Robot Penguins are Coming to Our Seas and Skies
Using their flippers, the mechanical penguins can paddle through water just like real ones, while larger helium-filled designs can “swim” through the air. The penguins are on show at the Hannover Messe Trade Exhibition in Germany.
Each penguin carries 3D sonar developed by EvoLogics in Berlin, Germany, which is used to monitor its surroundings and avoid collisions with walls or other penguins.
IBM to Build New Supercomputer that can Win on Jeopardy
IBM, not content to merely crush the spirits of chess masters like Garry Kasparov, have started working with Jeopardy! to create a supercomputer that will undoubtedly answer questions more accurately than Sean Connery.
The supercomputer, dubbed simply as a “Question Answering” system, is named Watson. Designers believe it will have the speed and “understanding” necessary to research, buzz in, and then answer questions fast enough to compete on the popular game show.
The Hagetaka Bipedal Combat Robot
Remember when we teased you with a stack of RX-64 servos? Well its time to unveil a bit more of what we’re working on for the upcoming Mech Warfare competition at Robogames 2009. Meet Hagetaka; a 7DOF per leg biped built around the powerful RX-64 servo from Robotis. This robot boasts 14 RX-64s, 2 RX-28s, a custom aluminum chassis machined by sponsor Big Blue Saw, an onboard linux based Gumstix computer with a PS3 Sixaxis controller , a WiFi video server using a Headplay Personal Cinema System for remote piloting, and of course dual automatic airsoft guns. Video and more info will be available in the near future.
Mech Warfare at Robogames 2009
Mech Warfare is a robotic competition unlike any seen before.
Our goal is to create a real-life robotic combat competition that mirrors the scenarios found in Sci-Fi universes such as Battletech, Warhammer 40k and Armored Core.
This competition will pit participants against each other, piloting custom designed 1/24th scale robots- armed with Airsoft weapon systems and higher end weapons such as micro rockets, flame throwers and CO2 projectile weapon systems.
Italy Aims to Send Swarm-Bots to the Moon
The idea to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize crystallized around the vision of Alberto Rovetta, a professor of robot mechanics at Politecnico di Milano. Rovetta’s designs for lunar robots resemble skittering spiders or crabs that could deploy as a swarm of mobile cameras and sensors on both legs and wheels.
Such unorthodox designs may help the team seize the Google Lunar X Prize, which requires teams to land a robot on the moon, move at least 1,640 feet (500 meters) and beam high definition views back to Earth.
Robots Could Prepare Moon Outpost Sites
A new type of lunar robots is being designed which could help prepare locations on the Moon for human outposts and landing pads. With supervised autonomy, small robots the size of riding mowers and weighing 300 kg or less could prepare a site in about 6 months, says a new study by Astrobotic Technology Inc. in cooperation with Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.
Disinformation Interviews the Eyeborg
The episode features an interview with cyborg filmmaker Rob Spence. We discuss Rob’s successful integration of a wireless video camera into his prosthetic eye, the documentary he is making about the project, the concept of transhumanism, and his previous film, Let’s All Hate Toronto. Witness the rise of the EyeBorg, this week on Disinfomation: The Podcast.
He Replaced His Finger with a Memory Stick
Jerry had a motorcycle accident last May and lost a finger. When the doctor working on the artificial finger heard he is a hacker, the immediate suggestion was to embed a USB “finger drive” to the design. Now he carries a Billix Linux distribution and the Freddy Got Fingered movie as part of his hand.
The idea for tending to a garden without human hands came from work done by Nikolaus Correll, a postdoctoral assistant working in MIT Professor Daniela Rus’ Distributed Robotics Lab. Correll saw the possible applications of swarm robotics to an agricultural environment and thus the idea grew into a course in which students created robots capable of tending a small garden of tomatoes. Each robot is outfitted with a robotic arm and a watering pump, while the plants themselves are equipped with local soil sensing, networking and computation. This affords them the ability to communicate: plants can request water or nutrients and keep track of their conditions, including fruit produced; robots are able to minister to their charges, locate and pick a specific tomato, and even pollinate the plants.
Is Terminator Salvation an Oxymoron?
The Department of Defense (DoD) is also financing studies of autonomous, or self-governing, armed robots that could find and destroy targets on their own. On-board computer programs, not flesh-and-blood people, would decide whether to fire their weapons. “The trend is clear – warfare will continue and autonomous robots will ultimately be deployed in its conduct,” says Ron Arkin, a robotics expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Arkin advocates the development of an ethical guidance system or “ethical governor” akin to the governors used to control steam engines.
A giant Gundam is being constructed near Odaiba, Japan.
Robots that serve cocktails. That’s the premise behind the Roboexotica festival in Vienna, Austria, which unites two things cherished by nerds around the globe — alcohol and DIY robotics.
Arab Scientists Want You To Friend your Robot
..building a meaningful relationship with a robot may soon get easier if Nikolaos Mavridis and pals from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab at the United Arab Emirates University have anything to do with it. They say the key to building a longer, meaningful relationship with a robot is to become embedded in the same network of shared friends and together build a pool of shared memories that you can both refer to. Just like a real friend.
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They’re planning to implement their programme in a humanoid robot called IbnSina (see picture), that they have developed at their lab.
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is being continued as a series of children’s novels. 
