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Video: President Obama Scraps Pentagon's Plans to Build Tank in the Shape of a Dragon

The Onion reports on President Obama's latest action to cut spending: he's nixed the Pentagon's plans to build a giant tank in the shape of the dragon. A top general is furious over the cancellation and explains why the dragon tank is essential to keeping America safe. Take a look:

Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon

Posted on August 2, 2009
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Robot Bird Watcher Watches For Rare Woodpecker

The BBC reports that a robot woodpecker is keeping watch for the ivory-billed woodpecker, a rare woodpecker once thought to be extinct.

The automated birdwatcher stands in a US wildlife reserve in Arkansas, scanning the skies for a glimpse of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.

The bird was once thought to be extinct, but potential sightings in the area in 2004 renewed the search.

The system uses two video cameras to capture continuous images of the sky that are scrutinised for evidence of bird life by sophisticated software.

Any shot that it does not believe contains a bird is discarded.

So far all the birds the robot bird watcher has photographed are geese but he seems like the right robot for the job. If the elusive woodpecker ever appears this robot birding enthusiast is sure to snap the picture.

Posted on February 23, 2007
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The Robot That Loves Hello Kitty

Photo of new robot from Sanrio

Pink Tentacle reports that Sanrio, the company that owns the license to Hello Kitty, has now created a female robot.

Kokoro, a Sanrio Group company specializing in the design and manufacture of robots, unveiled its new Actroid DER2 feminine guide robot at Sanrio headquarters in Tokyo on October 4.

Actroid DER2 is an upgraded version of Kokoro’s previous fembot, Actroid DER, who has made quite a name for herself by providing services at a number of events, including the 2005 World Expo. Compared to the previous model, DER2 has thinner arms and a wider repertoire of expressions. The smoothness of her movement has also been improved, making it now even more likely for the uninitiated to confuse her with an actual human being.

Actroid's limbs, torso and facial expressions are controlled by a system of actuators powered by pneumatic pressure. Once programmed, she is able to choreograph her motions and gestures with her voice.

Kokoro intends to rent Actroid DER2 to companies and events. The basic rental fee is expected to be 400,000 yen (US$3,500) for 5 days, plus extra fees for technical support, delivery and choreography changes. For those who can’t cope with a sayonara after 5 days, there is a late fee of 80,000 yen per day.

You can watch Actroid DER2 on a YouTube video here. First off, she needs a better name than Actroid DER2. Second, her hands are way too big -- they look like linebacker's hands. Other than that, she appears to work pretty well.

One thing's for sure: the Japanese are kicking our butts in robot technology. You never see weekly robot reports in the U.S., which is probably why no one here seems to realize that most manual labor will be done by robots within twenty-five years. We can't wait!

Posted on October 6, 2006
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Boot Throwing Robot Invented

Welly Wanger Robot

Scientists at Aberystwyth University have invented a robotic welly wanger, which is a robot dedicated to the task of boot throwing. icNorthWales reports that the robot has even been built with some AI abilities so that it can learn to slowly throw the boots better over time like a child would. The impressive robotic boot hurler can throw boots as far as 80 metres.

Team members Richard Shipman, who teaches artificial intelligence, Dr Andy Shaw, a researcher in space robotics, and computer technician Ian Izett applied their scientific expertise in robotics and artificial intelligence to improve its throwing accuracy - the main criteria for judging the competition.

Up to six wellingtons a time are fired from a 2m diameter computer-controlled disc which rotates at up to 250 times per minute.

A second computer monitors wind speed and direction and relays the information via a third computer and a radio link to a laptop where team members can monitor its progress.

Speaking as final field trials were set to get under way, Mr Shipman said: "Other than building the machine itself, the main challenge for us has been getting the computer systems to talk to each other and then to interact with all the hardware.

******

"It has been built with a certain amount of artificial intelligence and during the final week of field trials it will learn in the same way as a small child learns as it grows up", he added.

A post on Robots.net points to a photo gallery and a blog about the robot welly wanger. Another article about the robot can be found on the BBC. Apparently, the robot will have to battle 15 other similar machines in a competition later this month.

