Category: Robots
The robot vacuum cleaner on a serious budget – the Brush Robot
The Brush Robot is essentially a kids toy, but don't let that put you off. You spend a few minutes building it and voila your very own robot cleaner and all for just £9.95.
Hexbug: Robotic scurrying insect wants to be your friend
Forget useful accessories for your desk and instead invest in one or more of these funky little critters.
The Hexbug is a little creepy-crawly robot (6 x 5 x3.5cm in fact) with touch sensors on its feelers and a built-in microphone. Upon hearing a loud noise it will scurry away in the opposite direction, and any time it makes contact with something it will step back from it…
Go Terminate yourself!
Lucy Hedges is leaving Shiny Media today. She’s been writing on our sister site, Shiny Shiny, for over a year now and you’ll know her through her reviews on Shiny Tech TV over here on Tech Digest. It’s only recently that we’ve actually discovered that she’s a Terminator. It took us around 12 months of her constantly asking if we’d seen John Connor but it was really only after seeing this image that the penny dropped.
If you’d like to Terminate yourself, your pets or any buddies of yours, then head over to the promotional site for Terminator Salvation and cyborg yourself up. Enjoy and have a Happy Easter.
(via Botropolis)
Robo-fish would be the coolest bath toy ever
To the casual eye, this may be a fish caught somewhere off the uncanny valley, but most fishes’ limited eyesight will mean that it slips by completely unnoticed as it goes about its business. And its business is detecting hazardous pollutants in the water off the coast of Spain.
They’ve been designed by a group of UK scientists with the intention of not scaring the local water life. They look like carp, and move around realistically with a top speed of around 2.25mph. They cost £20,000 a-piece, but fortunately the designers from the University of Essex have found the European Commission happy to foot the bill.
VIDEO: Japanese exoskeleton suit called "HAL".
There’s a long comic book tradition of people going slightly doo-lally, building massive robot suits in their garage, and then stomping all over their enemies. Well, the Japanese just did it. They’ve built HAL, who looks like he’ll stomp all over you in an instant.
HAL is worn over your arms and legs, and uses eight motors to attached to your shoulders, elbows, knees and waist to control your movements. Let just hope that whoever’s controlling it has the same ideas about what you want to do as you do. Still, longer term, this could be an incredible help for the disabled.
(via WeirdAsiaNews)
Get your own robot mini-me from Little Island
Here’s one to file under aaahhhhhhhhhhhh! Yes, that lady in the picture is holding a miniature robotic version of herself.
I’m not sure who the customers are and why it’s a good idea but Japanese company Little Island offers the service…
VIDEO: Tmsuk T-34 security robot hits the net
Yet more proof that the Japanese rule the world when it comes to hilarious and slightly sweet robots. The latest purports to be a security robot, but I suspect that you’re more likely to be incapacitated with laughter at this dinky machine than genuinely caught.
It travels at 10kph, has microphones and body heat sensors, and it’s controlled by an external operator. It’ll catch your thief, but you’ll need a real person on the scene before the person can make it out of the net. It’ll be available in a couple of years, and will cost ¥800,000 (£6,700 or so). For a video of it in action, click over the jump.
CES 2009: Yorisoi ifbot – the robot companion for your gran
The robotics section is always a good place for a nose around if you want a few giggles at CES and there was certainly no disappointment this year after I bumped into the Yorisoi ifbot.
Made in Japan, of course, the ifbot is a prototype AI life unit designed as a companion for the elderly. It talks slowly and clearly…
Ballroom-dancing robots attempt "YMCA", get stuck at "C"
Just when you thought it was safe to come out from behind your sofa now that Strictly Come Dancing is over for another season, along come some pesky robot-programming software from Q4 Technology that could see our metallic companions take to the dance floor.
Go-Robo Choreographer and Go-Robo Studio are creative and educational software titles allowing enthusiasts to teach WowWee robots to do more important things than farting about in dangerous locations pretending to do useful stuff.
Much better to dress them up in gowns and get them dancing…
Robot Arm – for your own mini car plant
Anyone who doesn’t want a robot arm is a liar. We’ve all pretended to move like one when no one’s looking and now you can get somewhere near the real deal with this remote control version.
The arm features five servos, can lift up to 100g…
