Electronic Evolution: Research Show Robots Forming Human-like Societies [more inside]
posted by supercres on Jun 2, 2009 - 38 comments

The Brazen Android by William Douglas O'Connor, is a 19th century science fiction story based on the myth of the Brazen Head, a steam-powered head that told fortunes. It's available as an audio book from the Internet Archives. (Via)
posted by The Whelk on May 19, 2009 - 18 comments

A giant robotic beetle (YT) built in Japan by a man in his garage -- and it works. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle on Apr 16, 2009 - 19 comments

I, for one, welcome our new sigle link youtube post overlords!
posted by joelf on Apr 7, 2009 - 66 comments

A bald, child-like creature dangles its legs from a chair as its shoulders rise and fall with rythmic breathing and its black eyes follow movements across the room. It's not human -- but it is paying attention. (via)
posted by Vamier on Apr 6, 2009 - 78 comments

The future is now! Her name is HRP 4C, coming soon to your dreams (or nightmares) from JapanCorp. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle on Mar 17, 2009 - 53 comments

Build giant steam powered robots to defend the Union in the American Civil War.
posted by Lord_Pall on Mar 16, 2009 - 24 comments

The Official Creebobby Comics Archetype Times Table
posted by BuddhaInABucket on Mar 10, 2009 - 19 comments

I'll tell you one thing: if I was in London, I'd mosey on over to the Kinetica Art Fair. It looks like fun.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Mar 1, 2009 - 15 comments

R.I.P. Bob May - better known as "The Robot" in the 60s T.V. series "Lost in Space." [more inside]
posted by Muddler on Jan 19, 2009 - 17 comments

Introducing the Gamelatron, "the world's first and only fully robotic gamelan". Brought to you by the Brooklyn-based League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, affectionately known as LEMUR.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jan 18, 2009 - 29 comments

The Best Robots of 2008 (via)
posted by Artw on Jan 18, 2009 - 13 comments

Giles Walker created fully animated robot pole dancers to see if it was possible to make CCTV cameras sexy using simple mechanics. Part of the “Mutate London” exhibition at the Behind the Shutters Gallery. SFW
posted by gman on Dec 16, 2008 - 16 comments

Inventor Le Trung, creator of Aiko the female robot, awaits investors to give his creation life.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on Dec 11, 2008 - 42 comments

A robot made out of Lego bricks that solves a Rubik's cube. Video of the robot in action. Includes full blueprints for building and source code.
posted by grouse on Dec 4, 2008 - 32 comments

The Waseda Talker has been turning heads (har har) lately. It's a mechanical simulation of the human vocal tract, from the motion of its synthetic lips down to the hypnotic undulation of its rubbery vocal folds (compare the genuine article here). Think this is new? Well, these days we do most of this stuff electronically — but talking simulacra have a long and weird history, starting back when electronic synthesizers were just a pipe dream. Here's a talking pair of bellows from 1791, and a head you can play like a trumpet as recently as 1937. The granddaddy of 'em all are the Kratzenstein resonators (not Frankenstein, Kratzenstein!) from 1779. Make your own with pipe insulation and a duck call.
posted by nebulawindphone on Nov 28, 2008 - 12 comments

Military equipment drawn as anime girls. Probably SFW, but good luck explaining it to the boss. Wikipedia explains.
posted by mccarty.tim on Oct 19, 2008 - 34 comments

"The common point of all my characters is that they aren’t nice, [they’re] either nasty or mean. They all have a personality with good and bad sides." Olivier Bucheron creates striking alien and robot meanies. Zamak.... (some images mildly nsfw)
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Oct 1, 2008 - 2 comments

Self-assembling robot. A self-assembling chair. A swarm of robots attempting to assemble. (All you-tube links.)
posted by pyramid termite on Aug 31, 2008 - 14 comments

"Double-Taker (Snout)" by Golan Levin with Lawrence Hayhurst, Steven Benders and Fannie White "...deals in a whimsical manner with the themes of trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance. The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant's trunk, which responds in unexpected ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity...." Googly Eyebot. (via) [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Aug 13, 2008 - 3 comments

David Byrne writes three thoughtful essays on robots, song, and the uncanny valley on the occasion of the creation of a robot which sings in his voice at a Madrid museum: Visiting the robot factory in Texas, regarding the uncanny valley, on machines and souls.
posted by whir on Aug 8, 2008 - 15 comments

The iC hexapod is a robot built by Matt Denton which tracks and photographs human faces then uploads the images to a website. It was one of the featured pieces at the recent Monster Mash FX exhibit in London.
posted by Tube on Aug 3, 2008 - 11 comments

Continuing the miniaturization of earlier designs, researchers at the Technical University of Delft have created a very tiny ornithopter which carries a one half gram video camera. The DelFly micro. [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Jul 22, 2008 - 17 comments

"What we've invented is a way to induce charges on the wall using a power supply located on the robot....The robot carries with it positive and negative charges, and when the walls sees these charges it automatically generates the opposite charge. The robot can then clamp onto those charges." Scientists have robots climbing the walls.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Jul 8, 2008 - 29 comments

ASIMO Conducts The Detroit Symphony Orchestra
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jun 26, 2008 - 26 comments

Behold ACM-R5, the Amphibious Robot Snake. [Via grinding.be]
posted by homunculus on Jun 25, 2008 - 30 comments