Posted on August 25, 2006
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He Was a Sk8er Bot

Plen

Here is a robot that would make Avril proud. Plen is a Japanese robot that skateboards. You can see a video of Plen in action here. Coolest Gadgets also has an article and video of Plen rollerskating.

The bipedal robot, for so long it was the holy grail of roboticists. Honda most famously produced some of the first walking robots with the "P" series, which has evolved into Asimo. Most of the bipedal robots today employ the zero moment point (ZMP) algorithm. This gives them kind of a stiff-in-the-knees walk and a permanent semi-crouch. Recently this has been applied to robots who, if you look closely, are really nothing more than a bunch of servos bolted together. Another entry into this category is "PLEN" from the Japanese company Akazawa.

Billed as a desktop robot, PLEN can be controlled from desktop software or via Bluetooth from a mobile phone. PLEN has a built-in 3 axis accelerometer which enables it to not only dance and walk like other bipedal robots but to also roller skate and ride a skateboard. Standing a mere 23 cm tall and weighing only 700 grams PLEN is pretty small, but still manages to pack a 32 bit ARM processor running at 33 MHz. This desktop robot will set you back about $2,000.00 US.

Plen looks like he has quite a few moves. Some bloggers are even admitting that Plen can skate better than they can. (via Geekologie)

Posted on August 6, 2006
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Scientists Invent Robotic Tentacles

Octarms and Dr. Octopus

New Scientist reports that scientists have invented robotic arms called Octarms.

Robotic "tentacles" that can grasp and grapple with a wide variety of objects have been developed by US researchers.

Most robots rely on mechanical gripping jaws that have difficulty grabbing large or irregularly shaped objects. Replacing these with tentacle-like manipulators could make robots more nimble and flexible, say the scientists.

The tentacle-like manipulators, known as "Octarms", resemble an octopus's limb or an elephant's trunk. They were developed through a project called OCTOR (sOft robotiC manipulaTORs), which involves several US universities and is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

"An elephant's trunk can pick up a peanut or a tree trunk," says Ian Walker, a member of the project team from Clemson University in South Carolina. "This ability, inherent in the OCTOR robots, gives OCTOR arms a huge advantage over conventional industrial robots."

Why do today's inventions have to look and function like the appendages of comic book supervillains? You just know one of the scientists is eventually going to strap a few of these octarms on. Do you think we are kidding? One of the scientists is already thinking about it.

"Coordinated control of multiple arms would be a real challenge," says Chris Rahn, another project member from Pennsylvania State University. But it is by no means impossible, he adds. He believes the robotic tentacles could perhaps one day be used to create a robotic octopus or even a backpack with extra limbs.

Someday a scientists is going to try Chris Rahn's backpack idea and then something will go wrong, just like with Otto Octavius' experiment, and then we will have our own flesh and blood Dr. Octopus to deal with.

Posted on May 10, 2006
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MIT Scientists Create Robot Snail

Scientists are making progress on the ultimate goal of having a robot match for every creature on Earth. The latest invention comes from scientists at MIT. It is the robosnail, a robotic gastropod that can climbs walls and stick to the ceiling. The scientists tried to make the robot snail as realistic as possible. A Nature article says the scientists even recreated snail slime trails using Laponite.

The team tested out their snail on a tilting platform, covered with a 1.5-millimetre-thick layer of slime made from Laponite, a type of clay that forms a clear, sticky gel when mixed with water.

As the engineers increased the incline, they saw that the snail took the hill in its stride, continuing to plod along even when the surface was vertical. When the platform was flipped over so that the robot was upside down, it still made steady progress.

The secret to this gravity-defying stunt is apparently to keep the snail as light as possible (just 31.6 grams), while ensuring that the Laponite has just the right stickiness. They publish their findings in the November issue of Physics of Fluids.

