PlasticnoodleThe Shiny Part Of My Brain!Robot Roundup- July 31, 2005 Here's a few more robot links from around the web: Jumping robot. Something about "jumping robots" must attract people. It's in video games, it's in cartoons, and now, it's a proposal. Assuming the translation is OK, it's a proposal for a "kick-leg" which pops out during the robot's rotation. The robot's purpose seems to be to avoid obstacles, but who knows. China announced in a weird, propagandistic way that they've developed a spherical robot. The Swedes also have a spherical robot, first...http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000770.html The Amazing Amanda "Doll" -- Like Chucky, Only Electronic Instead Of Possessed.- July 31, 2005 The Amazing Amanda doll via Engadget It's like a creep movie... if you wander around the room her eyes follow you... as does the body, and the rest. Yep, it's a kids toy, complete with facial recognition, object recognition, evidentially some PDA functionality, and frankly, a creepy look that reminds me of Children of the Corn. Which then goes to ask: why on earth do we go to the trouble of building something with so many close relations to human beings, but forget to leave off the crap we...http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000769.html DaVinci Robot Update: 'A robot saved my sex life'- July 31, 2005 'A robot saved my sex life' When just "marital aids" won't do. Actually, it's an article on the DaVinci robot surgeon, plastered all over the net earlier this month. The surgeon has specialized, and is now being used for prostrate surgery. Yep, you too can get your happy place operated on by a machine built by people who tend to find bugs by letting the thing run first. Yeah, that should take the wind out of your windsock. Technorati Tags: geek, irony, medicine, robot, roboticshttp://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000768.html Lego self-adaptive hand- July 29, 2005 Lego self-adaptive hand via hack a day Now, how cool is this What got me started in this whole mess is that I wanted to build an articulated hand, but never could figure out how to do this without a whole hell of a lot of pneumatics -- something that's absolutely a pain to use with Mindstorms, because getting the pieces are annoying and expensive. Now, along comes an under-actuated hand, built using Legos. It's not fully articulated, but it's interesting to see how the builder used not...http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000767.html iRobot going public- July 29, 2005 MAKE: Blog: iRobot going public via Gizmodo Yeah, the makers of the most popular home robot in existence right now are going public. The API is swell, but do you really think that stockholders will let you play with such cool things as the Packbot No. Petty jealousy because I couldn't get into an IPO without holding the owner's pet Roomba hostage Absolutely. And if I don't, the moving hoover gets it. Yeah, yeah, you can listen to it on Marketplace as well. Technorati Tags: business, news,...http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000766.html Robot Camel Jockeys, Updated- July 29, 2005 Robots replace child jockeys in Arab camel race CNET News.com A little late -- or very early. As reported in April, Abu Dhabi started using robot camel jockeys this month. Nothing good to be said about robot camel jockeys, except that replacing live child jockeys will save a few kids from flaming deaths in those wild camel crashes. Yes, the amazing advances robots are making: in the last 75 years, from an idea in a science fiction story to vacuums and camel jockeys. Technorati Tags: fun,...http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000764.html MAKE: Blog: Mousey the Junkbot PDF- July 19, 2005 MAKE: Blog: Mousey the Junkbot PDF Make posted the specs and details via a PDF for building a Mousey the Junkbot mouse-based robot. This was in Make 2 -- a robot-heavy edition, which is well worth getting (heck the whole magazine is a great one, but that one is especially good for robotics junkies) -- and the PDF that they put up contains detailed instructions on how to build a light-sensitive robot using a mouse case and some fairly simple installation proceedures. "Simple", meaning 14 pages..http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000763.html Humanoid Robotics, Almir Heralic- July 19, 2005 Humanoid Robotics, Almir Heralic via Robots.net Neat bot creating by someone at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden; it has 22 degrees of movement, stereovision, a neural network, can speak and has facial recognition and tracking. Also, it appears it can go to the bathroom reading Make. Technorati Tags: humanoid, neur, robot, roboticshttp://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000762.html Biologically Inspired Robotics- July 19, 2005 Owen Holland via del.icio.us We talked about the flying swarms subject a little while back, but it seems that a professor at the University of Essex teaches a class called "Biologically Inspired Robotics", which covers flying swarms, humanoid robotics, Machine Consciousness and "Extended Particle Swarm Optimisation", the last of which has me practically drooling. If anyone's taking this class, please please give a shout. Technorati Tags: artificial intelligence, geek, lifelike, research,...http://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000761.html Robot Videos- July 13, 2005 Robot videos via Metafilter Looks like someone had just one too many robot music videos this week. The link lists several videos containing, surrounding, or about robots and music. Included are What's Your Name One about a worker who doesn't know he's a robot One about a worker haunted by robots A non-musical short about a robot cop in a third-world nation There's more on Metafilter, but these were some of the better ones. Technorati Tags: audio, music, robot, roboticshttp://www.plasticnoodle.com/archives/000760.html |