robotics

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.

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

We spend a lot of time on Crave fawning over adorable robots that clean our floors or serve us beer. But what about the real robots? The robots with nasty jobs. The kind of robots that make Asimo tremble like a bed-wetting toddler. Frankly, I'm relieved that robot engineers are taking a break from creating another boring domestic robot servant to make something useful like the life-saving Robokiyu. Sure, it looks like a human wood chipper, but the Robokiyu might actually pull you from a burning building. Let's see your Robosapiendo that! Then this week, Korean police got … Read more

Where robots are concerned, it's always seemed to make sense that tasks would become increasingly specific. Whether it be detecting smoke or taking patients' temperatures, researchers have traditionally worked to refine their skills to make them more valuable.

In Japan, however, we've detected a trend toward bots geared toward more everyday tasks, such as washing dishes--perhaps to help that country's rapidly aging population. To that end, Japan's Raytron has developed a small "intelligent companion" that can help with such basic things as flipping light switches or turning on the telly, according to Akihabara … Read more

If automation breeds laziness, this is a prime example. It's one thing for Japanese scientists to develop robots that can help their country's aging society for such reasons as health and safety, but is a tissue-dispensing bot really necessary?

InterRobot, maker of the ever-smiling "Mospeng-kun," also rents out its creation to the tune of 100,000 yen for five days (about $835). That seems pretty steep for an automated tissue box, but Mospeng might have a more sinister--and therefore more valuable--use as well: for "gathering information about the people it encounters on the job," … Read more

I am joined today by the wonderful Tim Moynihan, who schools me on the tech that I'm definitely going to need at some point in the future (brainwave-reading headgear, anyone?) We also ask the one of the most important questions of the year: Will it blend? A special thanks to CNET member Austin for that one! Here are the rest of the links for today:

If you're really into robots, maybe it's time a robot got into you. Literally.

This miniature robotic prototype developed by researchers at the Ritsumeikan University and the Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan can be inserted into a patient's body through a small incision.

The doctors use prior MRI imaging of a patient as a sort of internal Google Map. Once it's in there, the robot can be controlled by doctors outside the body to capture images, take tissue samples, deliver medicine, and even perform minor surgical procedures.

As advanced as the robot is, it … Read more