It looks like the kind of gadget you’d see CGI’ed into a sci-fi show (in fact, similar CGI flying spheres did appear in Doctor Who not all that long ago). But this particular flying object is very real, very cool, and very coming to a battle zone near you in the not-too-distant future.
This radio-controlled spherical flying drone is …
This is not what you think it is. It’s a talking robot, modeled on the human vocal system. And hey, check it out: it can sing! Kinda.
Wait, you say. Robots can already talk. Hell, even my laptop can talk, and I got it at Walmart.
(MORE: Cinema’s Most Memorable Robots)
Yes, those things can talk, but only using software and …
Robots can do many things. They can vacuum our homes. They can assemble our automobiles in huge factories. And, of course, they can play soccer.
Over the last week, teams from all over the world have been competing in the Robot World Cup in Istanbul, Turkey. A team from Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory won two …
President Obama wants to reinvigorate the U.S. economy with a little help from some robots. Lots of robots.
Speaking at the launch of the National Robotics Initiative, he joked:
“You might not know this, but one of my responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief is to keep an eye on robots. And I’m pleased to report that the robots you
…
These are kilobots. Tiny three-legged microchips with infrared eyes that point downwards at the table.
One $15 kilobot on its own can’t do much that’s very interesting, except maybe flash its little light in your face. But they’re called “kilo” because you’re not supposed to use just one at a time. You’re supposed to use …
This is cool: student Edward Macdonald, working on his thesis at Georgia Tech, created a team of robots that can arrange themselves into pre-set formations with the minimum of movement.
Here’s the amazing part: the robots aren’t communicating with one another.
Each robot knows its own position, and the relative positions of all its …
At last! Finally someone has come up with a pair of brain-controlled furry robot cat ears for the masses.
This crazy contraption is necomimi, the first experimental prototype from a team in Japan calling themselves neurowear.
It’s not just decorative. Under those fuzzy ears are sensors that monitor your brain activity. When you …
Did you know Japan had singing computers? I sure didn’t, at least until I stumbled on a report from this morning indicating that they not only did have machines that’d outperform half of American Idol’s starry-eyed hopefuls, but that a team of scientists from Tokyo have improved the program’s artificial algorithms to make the machines …
If you thought leisure activities were safe from a robot takeover, you might want to watch OptoFidelity’s robot play Angry Birds.
This particular machine can’t walk or talk, but it can fling avian avatars into plump pigs with ease. The robot was programmed ahead of time by humans, so don’t get too freaked out. It just happens to have …
We’ve all been there. Does this sound familiar to you?
You’re at work and you realize you forgot to mow your lawn. You rush home in a panic. You miss several important meetings—or meetings that your company considers important, yet you’ve calculated how much it’d cost to build a lifelike dummy of yourself that lives in the …
Scientists are now studying the walking patterns of spiders, crabs and other invertebrates to figure out how to control motion in robots.
Invertebrates’ neural systems, which govern how they move, are relatively basic — which makes them the ideal study subject. Researchers figured out that rhythmic impulses known as central pattern …
Holding your arm out straight in place for long periods of time could be a strenuous task that many of us can’t undertake without feeling a considerable amount of pain.
But for surgeons, tattoo artists and jewelers whose occupations require them to hold their limbs in weird positions, it’s part of the job. An exoskeletal arm, however, …
