Chetan Kapoor is a roboticist at The University of Texas and CEO of Agile Planet. We spoke about how his firm’s control software might change the world in the years ahead, what is driving robotics growth, and why business should take note.
9Jul2008 | Jonas Lamis | 0 comments | ContinuedEver Seen a Packbot Fly? Check this out!
Okay, so the video isn’t exactly “fresh” but the real news is that iRobot recently kicked off a video channel on YouTube called iRobot iTube which I just read about on the ieee Spectrum site.
It's Official: Japan's Got a lot of Robots
Using data from the International Federation of Robotics and the International Labour Organization, the guys at ieee Spectrum Online put together a few visualizations that show what most suspect: Japan’s got more industrial robots than anybody–10 times the world average and more than 3 times that of the US.
Robot Birds You Can Shoot Down Again and Again
WowWee’s been accelerating its pace of product releases since the release of ith the Rovio with a new projector technology, a new upcoming RoboSapien called “JoeBot” (which has some mixed reviews), and my favorite, a robot bird you can shoot down again and again with an accompanying laser gun.
Have you Seen This Robot?
A robot was stolen from a Portland State University professor’s car earlier this week and he wants it back–no questions asked. The $5,000 robot was donated to the university by Parallax Incorporated. Poor little guy.
Breakthrough: Tiny Fingers that Pinch
The biggest challenge nanotechnology is the mass-production of nano stuff. One-offs can be made but mass production is required to produce enough to make the technology practical or cheap. In a recent breakthrough, Peter Bøggild and his colleagues from the Technical University of Denmark have created a gripper that could be used in nanoassembly. Previously, such grippers were too weak to be useful.
Ingenious Device lets Robots See Over Walls
Imagine a little box just 4 inches tall squirting out a rigid mast 8 feet straight up! A configuration is available that will allow a larger unit that can lift 200lbs 20 feet. The unit is from GeoSystems Inc and is called a Situational Awareness Mast (SAM). Travis Deyle at Hizook brings several sources together to show us more about the device.
