Robot planes may make phone towers obsolete "...it's a "Stratellite", and its makers believe it will revolutionise the broadband and wireless industry; if it ever gets off the ground.
Wisconsin communications company Sanswire on Tuesday unveiled its almost-finished prototype of a hard-framed, unmanned airship designed to fly in the stratosphere 21km above the earth and send broadband and cellphone signals to an area the size of Texas."
This in my opinion is an example of truly innovative technology.
posted by jaydedx
on Apr 13, 2005 -
25 comments
DUBAI (AFP) - The United Arab Emirates is to mount robot jockeys on racing camels later this year after a ban on using children in the region's popular sport.
posted by Tlogmer
on Apr 11, 2005 -
7 comments
"The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions," (NYT link) The Pentagon is spending $127 billion on a new project called Future Combat Systems, and armed, decision-making robots represent a significant part of that project (though such a drone may not be available until 2035). They're also looking at the possibility of nanotechnological "smart dust." Though the concept of
grey goo has been
all but debunked by the
man who coined the phrase, the more immediate future may hold robots who, according to the
Times article, are faced with choices like whether to destroy a tank or a school bus (One of the main contractors involved, the somewhat ominously named
iRobot, is best known for making vacuum-cleaner-bots). Is the general movement toward a fleshless army a good idea?
posted by hifiparasol
on Feb 17, 2005 -
82 comments
Giant robots in the backyard. An ambitious young Alaskan is trying to create his own mecha suit. Be sure to look at the pictures. The GE Hardiman project only managed to have one working arm, here's hoping Owens has more luck with his robot suit.
posted by riffola
on Dec 22, 2004 -
20 comments
GuitarBot
"In designing GuitarBot, our goal was to create an electrified slide guitar that was versatile, responsive, capable of fast and slow playing, easy to control, with high-quality sound, modular and portable. We also wanted to extend, not simply duplicate, the capabilities of a human guitarist."
Don't miss the
video [16 meg Quicktime]. Brought to you by the
League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots.
posted by quonsar
on Dec 1, 2004 -
34 comments
Made from a nickel-titanium alloy, and highly processed for electrical activation and long life, the thin black thread-like
BioMetal acts as an artificial muscle. When powered,
the BioMetal contracts. When power turns off, the BioMetal quickly cools and the wire extends again to its longer, starting length.
posted by zanpo
on Nov 24, 2004 -
11 comments
Walking DNA Scientists have created a microscopic walking robot using only the building blocks of life. The robot’s DNA legs
move along a DNA footpath, taking a
nanostroll in a bath of a liquid called a "nondenaturing buffer", which stops the DNA from falling apart.
posted by mcgraw
on May 6, 2004 -
10 comments
A futuristic robot polices the chaotic streets of a developing nation in this [creepy] spec commercial/corporate video." Quicktime is involved. Also, people who are scared of robots might not want to watch, because there is a robot in this video.
posted by Hildago
on Apr 28, 2004 -
31 comments
Koolio is a traveling autonomous refrigerator robot ... a cross between R2D2 and a vending machine.
posted by lola
on Apr 21, 2004 -
8 comments
The robot should go in first. Between 50 and 100
Packbot [13MB wmv] unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) are currently being used for battlefield reconnaissance. One proved its worth last week when it uncovered a bomb and was destroyed in the process. Colin Angle, CEO of Packbot maker iRobot, doesn't rule out the eventual weaponizing of UGVs and quips "we're not using these robots to hand out flowers".
posted by eddydamascene
on Apr 13, 2004 -
20 comments
Meet Lucy. She sure ain't pretty, but she's certainly unique. Steve Grand (interview
1,
2) one of the brains behind
Creatures, has been working for the last three years on building a robot orangutan
in his own house. Those is the South Wales area can catch Steve speaking about his experiences
next month. Steve may well be a non-establishment genius, but when I see pictures like
this, I can't help thinking it's
already been done.
