Robotics

Thanks to Nissan’s Biomimetic Robot Car (BR23C), crash test dummies could find themselves out of a job. Having been compared to R2-D2 (but bearing no resemblance whatsoever), the BR23C will not maintain your car like a mechanic would, rather, it will play the part of backseat driver. The robot is the “poster-bot” for Nissan’s new crash prevention technology. Drawing upon ...

We don’t get the chance to see many snakebots. There’s the Japanese M-Tran, a shape shifting robot, but that hardly counts as a snakebot. Anna Konda, however, is very much a snakebot. Despite looking and acting very similarly to a penis, Anna is really a firefighter. Anna has 20 joints, each with 33 degrees of freedom, giving it an extensive ...

Sylvain Calinon’s creation, the Robotic Portrait Artist, has received a makeover. Check out its sweet new mustache and beret! It truly has the look of an artist. This bot is able to recognize human faces and extract relevant characteristics from them. Then, it draws portraits of captured images by converting them into vector art.� The produced result is better than ...

The rumor that Amazon will be launching a music and movie store for Android-based cellphones has been confirmed by Vince. Like Vince mentions, this will make Amazon a direct competitor to Apple�s iTunes Music Store. The Apple advertisement team is probably hard at work making up some nice bashes they can throw in Amazon’s direction.� I guess we’ll just have ...

Oh snap! Today will mostly consist of news about Google’s Android platform and the T-Mobile G1 smartphone. The latest rumor to hit our inbox involves the almighty Amazon.com and content distribution. Apparently, Amazon could be releasing a music and movie store just for Android-based cellphones. That would instantly make Amazon a direct competitor to Apple’s iTunes Music Store and we’re ...

Ever since that damn Transformers movie, car manufacturers just can’t get enough of displaying their new cars as dancing robots. Of course, it’s hard to forget Citroen’s line of commercials, which began in 2004 (prior to Michael Bay’s film) and since then has multiplied. The latest in Citroen’s line of cars-gone-robots is the C4. By C4, I don’t mean the ...

No one likes doing yard work. It’s tedious and leaves those awful grass stains on your clothes. So, why not build a robot that enjoys cutting the grass as much as you enjoy building robots? Robotshop.se is providing all the essentials needed to build your very own autonomous mowing robot.� A complete lawnbot kit comes with everything you need for ...

The practical uses for unmanned aerial vehicles are proving limitless. Once used for espionage and photography, these airborne spy bots just fell victim to a role reversal: they’ve gone from spy to medic. Well, while they don’t exactly heal wounds out on the battlefield, they do provide air transport for supplies needed in dire situations. Think of them as carrier ...

Creating artistic tech-inspired sculptures with nothing more than recycled goods and other garbage is a popular form of art these days. Like the City Foundry Bots or those mini-motorcycles made of old watch parts, these sculptures are made in a similar way but take it to the next level: they’re animated. We aren’t sure what mechanical artist Nemo Gould is ...

Check out Guilherme Martin’s first attempt at making a robot. He uses an Arduino and motor shield with one servo for steering and a standard DC motor for movement. It’s dubbed “baratinha” meaning “little cockroach” in Portuguese. Using two micro-switches as if they were antennae, baratinha is able to detect obstacles in its way.� It’s just like a real cockroach ...