Slime made from Laponite with "just the right stickiness"? Well if there is goo or slime involved then the commercial possibilities are endless. Just turn the Laponite slime purple and Nickelodeon will order a few thousand robosnails and kids at home will probably want one too. (Via Robots.net)

Posted on December 14, 2005
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Scientists Invent Robot Arm Wrestler

Robots.net reports that Korean scientists have developed a robot that arm wrestles.

The arm-wrestling robot was developed by Professor Chul-Goo Kang and his colleagues at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent System (IRIS) of Konkuk University. Robo Arm-Wrestler greets people when they are approaching by saying "Hello", "Nice to meet you", or "Please take a seat for a match", and so on. Robo Arm-Wrestler has some artifical intelligence which automatically adjusts its strength for the challenger and it also considers its competitor's attitude and reflects his will and tenacity in deciding who wins.

Hello. Nice to meet you? Now come on that's no way to challenge an opponent. Those of us "fortunate" enough to watch Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top know that you must be very aggressive and accept nothing but first place.

John Grizzly: "When I get to the table, that person, I don't care who they are, they're my mortal enemy. I hate them."
Harry Bosco: "My whole body is an engine. This is a fireplug" [makes a fist] "... and I'm gonna light him up."
Bob 'Bull' Hurley: "I drive truck, break arms, and arm wrestle. It's what I love to do, it's what I do best. Being number one is everything. There is no second place. Second sucks."

Robo Arm-Wrestler should be reprogrammed with some of those lines from Over the Top.

Posted on December 1, 2005
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Scientists Achieve Breakthrough in Cockroach Wars

Scientists have achieved an amazing breakthrough in the ongoing War on Cockroaches. In a startling new development, scientists announced that they have managed to infiltrate the main base of the enemy. They did this by creating Insbot, a complex robot that fools the cockroaches into following it by mimicking cockroach behaviors and secreting chemicals that attract roaches. The cockroaches even followed the Insbot into the light where humans could easily step on them.

Developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Insbot has learned how to mimic cockroaches' behaviour and interact with a colony of the insects. The device was developed to show how artificial systems could interact with animals in future mixed societies, Gilles Caprari and colleagues report in the latest edition of IEEE Robotics and Automation (vol 12, p 58).

In addition to a host of touch sensors that allow it to interact with the roaches, Insbot can secrete chemicals that mimic the pheromones with which they communicate. So accepted has the robot become in roach society that it can even lure the insects from the safe, dark shelters they prefer to a much brighter one.

Cockroaches, considered one of the hardiest creatures on Earth, will now be led to their doom by the devious machinations of our brave scientists on the front lines. We're sure that there is no truth whatsoever to those rumors that the clever cockroaches have secretly reprogrammed the robot to inflitrate our society and destroy us from the inside. After all, there's no need to be paranoid....right? Right?

Posted on August 12, 2005
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Female Androids Hit Japan

The BBC reports that Japanese scientists are once again leaving the U.S. in the dust with their cool robot research. The new female android is the most human-looking robot ever invented. Her name is Repliee Q1, which isn't the catchiest name we've ever heard, but hey, they're scientists, not writers. Repliee has skin made of flexible silicone, as well as sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react like a human.

She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human. Repliee Q1 is not like any robot you will have seen before, at least outside of science-fiction movies. She is designed to look human and although she can only sit at present, she has 31 actuators in her upper body, powered by a nearby air compressor, programmed to allow her to move like a human.

"I have developed many robots before," Repliee Q1's designer, Professor Ishiguru, told the BBC News website, "but I soon realised the importance of its appearance. A human-like appearance gives a robot a strong feeling of presence." "Repliee Q1 can interact with people. It can respond to people touching it. It's very satisfying, although we obviously have a long way to go yet."

Professor Ishiguru believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for a human, if only for a brief period. "An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes," he said. "More importantly, we have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her. Consciously, it is easy to see that she is an android, but unconsciously, we react to the android as if she were a woman."

Except for those giant gorilla hands, she looks pretty human to us. We're reminded of that Star Trek original series episode where Kirk and the Enterprise crew found a brilliant scientist on another planet who turned out to have been Leonardo da Vinci and a bunch of other Earth geniuses. He built the perfect female android too, but she didn't love him. We hope things go better for Professor Ishiguru.

