Category: Robots
V_Bot: the dancing Transformer that plugs into your MP3 player
Actually, just to be clear for the watching trademark lawyers, V_Bot isn’t a Transformer in the official sense. But RC2’s new toy is heavily inspired by Hasbro’s bot brand, being an “evolving action vehicle” (i.e. a car that turns into a robot).
Dr. Evermor's awesome steampunk sculpture garden
Don’t you wish you had enough time on your hands to build monolithic steampunk sculptures, just like Dr. Evermor? A retired industrial wrecking and salvage expert, he spends his days building massive sculptures out of old scraps of metal and wreckage from 50 to 100 years old. The above picture is of Forevertron, which includes a pair of bipolar electrical dynamos built by Thomas Edison in the late 19th century and a decontamination chamber from the Apollo space mission….
Transformed: the robot that's a Motorola ROKR in disguise
Fancy a Motorola ROKR mobile? No? Okay, it’s not the most inspiring handset in the world. What if it could turn into a robot though, eh? Thought that’d get your GeekDrool going.
Check this out. I have no idea who made it, why they did it, or how much it cost. But I do know that I want one – more even than I want an iPod Touch, a crate of organic cider, or a hooky Russian oil billionnaire to fund Bishops Stortford FC. It’s genius.
Video Review: Zara plays fetch with the Doctor Who K-9
Zara is fast becoming our remote control-gadget guru, and this week she’ll no doubt have all Doctor Who fans in a spin over her latest, the K-9. Old Doctor Who fans will remember these robotic dogs from as early back as The Invisible Enemy in 1977. Cripes – Zara wasn’t even born then!…
iRobot launches new Roomba 500 series robot vacuum cleaners. Puny earth dust stands no chance!
Remember the days when robo-vacs were greeted with slack-mouthed awe like they’d stepped out of a sci-fi movie? Those days are gone now: vacuum cleaning robots are on sale, they work, and for an increasing number of people, they’re just a part of daily life. iRobot has been one of the prime movers behind that trend.
A robot that helps you lose weight? Is that Gillian McKeith, then?
Tech Digest, featuring robots?! Never! The latest in our robotic obsessions is the Autom, which apparently helps people lose weight. I’ll take five!
Being described as a ‘weight maintenance sociable robot’ designed by the MIT Media Lab, it allows users to interact with the ‘bot through a touchpad, whilst it tracks your face and actually speaks to you. Here’s hoping it’s not programmed to say ‘you fat cow, lay off the Krispy Kremes already’….
Toyota's DJ Robot becomes a slightly less glamorous receptionist
It’s not often you hear of a DJ throwing in the towel and becoming a receptionist, I can’t imagine tight skinny black jeans and scruffy, sweat-soaked tousled hair being generally accepted in offices.
But, that’s what DJ Robot has done. Created by Toyota, it’s performed at the 2005 Aichi World Expo with several of Toyota’s other musical robots…
Forest fire fighting beetle-like robots in development
Robots are often developed to do highly unappealing, dangerous jobs, and these beetle-like bots in development by boffins at the University of Madgeburg-Stendal in Germany are no exception.
Their primary purpose in life is to fight forest fires.
Officially called OLE, they could theoretically run at 20-30 kmh, feature ceramic coating to protect them from temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees Celcius, and are able to retract their legs when they sense danger (like being barbecued, for example).
A team of 30 of these concept robots could cover an area of forest as large as 4,400 square miles. Unfortunately, they don’t currently exist, and there’s no clue yet when, or if, they will.
I don’t know what OLE stands for, but it’s probably in German. Any ideas?
(Via Bot Junkie)
Related posts
GlowBots – your pattern-learning robot pets
Ditch your drummer and replace him with a robot – that’s what Jay Vance did, with Captured!
RoboBoa – robot snake meets alarm clock
GlowBots – your pattern-learning robot pets
The New Scientist has a little feature on GlowBots, a clever little invention that features at Siggraph 2007.
GlowBots are tiny little flashing, mobile robots that display patterns of colour. If you like a pattern you shake the GlowBot up and down…
Ditch your drummer and replace him with a robot – that's what Jay Vance did, with Captured!
Quick, someone send this video to the other bandmates in Babyshambles, the apparently nameless ones which could live next door to us and we wouldn’t know the difference! A new musical direction for the band if ever I saw one – if musician Jay Vance can replace his drug-addled bandmates with robots, then surely a ‘bot could replace Pete Doherty? They’ve already got the vacant expressions down pat, after all…
