iCub: the Robot Dj

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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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Helpful Healthbots

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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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Hybrid Humans

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Biohybrid technology fuses the organic with the artificial to extend the limits of our bodies

While the human body has proven to be a structure that is adaptable, versatile and resilient, its organic nature makes it susceptible to many diseases and various other factors capable of exposing its fragility. The term biohybrid refers to something that has integrated components of both natural and artificial material. While some of today’s biohybrid technologies seem straight out of science fiction, the idea to blend these alternate elements is actually thousands of years old….
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Robotic Feeding Assistants

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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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What's the Fastest Robot on Earth?

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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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Nature Knows Best

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Why it’s all about biomimetics

Back in the 14th century, a man notorious for both his artistic talent and scientific ability, studied birds in an attempt to create a machine that was capable of flight. Today, Leonardo da Vinci’s endeavour may be considered one of the early examples of biomimicry. Corresponding to the word’s Greek roots, the quickly growing field is centred on the imitation of life in a vast array of contexts .
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Making Robots Social

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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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DNA Robot Targets and Destroys Cancer Cells

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Nanorobot mimics behaviour of white blood cells to get the job done!

DNA nanorobot from Wyss Institute on Vimeo.

Upon identifying specific deviant cells, the tiny organic robot releases its payload of destructive material onto the cancerous target while well-functioning surrounding cells remain out of harm’s way. This is the gist of the research carried out by Shawn Douglas, Ido Bachelet and George Church that was recently published in Science.
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irobot Takes the Roomba up a Few Notches

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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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