Robots

There was an amazing party last Friday at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., celebrating the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, which was made by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin. While CNET News.com has already penned a great article on the event, I thought I'd add my two cents on some of the cool gadgets I spotted at the party.

Peter Foucault's drawing robots drew a steady crowd the entire night. These two little robots had Sharpie pens mounted on them and were contained within what looked like a little robot boxing ring. Only … Read more

The competition for robots in hostile situations has never been hotter, so manufacturers are understandably trying whatever they can to distinguish themselves. But rather than focus on more common attributes such as speed and power, Japan's Topy is opting for agility.

The company has introduced two new "crawler robots" designed to negotiate tight spaces, such as under floors, with a large LCD built into their controllers for close inspection. To get them down to more manageable fighting weights, Fareastgizmos says Topy lightened its crawler belts by 25 percent. But the larger model can still climb over gaps … Read more

If the "Scooba" went on a massive steroid binge, it might turn out as something like this. iRobot has taken its famed vacuuming skills under water, totally submerging a new line for the swimming pool.

The "Verro" pool-cleaning bots come in two models that patrol the floor and climb walls to the waterline in 60 to 90 minutes It also uses artificial intelligence to avoid crashing into sunken tiki gods or pirate ships.

The Verros don't come cheap, at $800 and $1,200, but that may be a small price to pay to get rid … Read more

In this corner, weighing in at about 25 pounds from Haifa, Israel, is yet another contender in the man portable category of life-saving/life-depriving robots. The VIPer climbs stairs, sniffs out IEDs, totes an Uzi and leads the way with built-in mapping all by remote control from the safety of your APC.

Moving up to the 60-pound weight class, sniffin' and shootin' out of Boston, Mass., with 30,000 EOD/IED missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the Foster Miller Talon. Used in HAZMAT as well as military applications, a version of this little guy was supposedly the first robot … Read more

Here's a Tokyo FD tow truck-like robot designed to identify and pick up fire victims who might have "passed out from the smoke and fumes", according to Technovelgy.

Just hope you don't get snagged on something on the way out, 'cause this thing looks like it'll just keep on pulling.

Surgeons are using a four armed robot to perform prostate surgery.

The procedure is called the da Vinci Prostatectomy, "a new, less-invasive approach to prostate removal," according to the Swedish Medical Center.

Actually, it's no joke; an estimated 230,000 men in the US are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year and the da Vinci Surgical System promises to help surgeons perform the surgery with greater precision while speeding patient recovery.

Interested? Call 1-800-SWEDISH and let us know how it goes.

Fresh from the Robo-One 11 bi-ped robot competition at Kourakuen Hall in Tokyo comes this impressive video of OmniZero.4.

As you can see, OmniZero.4 climbs ladders, clomps around, jumps rope, and makes crappy, shell-heavy omelettes.

According to Robots-Dreams.com, OmniZero.4 edged out the spawn of the Great Majingaa by a score of 453 to 432 to win the demonstration competition.

An earlier iteration of The Great Majingaa can be seen below, controlled by an emotionless child wearing some sort of robotic exoskeleton device.

You may also want to check out this epic Robo-One 10 battle between King … Read more

Robots do a lot of fun things. They cook, clean, bartend, and save lives. Some of them even play music. But this little guy, "Keepon" from Carnegie Mellon University, is a Beatbot! He might look like something off of a trippy kids' TV show like Pokemon or the Teletubbies, but in fact, he's a "socially rhythmic robot" who can detect the beat of the music and get jiggy wit' it. He puts most of us humans to shame.

No, Keepon does not dance the Robot, but he does pump out a nice little groove to … Read more

Everybody loves robots, despite what Mike Yamamoto may tell you. And these crazy musical robots at LEMURplex in Brooklyn are especially cool. These homemade 'bots are controlled by a single Mac, according to LEMURplex's Eric Singer. Cool stuff. Check out the video to see them in action. Happy watching!

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