that can get around on two legs, participate in simple conversations, and manipulate objects in rudimentary ways. Of course, we don’t yet have a bot that can navigate downtown Manhattan, tie its shoelaces, or even tell a chair from a desk. MIT’s Cynthia Breazeal holds out hope that within five years, robots will cross a critical threshold, becoming partners rather than tools – in other words, we’ll have friends, not appliances. And while there are a number of extremely complex problems to solve before we can make something as advanced as Sonny, the star of I, Robot, we’re getting there, one piece at a time. To find out where the state of the art lies, Wired surveyed the projects that might one day add up to an android just like the rest of us.
MUSCLES
TRON-X: Festo AG specializes in assembly-line robots – the kind that build cars, construct PCs, and pack microwave dinners into little cardboard boxes. To show off its skill at building air-powered machines, the company made Tron-X, an android given life by 200 pneumatic cylinders. By finely controlling the air pumping through Tron-X’s tubes, operators can command it to dance, change facial expressions, and make complicated hand gestures.
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seniors : Japan : a robot designed to help people to walk [TheMatureMarket.com]
Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at Tsukuba University in Japan is starting to commercialize a robot designed to help people with weakened leg muscles to walk smoothly.
The Robot Suit detects electric currents produced when people move their leg muscles. They then help the user move their legs smoothly, using motors installed at their waists and knees.
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