SONY :: AIBO :: Obedience school, digital style
By Richard Shim, ZDNN

April 13, 2001 4:21 AM PT

For Sony Aibo owners, obedience school has taken on a whole new meaning.

The owners of the Aibo ERS-210–Sony’s second-generation robot dog–can now program their pooches via the $500 Aibo Master Studio software suite.

The software, released Thursday, is installed on a PC, which allows Aibo owners to create programs that include commands for the dog to follow. The programs are then downloaded onto Sony’s proprietary flash memory card, called the Memory Stick, and inserted into an Aibo.

Owners can program an Aibo to strike poses and perform routines that include waving, dancing and push-ups.

[…]

RoboScience :: Robodog – Specification Domestic Quadruped Robot RS-01

Main Specifications:

Movable parts: 16 degrees of freedom (d.o.f)

Legs: 3 d.o.f each x 4

Head: 3 d.o.f

Tail: 1 d.o.f

CPU: 32 bit, 266Mhz

Storage: 64 Mb RAM – 6 GB HDD

Comms: Wireless LAN

Robot OS: Windows®

Host PC OS: Windows®

Motion control: 2 x RS MCU

Sensors: Colour CCD camera

Miniature audio microphone

Accelerometer

Rangefinder

Navigation systems

Temperature sensor

Audio Output: 2 way mono speaker system

Battery: 26V

Run Time: >90 mins in autonomous mode

Charge Time: Approx. 70 Mins

Dimensions:
(Standing) Height: 685 mm (»27 inches)

Length: 820 mm (»32 inches)

Width: 400 mm (»16 inches)

Construction: Composite monocoque construction

Main Materials: Carbon-Fibre, Kevlar and Magnesium

Mass: Approx 12Kg (26 Lbs)

Colour: Metallic Gold or Natural Carbon Fibre Black

Max Payload Lift: 25KG (55Lbs)

NEC :: PAPERO :: The Times Robot to counsel families

FROM ROBERT WHYMANT IN TOKYO

A TALKING robot clever enough to heal family rifts may sound like science fiction. But the makers of PaPeRo — Partner-type Personal Robot — claim that it can smooth things out when families are no longer on speaking terms.

NEC, the electronics firm, showed the machine’s peacemaking potential yesterday. With its cute, round head and big eyes, PaPeRo stands a mere 15in and weighs 11lb. Yet stuffed into the automaton are two digital cameras, four microphones, five sensors and a motor that lets it move. It can utter 3,000 phrases, recognise 650 expressions and responds depending on the speaker. That would enable it, for example, to act as a go-between for a sulking child and its parents.

There are no plans to market the robot and no price set. Ten families are testing it so improvements can be made.

Robodog :: ABCNEWS.com : New Robot Dog Called ‘PC on Legs’

Designer Nick Wirth shakes the paw of his creation, the RS01 RoboDog during its launch in London March 21. (Russell Boyce/Reuters) ‘PC on Legs’

Robot Dog Can ‘Hear,’ ‘See’ and Read E-Mail

By Jennifer P. Sterling

March 21 — British designers today unveiled a robot dog that could probably take a bite out of Aibo, a popular Japanese model.
[…]

NEC :: Papero :: The Times Robot to counsel families

FROM ROBERT WHYMANT IN TOKYO

A TALKING robot clever enough to heal family rifts may sound like science fiction. But the makers of PaPeRo — Partner-type Personal Robot — claim that it can smooth things out when families are no longer on speaking terms.

NEC, the electronics firm, showed the machine’s peacemaking potential yesterday. With its cute, round head and big eyes, PaPeRo stands a mere 15in and weighs 11lb. Yet stuffed into the automaton are two digital cameras, four microphones, five sensors and a motor that lets it move. It can utter 3,000 phrases, recognise 650 expressions and responds depending on the speaker. That would enable it, for example, to act as a go-between for a sulking child and its parents.

There are no plans to market the robot and no price set. Ten families are testing it so improvements can be made.

Robots Can Learn Much From High-Tech Playthings

By MICHEL MARRIOTT

t the annual Toy Fair last month, the huge annual show in New York where the toy industry promotes its newest creations, robots were everywhere.

Tiger Electronics, a division of Hasbro, showed off no less than two dozen interactive robotic toys that it plans to unleash next holiday season. They include a free-ranging turtle and other automatons for the fish bowl, as well as a gleaming, robotic baby that coos while responding to touch, sight and sound. There were plenty of robotic toys from other manufacturers, too: more dogs than you can throw a stick at, joined by cats, birds, mice, bugs, dinosaurs and even potted plants.
[…]

But robotic toys, experts say, may help usher in the day, in the not too distant future, when more practical, utilitarian robots are common around the house. The clever use in toys of microprocessors, memory chips, sensors, servo motors and advanced software, like the sort that makes voice recognition possible, is pointing the way to vastly more advanced robots that can work with humans without intimidating them.

“Toys are just the tip of the iceberg in what is coming,” said Wayne Walter, a founder of the Laboratory for Cooperative, Autonomous Microsystems at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

[…]

read more…

Personal Robot PaPeRo

It’s smaller, lighter and processes much improved performance capabilities.

It’s a stand-alone personal robot!

Enhanced conversation capability

Capability as a research platform

[…]

NEC :: Personal Robot PaPeRo
Papero Specifications

height: 385mm

width: 248mm

depth: 245mm

weight: 5.0kg

battery duration: 2 – 3 hours

battery charge: 2 – 3 hours

number of recognized phrases: about 650 phrases

number of speech phreses: about 3000 phrases

[input]

eyes: 2 CCD cameras

ears: 3 microphones for sound direction detection

1 uni-directional microphone for speech recognition

patting sense switch: senses your tap or press on the head

stroking sensorsenses your stroke on the head

ultra-sonic sensors: 5 sensors around its body (front: 3, rear: 2)

floor sensor: detect a hole

lift sensor: detect being lifted

[output]

feet: 2 drive wheels (front)

1 free wheel (rear)
max. speed : 20cm/s
head: up-down, left-right

sound: 2 speakers

face: 8 LEDs in eyes

9 LEDs in mouth

2 LEDs in cheek

2 LEDs in ears

[other interfaces]

remote control signal transmitter: transmit TV remote control signal

video and audio output: connection to TV

Internet access: wireless modem connection

Personal Robot PaPeRo

In January 1997, we at NEC commenced the ‘Personal Robot Project’ to seek out the possibilities of developing personal robots for use in the home. After much research and development, we produced our first generation prototype, ‘Personal Robot R100’ in July 1999. R100 with its ability to recognize people, understand voice commands and communicate with its users gathered much public attention as R100 showed many new possibilities in many aspects of our lives.

But we didn’t stop with R100; we pursued in our research focusing on the interaction between human and robots and completed the next generation prototype, ‘Personal Robot PaPeRo’ in January 2001.

The name ‘PaPeRo’ is taken from ‘Partner type Personal Robot’.
We plan to conduct further research and development based on NEC’s new robot ‘PaPeRo’.[…]

AI :: Tomy develops new robot that can hold conversation
Tomy develops new robot that can hold conversation

Toymaker Tomy Co. said Wednesday it has developed a robot with artificial intelligence that is capable of recognizing words in a conversational context.

Tomy will put the robot, known as memoni, on sale for 18,000 yen in the summer after displaying it at a toy fair to be held in Tokyo later this month.

When it hears a sentence, the robot can pick up two words and respond accordingly, Tomy said.
If, for example, a woman says, “I’ll go out on a date with him tomorrow,” the robot is capable of recognizing the words “him” and “date” and confirm the man’s name or respond with a question such as, “Where will you go?”

[…]