posted by nylon
on Feb 27, 2004 -
6 comments
Towards a robot-based economy. Lots of interesting ideas here regarding what might happen and possible solutions to economic and social problems when robotics and automation become as cheap as computers did in the 90s.
posted by skallas
on Aug 31, 2003 -
20 comments
Gracefull bipeds, miniature robot ballets.... Titled by the BBC as "Humanoid robots wow Japanese", The
world's largest robot exhibit this weekend in Yokahama features Asimo by Honda [
"Asimo can now recognise individual faces and can understand gestures as well as spoken commands. Meet him once and he never forgets, responding by approaching and calling your name on subsequent meetings."] as well as Sony's newest Aibo accesories and their stunning SDR-4X ll, a biped sporting "fluid walking motion and lifelike gestures." Epson Seiko caught my attention, though, with their dozen tiny Bluetooth controlled 12.5 gram Monsieur ll-P robot prototypes which executed a
miniature choreographed ballet.
Pretty soon they'll be scuttling around on our walls like cockroaches, watching us......
posted by troutfishing
on Apr 5, 2003 -
11 comments
Evolution Robotics has just released the
ER1 kit, which allows laptop owners to turn their machine into a robot. Users can point-and-click to link pre-defined behaviours together in order to "train" the robot for specific tasks (such as fetching a beer from the fridge) and can share these tasks with other robot owners by posting them on the
company's website
posted by sanitycheck
on Oct 3, 2002 -
4 comments
Robots vs. bunnies! Dust bunnies, that is. Roboticist
Rodney Brooks, who you should know because you should have seen
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, co-founded
iRobot, which is releasing its first consumer model this week:
Roomba, the vacuuming robot. Even once you've seen it in action (which, of course, I haven't), it's probably not going to convince that the future has arrived or get you thinking about
the moral rights of robots, but every consumer tech movement has its watershed, and maybe this will turn out to have been a Big Step for getting robots in our daily lives. The author notes that iRobot "hopes that one day Roomba will do for vacuuming what dishwashers did for dishwashing."
posted by blueshammer
on Sep 16, 2002 -
18 comments
"When he can't get along with the real world, Wallace goes back to the only thing he has left: his computer. Each morning, he wakes before dawn and watches conversations stream by on his screen. Thousands of people flock to his Web site every day from all over the world to talk to his creation, a robot called Alice. It is the best artificial-intelligence program on the planet, a program so eerily human that some mistake it for a real person. Richard Wallace has created an artificial life form that gets along with people better than he does."
A fascinating article (NYT), how a beautiful and original mind survives in our corporate society with the help of "a daily cocktail of psychoactive drugs, including Topamax, an anti-epileptic that acts as a mood stabilizer, and Prozac. Marijuana, too -- most afternoons, he'll roll about four or five joints the size of his index finger."
posted by semmi
on Jul 9, 2002 -
18 comments
Artbots 2002: The Robot Talent Show Technology is not interesting. People doing things with technology, particularly when they're doing things that maybe no one really expected them to do, are the interesting part. Motors, sensors, circuitry and other technological raw materials have few inherent biases; it takes human intuition, creativity, and action to turn a pile of parts into a complex, functioning object. This show features the work of a group of humans who spend their time turning piles of parts into art.
posted by srboisvert
on Jun 12, 2002 -
2 comments
Robot Guard Dogs - two new types of robo-dog on their way to market (in Japan) next year from Sanyo (the T7S
Type 1 and
Type 2) About 3 feet long, 80 pounds of Aibo-style security for $750. Cool factor - their onboard CCD cameras and cell phones can watch for intruders and beam images to your own 3G phone.
posted by kokogiak
on Mar 26, 2002 -
17 comments
Who else thinks we could use some of
these now.
Seems a shame they're not quite ready to help with this disaster.
"
...like crawling through earthquake rubble to search for victims..."
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger
on Sep 17, 2001 -
11 comments
