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Oh Pleo, it’s been far too long since we’ve seen you out and about! Thankfully, we’ve stumbled upon a handful of Pleo news all at once, so we hope you’re ready to catch up with your favorite dinosaur. First up is a pair of useful hacks from GRIP: a spy cam hack — which transmits images from the pet to a PC sans wires — and an XBee hack, which allows users to monitor Pleo’s sensors and control its servos in real time. For those looking for less work and more laughs, you’ll definitely want to venture on past the break. Wondering what’s there? Pleo visits the day spa — need we say more?

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Read - Pleo’s day spa adventures

Continue reading Pleo roundup: spy cam / XBee hacks, dino visits the day spa

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The folks at the University of Tokyo have been trying to create more touchy, feely robots for what seems like ages, and they now look to have made some real progress with their so-called “e-skin,” which promises to give robots a more human-like sense of touch. To do that, the researchers created a bendable rubber sheet filled with carbon nanotubes, which lets the “skin” conduct electricity even when it’s stretched. When combined with sensors, that would let robots feel heat or pressure, which the researchers say is essential “as robots enter our everyday life.” They also, not surprisingly, see a whole host of other applications for the technology, including on steering wheels that could judge whether people are fit to drive and in stretchable displays that could start out as a tiny sheet and be stretched to a larger size when you want to watch TV.

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Filed under: Robots, Transportation

The UK’s National Oceanography Center in Southampton is prepping to launch a new autonomous underwater vehicle (also known as a robo-sub, landlubber) capable of exploring undersea volcanoes in the Cayman Trough up to 20,000 feet deep. It’ll only run for about a kilometer at a time though, so while it does have quickly replaceable lithium polymer battery packs, it still won’t exactly be roaming the briny deep for months on end without human supervision. And you know how we feel about unsupervised self-directing machines.

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No matter how much we do it, video conferencing is still one of the most awkward internet-related tasks we undertake on a regular basis. Nokia hopes to bring a more casual air to the event with its Jeppe video conferencing robot pet concept. Similar to most telepresence bots, Jeppe can be controlled remotely — through a Nokia interface, conveniently — and zips through the home with its digital compass and sound sensors seeking humans to bother. Unfortunately, the video is at a fixed angle and there’s no option wipe that creepy grin of its face, but obviously Nokia has some refining to do before it brings Jeppe to market, if ever. There’s video after the break of a couple Finnish engineers proving once and for all that there’s no solving the awkward video conferencing problem.

[Via Core77]

Continue reading Nokia’s Jeppe video “pet” concept

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Apparently that sexual harassment suit had a big payoff for Aiko: she’s getting a hand. The developers of the fembot have created a hand for her botness, with five movable fingers, 15 movable joints, feedback sensitivity, low power consumption and palatable material cost of $1800. Oddly enough, the appropriate testing grounds for such a hand is Aiko’s local neighborhood Starbucks, where she apparently regularly is required to grab straws, cups and cardboard sleeves for coffee she can’t drink. How cruel. On the bright side, this hand isn’t just for Aiko: it can also be attached to an amputee’s forearm muscles, allowing for particularly low cost replacement hand — though we’re guessing it’s going to need a bit more work before it’s ready for mass human consumption. Video is after the break.

Continue reading Aiko gets a new, Starbucks-ready hand prototype

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Autonomous seafaring vehicles may not be quite as common as unmanned land or air vehicles, but Harbor Wing Technologies looks to be doing its small part to change that, with it now apparently pretty far along in the development of its self-named Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicle (or AUSV). Among other things, it employs a specially-designed “WingSail” that can rotate a full 360 degrees to let the vessel maneuver efficiently upwind or downwind, and it uses a custom-made guidance system that can relay vital navigational and situational data to a “semi-portable” command station, which can apparently also be used to pilot the vessel in a pinch. Be sure to head on past the break for an interview with Harbor Wing’s Ken Childress courtesy of Engineering TV, which also includes a glimpse of the current prototype in action.

[Via Engineering TV]

Continue reading Harbor Wing AUSV can sail into the sunset all by itself

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It looks like the Artificial Life XI conference hosted by the University of Southampton was home to a unsettling number of swarm robots this week, including some we’ve seen and some we haven’t. Among the more interesting of the lot are the matchbox-size bots (pictured above) developed by a group of researchers from the host university, which apparently cost just £24 (or $46) each to produce and are able to independently divide up tasks with no central program controlling them. They’re even able to redistribute tasks if some of the robots fail or are removed from the area, which the researchers say makes them ideal for use in far-flung locations and, as the BBC’s video available at the link below shows, they’re also adorable when set to music.

[Thanks, David]

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Although it hits retail on Thursday, you might want to get your pre-order in now given the way these things tend to go scarce near the Xmas rush. We’re talking about Elmo Live of course, the singing, dancing, and story telling robot with wobbly red limbs and interactive sensors scattered around the monster’s face and ticklish belly. Available now for about $65 pre-tax at all the usual on-line shops for our tiniest consumers. We’ve dropped in the video after the break as a reminder of things to come.

[Via I4U]

Read — Amazon
Read — Wal-mart
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Continue reading Elmo Live ready for pre-order by dutiful parents

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Don’t you hate it how simply moving a robotic arm in a microgravity environment can produce enough negative reaction forces to alter a spacecraft’s orientation? Well, a group of researchers from Cornell University have now devised a new type of robot arm that they say could make that pesky problem a thing of the past. To do that, they’ve employed a device known as a control-moment gyroscope (or CMG) instead of a motor to control the arm’s joints, which not only reduces the amount energy required to move the arm, but lets it move faster as well. As you can see above, they’ve already tested the arm on board NASA’s famous Vomit Comet, but there’s no indication just yet as to when or if the arm will actually see action in space.

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Tokyo-based ZMP has already teamed up with a consortium of other Japanese companies to take on the encroaching robot threat from South Korea, and it’s now taken another step to spur on development and released the source code to its nuvo series of robots. Unfortunately, it’s not going the open source route, with interested researchers and mad scientists instead required to dole out ¥257,250 (or $2,355) for a package that includes a nuvo robot, the source code, an electrical circuit diagram, three days of training, and an ID to give you access to the nuvo community. You’ll also have to sign a non disclosure agreement with ZMP, and if you’re not one of the first fifty to sign up, you’re out of luck for now. Not exactly casting the widest of nets, but those looking for less expensive, more open robot platforms to play with certainly have plenty of other options to consider.

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