Robonaut 2 Looks Like Master Chief, Hopefully Less Aggressive
05.02.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
NASA and GM have combined forces to advance crappy Robonaut 1 (with his Star Warsesque head and his creepy fake muscles) into the sleek killing machine that is Robonaut 2, or R2 as he is known to his friends. Did I say killing machine? I meant humanoid telepresence-based space hero, so easy to get those mixed up.

R2 will be able to use the same tools humans use, things like hammers, staplers, sellotape, a bow and arrow, wiimotes, sticks of dynamite, spoons, lego, window spray, frying pans and, of course, big and dangerous guns. Probably with lasers and tiny rockets that make you go all dead. But that doesn’t matter as R2 will be floating above the world in the spaceosphere, hooray! Except that he will also be on Earth, forced to work in GM’s factories making sure people don’t get pwnd by those reckless and emotionless robotic arms. I’m not suggesting R2 might be dangerous or anything, but have you seen those lasers coming out of R2′s knuckles? My suspicion is suitably piqued.

R2 looks pretty cool too, what with its big shiny head. Rather like Master Chief from the ever popular youth video arcade game ‘Halo 3: Killing Stuff Lolz’. Go on, check out the likeness here. Okay, that was just a funny picture I found, real likeness here.

Okay, I am going to leave you with one more video before I go and hide, fearing that R2 has read this and is looking out for me. This is why we must fear. Meet Boba Fett Robonaut 1 (and Robonaut 1 doesn’t even have any friends to call him R1 either).

Robonaut 2 via Engadget via BotJunkie
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PALRO, a New Robot Pal
02.02.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
A new humanoid robot has been announced today, after some showboating last year, which is aimed at the aducational market to begin with – as with the wonderful Nao. Sales start on March 15th 2010 with the first thousand units and general release will follow later allowing hoobyists to get their greasy hands on PALRO’s 38.9″ body. Priced at around £2000 you actually get quite a lot of bang for your buck – PALRO boasts 20 degrees of freedom, a camera, microphones, speakers, an LED faceful of expressions, a meagre 1.5kg heaviness and an Intel Atom 1.60GHz brain. And PALRO looks awesome, with apparently many colours available if you’re into that sort of thing. Voice control is also being suggested, yet I cannot confirm at present.

Check out PALRO and his friend doing their thing:

Press release [translated] via Plastic Pals [link 1 | link 2]
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PETMAN – BigDog’s Big Bipedal Brother
26.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
Down at Boston Dynamics they have finally accomplished one of their long-term goals – they have created a robot THAT CAN WEAR SHOES! OMFG and stuff. Actually, what they have done is create a bipedal robot that is similar to BigDog but with two legs. It is essentially going to be the first anthropomorphic robot that can move dynamically just like a real person. Its initial use will be to test that chemical hazard suits do their job of allowing freedom of movement without falling apart, whilst being sprayed with various chemical warfare agents. PETMAN will be able to mimic e a big, hot, perspiring human as to give the most accurate test results. Sweaty robot.

When our future overlords start their rampage (delivery is estimated for 2011), maybe it is worth offering them a can of deodorant in an attempt to appease them before they begin all the skull crushing and general destructions.

Boston Dynamics PETMAN
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Living With Robots – a Honda Short Film
23.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
Honda released this short film, Living with Robots, at the Sundance Film Festival. It is pretty cool, mainly about ASIMO and its history but also throws in some footage of the weird bodyweight support thing. Basically, its like a pair of electronic pants for lazy people that makes it appear as though a large robotic spider is trying to escape from your crotch. Anyway, pretty good watch so press play now.

After you’ve digested that, let me thrill you with more ASIMO visual pleasure by showing you the old advert/film attempting to bring warm joyous feelings towards ASIMO and such. Well, it works. Enjoy.

Honda – Dream the Impossible Campaign
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Robovie-nano: A Mini Humanoid Robot that can Cartwheel
11.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
a small robot with big balls

This little dude stands at just 12cm tall and weighs only 575g! Robovie-nano also has a pretty speedy walk, can grasp things such as his lovely red ball and best of all can do a cartwheel, as seen in the video below. And you can actually buy this one NOW! For about £330 , you can grab a basic Robovie-nano, for £360 you get a wireless remote control and for £425 an internal gyroscope/accelerometer is built in too. Just contact Vstone for details on non-Japanese ordering.

Vstone [translated] via Crunch Gear
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Sweet Bipedal Nao Robot
09.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
When I first saw this robot I assumed it was yet another humanoid robot and I guess it is really. There are some sweet features on-board though – fully customisable voice recognition and analysis, Internet interaction such as reading off an RSS feed (just like the I LIKE ROBOT feed!), face/shape and surroundings recognition, tactile response and the ability to interact with another Nao robot and perform collaborative work.

The Nao robot walks a bit funny and seemed to find it difficult to bend down to pick up the rubber duck, but it completed the task all the same. The self-righting mechanism is cool too, making the bot pretty much self-contained.

But the main thing that interested me was the first case of a robot lying – YOU JUST PUT THE DUCK IN THE BIN! Oh and the music in the video is awesome too.

Keep your eye on Aldebaran Robotics if you have (probably lots of) spare cash and want to buy one or two of your own!

Aldebaran Robotics via Smart Machines
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HRP-4C Humanoid Female/Gynoid Robot is Creepy, and/or Hot?
07.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
Just to clear things up: a gynoid is a humanoid robot designed to look like a female, as opposed to an android, which is designed to look like a human male. Something which I did not know before this post!

This is the HRP-4C, a gynoid robot created by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan, showing off at the Japan Robot Festival last year. The robot’s body dimensions are based on an average, young Japanese female (well from 1998) and ‘she’ stands at 5ft 2ins. The most amazing feature is that ‘she’ weighs in at just 43kg including batteries, which is pretty neat. I couldn’t find out how long the battery life was though, anyone? Like any woman, ‘she’ is expensive (*ahem*) at 200 million yen to research and develop, which is around £1.4 million and is capable of extensive talking (speech synthesis). ‘She’ also has attentive voice recognition software, which completes a goal of robotics as to increasing their capacity over humans – well, based on my girlfriend’s listening skills anyway.

In the video you can see the HRP-4C showing off her sultry moves and pwning the HRP-2 in a head-to-head battle of motor skills. I think I prefer the HRP-2′s looks though, the HRP-4C creeps me out a little bit and watching the video I caught myself thinking it might just be someone in a robot costume, though it is quite late and my eyes are going a bit fuzzy.

As too might be my brain, as I just can’t decide if I might be attracted to basically a creepy (yet alluring and cute?) head and pair of hands on a shiny, mechanical body?

AIST (Google Translated) via Telegraph Fashion (!)
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I LIKE ROBOTS

I LIKE ROBOTS

2010: A YEAR IN ROBOTS

About

Blimey, it’s 2010 already, the most futuristic year to have ever happened. And what else exists in the future? Robots of course. So, in homage to our new masters (pending imminent takeover) here you will find a new robot each and every day of 2010, whether they be in pictures, art, videos or other forms.