Philips brings us the future of shaving.
posted by allkindsoftime on Jun 11, 2008 - 102 comments

Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon have demonstrated that a monkey can control a robotic arm with its brain when food is used as a reward.
posted by Pants! on May 28, 2008 - 39 comments

The uncanny valley just got deeper. "Treat yourself to the perfect woman."
posted by loquacious on May 27, 2008 - 100 comments

Meet Joules the climate change-sceptic robot. Joules is employed to teach 8-14 year-old school children in the UK about energy use. Joules says: "oil and gas could be in short supply in about 50 years time. The earth is believed to be getting warmer and sea levels apper to be rising. Energy Chest is funded in part by the world's biggest oil company: ExxonMobil. [more inside]
posted by MrMerlot on May 27, 2008 - 45 comments

If you are reading this post on a computer attached to the Internet, you can thank Claude Shannon (1916-2001). It was his work, starting with A Mathematical Theory of Communication, that first enabled humans to extract digital perfection from the analog world by creating the field of Information Theory. Like most computer nerds of his day, who often had to program their computers by moving wires around or even mechanical linkages, he was also an electronics and mechanical whiz who could create a juggling robot and The Ultimate Machine.
posted by DU on May 6, 2008 - 35 comments

In Vestimentis Ursum. Designer Matt Kirkland peels off the fur of mechanized stuffed animals to take a look at the robots lurking within.
posted by hydrophonic on Apr 24, 2008 - 25 comments

Putting up a sentry! Commercially available paintball sentry guns. Optional extras include a VR heads up display. If $1399 is too much you could build your own. Watch out for spies! Previously (and slightly more lethally)
posted by Artw on Apr 9, 2008 - 21 comments

Welcome to the decade of space robotics. Jules Verne, Europe's shiny new automated transport vehicle, docked with the International Space Station today, where Canada's Dextre is flexing her circuits after moving in last month. Meanwhile, the Cadillac of Mars rovers, JPL's humbly named Mars Science Laboratory, is prepping for a fall 2009 journey to the red planet. Are we witnessing the beginning of the symbiotic relationship between robots and humans in space?
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Apr 3, 2008 - 26 comments

Inspired by this earlier post, I thought it was time to formally introduce people to Rocky's Boots. [more inside]
posted by wanderingmind on Mar 28, 2008 - 12 comments

How to make a BristleBot You can also make one from a computer chip. [more inside]
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium on Mar 26, 2008 - 22 comments

Suicide by robot.
posted by jbickers on Mar 21, 2008 - 46 comments

Amazing video of BigDog. Described by its developer, Boston Dynamics, as "The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth."
posted by qldaddy on Mar 18, 2008 - 106 comments

Phoenix is sort of a robotic spider, except for the minor detail of only having six legs. It's self-contained, and remotely controlled using Bluetooth. The movements are calculated using an Excel spreadsheet, and it moves beautifully. (via)
posted by Class Goat on Mar 13, 2008 - 38 comments

Many business owners have struggled with crime in their communities and the impact that can have on their business- but when the police have their hands full, sometimes your complaints just fall through the cracks. One Atlanta bar owner has taken matters into his own hands by building a crime-fighting vigilante robot.
posted by baphomet on Feb 26, 2008 - 70 comments

Bloody balls! Make sure to stick around for the surprise ending. [more inside]
posted by nangsta on Jan 30, 2008 - 14 comments

Noelle can't stop giving birth.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jan 3, 2008 - 34 comments

"So, at our meeting earlier, you suggested building a robot. Is that something we can really do?" [more inside]
posted by CrunchyFrog on Dec 18, 2007 - 35 comments

Real robot drama is happening on Mars today. Spirit, racing for her life to find shelter before winter, injured and underpowered after four years of hard labor, may have made her most significant find yet. The broken foot she's dragged behind her for the past two years unexpectedly uncovered evidence of a once-wet Mars with conditions theoretically hospitable for primitive life.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Dec 12, 2007 - 89 comments

Remember that X-files episode? The one with the robot cockroaches from outer space? Well, scientists in Belgium have created robots that act like cockroaches, and are accepted by the real cockroaches because they smell sexy to them. Better yet, the scientists were able to use the robots to change how the cockroaches behaved. [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer on Nov 17, 2007 - 16 comments

Perhaps you'll recall DARPA's Grand Challenge where autonomous vehicles competed in a off-road race but most barely made it off the starting blocks? And Grand Challenge 2 where they did the same thing more successfully and also filmed a NOVA special?. Well, they are doing it again, on city streets this time. [more inside]
posted by DU on Nov 2, 2007 - 24 comments

"Darling, I have a headache, why not use your robot?"
posted by bicyclefish on Oct 16, 2007 - 107 comments

You've never heard a box of Stoned Wheat Thins, a big tub of Necco, a little wooden frog, a Tupperware bucket, an empty jar and a theremin sound this good. It's Crazy. No, really, it's Crazy. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Oct 11, 2007 - 19 comments

The Sex Life of Robots. [NSFW, via Sex or not?]
posted by homunculus on Sep 26, 2007 - 32 comments

The Waseda-Docomo face robot No. 2 is a 3D robotic model of a human face with 56 degrees of freedom. It can mimic any human face with an average accuracy of 3.5mm. Watching it in action is kind of creepy. [via Make]
posted by pombe on Sep 19, 2007 - 19 comments