Tag Archives: Robot Companions

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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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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Canine (Robot) Companions

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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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Boxie: The Chatterbox Bot

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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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Demand for Domestic Bots

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68% of participants in a market research survey think domestic robots would be useful

Furthermore, the survey indicated that nearly half of that 68% would even take out a loan to buy one in the future!

If you had a robot at home, what are some of the tasks you would have it do? Participants of the survey stated that help moving heavy objects was at the top of the list. Other robot-worthy tasks included  providing home security,  cleaning windows, washing floors and dishes and doing laundry.
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