The goal is ambitious but there’s a motive behind it!
The video above by Reuters features some of the robots that were on display at this year’s INNOROBO Conference in Lyon, France. A recent article in the BBC which featured the conference suggests that it may be time we forget about the idea of robots as companions however, some of the robots displayed in the video above seem like they could provide valuable human accompaniment to suit a variety of human needs.
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The iCub and a human jam together on the Reactable
At the Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS) at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, it’s just your average Jam session. Fellow music makers include a PhD student, a robot and the Reactable! The demonstration featured in the video above merges two projects into one: The Reactable and the Experimental Functional Android Assistant (EFAA), which is using the iCub robot as its main research platform.
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Robots as healthcare assistants and companions
Healthbots is a joint research project being carried out by Bruce MacDonald and his team at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and the Electronic and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in Korea. Together, the team wishes to create custom designed robotic technology that’s suitable for use with an older population. The robots have been evaluated over the past 4 years in a series of trials and they are now being poised for use on a larger scale as assistants in people’s homes, hospitals and retirement communities.
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A new Swedish product takes us far away from this classic scene of chaos!
For anyone who’s a Charlie Chaplin fan, this scene from the 1936 film Modern Times is a must watch! When Chaplin’s forced to give it a go as this feeding machine’s first customer he’s treated to a lovely meal…all over his shirt as well as numerous ensuing side dishes of slaps to the face!
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Check out the ¨Cheetah¨
We all know that the fastest land animal is the cheetah, capable of running up to 120 km/hr in short bursts- but has it met its match in robot form? In terms of speed, the great cat faces little competition. Nevertheless, today, no legged robot is speedier than Darpas’s new Cheetah bot which can run 30 km/hr in cheetah-like fashion.
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Leading experts tell us how it’s being done
Researchers look at human social intelligence from different perspectives but when it comes to integrating that into robots, social intelligence must be narrowed down to some key components.
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irobot’s new bot Ava is much more than vacuum
¨There’s a need for robots that can help people live independently…the number of people over the age of 65 is increasing dramatically,¨ explains the CEO of irobot, Colin Angle in an interview with CNNmoney. Angle further explains that even though many senior citizens may require assistance in their daily living, many of them don’t want to move into assisted living facilities.
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Perceptive machines lend a hand in the real-world
The robot featured in the picture is named Matilda and she also has a ¨male¨counterpart named Jack. Their creators at La Trobe University ( in partnership with Kyoto University and Japan’s NEC Corporation) Continue reading
DARPA’s pup has been trained to follow the pack!
Militaries around the world view physical exhaustion of their soldiers as one of their main challenges, since soldiers often have to carry loads of up 50kg on their backs through rough, volatile terrain. So why not ease the load with the help of a four-legged robot?
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New research from MIT involves a cardboard box-like robot
This cardboard box isn’t meant to be packed into a moving van! In fact, it’s not really a cardboard box at all but rather, a story collecting robot, of course. Meet Boxie, another one of the MIT Media Lab‘s creations.
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