LAS VEGAS--When you come to CES here, you expect to see computers and TVs galore. Mobile phones, sure. Printer and speakers? Check. But a 50-foot-long mechanical snake?

Though we're in an arid, desert-like Nevada environment (never mind all the cement and golf courses), this isn't Burning Man. But sure enough, just behind the CNET trailer here, Titanoboa is strutting its stuff. And indeed, Titanoboa is a 50-foot mechanical snake.

Created by EatArt, the Vancouver arts collective, Titanoboa seeks to invoke the promise -- or the threat -- of global climate change, and the kinds of things we might start to see happen on this wonderful planet of ours. According to the Titanoboa project page: … Read more

Norovirus is a particularly nasty virus that causes severe gastrointestinal upset. It's famous for turning cruises into nightmares. It's a tough little number that spreads easily and is hard to kill. To study it, you can't just ask a bunch of sick people to pop down to the lab and vomit on demand. That's where a robot nicknamed Vomiting Larry comes in.

Larry is a one-robot upchucking machine in residence at the Health & Safety Laboratory in Buxton, U.K. He's an anatomically correct model and his favorite hobby is barfing for science. He helps scientists determine how far the norovirus can spread. … Read more

We already know how to explore planets with relatively low gravity, like Mars. The Curiosity Rover is engineered to hang onto the planet's surface, despite it having just 38 percent of the gravity we enjoy on Earth. What happens if you want to check out a small moon or an asteroid with a fraction of that gravity? You design a robotic hedgehog, of course.

Stanford University researchers and NASA are working together on spiky space balls that could dance across the surfaces of moons and asteroids whose low gravity and rough surfaces would bog down a regular rover. … Read more

Samsung revealed yesterday (albeit, with little detail) its latest robotic vacuum cleaner -- the Smart Tango Corner Clean -- just a week before a potential CES debut.

For those of you with visions of a Samsung-made Rosey the maid robot from "The Jetsons" zipping about your home, well, we're not quite there yet. However, due to the inclusion of appendages, the latest robotic vacuum from Samsung might give pause to prospective buyers of Roomba or Neato devices. … Read more

Next time you see a cockroach, don't scurry away faster than it can flee. In fact, if you're a lover of the weirder side of life, the intrusive insect could represent one heck of a science project.

For example, artist Brittany Ransom created Twitter Roach -- a discoid cockroach that can be controlled through tweets that it receives on the popular microblogging service. … Read more

If you've never seen DARPA's version of Boston Dynamics' semi-autonomous LS3 (Legged Squad Support System) robot in action, now's a good time.

The government agency released a video yesterday that highlights one of LS3's most powerful skills: the ability to follow a leader by using computer-aided vision and GPS. In the four-minute clip, you can watch the dog-like robot following an instructor over some rough terrain -- with great ease -- in a wooded area near Fort Pickett, Va. … Read more

Fancy yourself as James Bond and want to do some high-tech spying? Now you can with this palm-size flying robot.

TechJect's Robot Dragonfly may not be ready just yet, but you can back this project at Indiegogo for just $99 to get your very own micro UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). If you're willing to chuck in another $20, you'll be able to get a noiseless version.

The basic model weighs in at just less than an ounce and can hover or flit around like a bird with its two pairs of wings. TechJect also intends to sell different types of wings that will change how the unit performs. … Read more

Here's a robotics challenge for you: create an advanced humanoid robot in only nine months.

That's what engineers at the University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Lab are trying to do with Roboy, a kid-style bot that's designed to help people in everyday environments.

Researchers around the world are trying to create useful humanoids. One interesting aspect of Roboy is its tendon-driven locomotion system.

Like Japan's Kenshiro humanoid, Roboy relies on artificial muscles to move; in the future, it will be covered with a soft skin. … Read more

Jan Scheuermann can't use her limbs to feed herself, but she's pretty good at grabbing a chocolate bar with her robot arm.

She's become the first to demonstrate that people with a long history of quadriplegia can successfully manipulate a mind-controlled robot arm with seven axes of movement. Earlier experiments had shown that robot arms work with brain implants.

Scheuerman was struck by spinocerebellar degeneration in 1996. A study on the brain-computer interface (BCI) linking Scheuermann to her prosthetic was published online in this month's issue of medical journal The Lancet.

Training on the BCI allowed her to move an arm and manipulate objects for the first time in nine years, surprising researchers.

It took her less than a year to be able to seize a chocolate bar with the arm, after which she declared, "One small nibble for a woman, one giant bite for BCI." Check it out in the video below. … Read more