Posted on July 28, 2005
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The Onion 6-22-56

If you haven't read The Onion from the future then you should check it out here. We especially like the Million Robot March that was attended by exactly 1 million robots.

The Million Robot March, an orderly demonstration for increased rights for cyber-mechanical servants, was attended by exactly 1 million robots Sunday.

Posted on June 22, 2005
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The Robotic Super Suit

Man in Robotic Strong Suit Holding up Girl

Japan just won't stop with the robot revolution. Now they've invented a robot suit that makes humans stronger.

"Humans may be able to mutate into supermen in the near future," said Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University who led the project.

The 15-kilogram (33-pound) battery-powered suit, code-named HAL-5, detects muscle movements through electrical-signal flows on the skin surface and then amplifies them. It can also move on its own accord, enabling it to help elderly or handicapped people walk, developers said.

The prototype suit will be displayed at the World Exposition that is currently taking place in Aichi prefecture, central Japan. Japan has seen a growing market for technology geared toward the elderly, who are making up an increasing chunk of the population as fewer younger Japanese choose to start families.

Note to the Robot Marketing Department: In the demonstration photo, a young, apparently healthy young guy is using the robot super-suit to lift a girl who couldn't possibly weigh more than 100 lbs., soaking wet. Perhaps it would be more impressive if the photo showed a 90 year old man lifting a car, or maybe even a sumo wrestler. Now that would be impressive.

Posted on June 13, 2005
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Robot Doctors Are Here

Apparently, England is miles ahead of the U.S. when it comes to technology and robots. And don't even get us started about Japan. Reuters reports that robot nurses named nicknamed "Sister Mary" and "Doctor Robbie" started work at a London hospital today.

The pair allow doctors to visually examine and communicate with patients, whether they are in another part of the hospital or even another part of the world.

"This is a revolutionary concept which opens new avenues in telemedicine research and integrates technology with healthcare," said Professor Sir Ara Darzi in a statement. Darzi, head of surgery, anesthetics and intensive care at London's prestigious Imperial College is also a practicing surgeon at St Mary's hospital in Paddington, west London.

The 5-foot (1.5 meter) high robots are controlled remotely by a doctor via a joystick. Doctors can look at patients thanks to a camera mounted on top of the robot while patients can see their doctors via a screen on the robots' "face." Patients can be asked questions and medical records -- such as X-rays and test results -- can be read.

After a trial period, some egghead will tabulate the results to see if the patients liked the robots and if they worked well or not. No word on how many patients required psychiatric treatment due to trauma sustained from waking in a hospital bed, only to find a robot "doctor" treating them, causing delusions of time travel to the future.

Posted on May 19, 2005
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The Replicators Are Coming

The Replicators from StarGate

The Independent reports on the invention of robots that can reproduce themselves:

It has been the dream -- and nightmare -- of science fiction writers for decades. Now a team of engineers has conjured up a robot that can reproduce itself.

The robot can self-replicate in much the same way that some living organisms are able to reproduce by cloning themselves.

Modular cubes called "molecubes", each of which contains the machinery and computer program necessary for replication, are at the heart of the robot's ability to self-replicate. Electromagnets on each of the cubes' facesallow them to attach and detach themselves to another cube according to the computer's instructions. This allows a damaged robot to jettison defective cubes and replace them by working ones or for it to construct a separate robot from scratch by building a stack of individual cubes.

When the newly-formed robot reaches a certain height it helps to finish off its own replication by adding the last molecubes to its own body.

Oh, no! We've seen this before...on Stargate SG-1. This article is talking about those horrible Replicators that took over Stargate Command, eating all the technology in site and replicating like crazy! They're unstoppable! They've wiped out entire civilizations!

Why can't they invent something useful for a change? They need to put a woman in charge of this kind of research, clearly. I just want Rosie, the Robot Maid from The Jetsons. Now she was a robot worth having. And she didn't have any evil plans for world domination. As far as we know, anyway.

Posted on May 13, 2005
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