Army Orders $13.3M in Robots from iRobot

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Most who are familiar with the iRobot company will think of round automated vacuum cleaners when they hear the name. The US military on the other hand thanks of a larger scale robot designed for use on the battlefield called PackBot.

iRobot has announced that it has received an additional order for the Army for $13.3 million in additional PackBots. For that amount, iRobot will deliver 165 additional PackBot 510 robots with FasTac Kit to the Army. The robots will be used to identify roadside bombs Read more

Posted on Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Pribot the robotic Prius explores San Francisco

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The robotic Prius is not a University project. The Pribot is a hobby of Anthony Levandowski, a 28 year old computer engineer living in San Francisco. It looks like autonomous vehicles are easy enough to build in your spare time. Levandowski has an advantage though. He was a student in Berkeley in 2004 taking part in the team that built the robotic motorcylce Ghostrider that entered the DARPA Grand Challenge.
Read more

Posted on Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:15:38 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

WowWee Rovio Spy Robot on Sale

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WowWee unveiled the exciting Rovio Spy Robot at the CES 2008 in January. Now gadget shop Hammacher Schlemmer is first to put the Rovio on sale for $299.95. The robotic sentry will ship on September 26th.
The WowWee Rovio allows you to monitor your home from anywhere in the world. Audio and high-resolution (640 x 480px) video is streamed in MPEG4 format, and it can take still pictures and e-mail them to you; it has a two-way microphone and speaker that enables real-time interaction with subjects - for instance your cat.
I had my hopes last year on the Spykee Spy robot, but it got delayed. It will now ship in mid-October. As it looks, WowWee will be first to ship an affordable home surveillance robot. Read more

Posted on Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:09:14 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Caterpillar Robotic Mining Truck in the Works

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The Carenegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, winner of last year's DARPA Urban Challenge, works with Caterpillar on autonomous mining trucks.
These Caterpillar trucks are unbelievably huge, and it is sure fun to drive one for a day, but to go up and down the mine all the time can become boring. This is usually where robots come in to take away the boring jobs. Read more

Posted on Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:12:39 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

iRobot Roomba Pet and Pro Vacuum Robots Announced

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iRobot has announced new robot vacuum cleaners called the Roomba 532, Roomba 562, and Roomba 610. The Roomba 532 and 562 are aimed at pet owners and are designed to pick up pet hair and dander. The Roomba 610 is a pro series robot designed for cleaning large, high traffic areas.

The two pet focused robots have easy to clean bristles, high capacity sweeper bins, and tools for cleaning the brushes. Both robots are available now for $349 to $399. The pro series robot is priced at $599 and can clean until the battery is almost completely dead before returning to the base station. The pro model is the only Roomba robot with a 2-year warranty. Read more

Posted on Thu, 4 Sep 2008 14:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Intel CTO says Robots as smart as us by 2050

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Intel's CTO Justin Rattner predicts in his keynote at the IDF 2008 that the Gap between Humans, Machines will close by 2050. Not so fast, many of us will still be around in 42 years and we sure will be checking on this prediction then.
Justin Rattner is predicting big changes in social interactions, robotics and improvements in computer's ability to sense the real world. I am still waiting for an affordable robot that is able to bloody roam my house and find my cat when I am away. I just have been to a BMW manufacturing plant and looking at the robots welding the parts together for a 3 series BMW. It is impressive, how flexible they are and their movements have a human touch. Still these robots are light years away from thinking for themselves. Read more

Posted on Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:19:51 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Femisapien Robot is shipping

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The WowWee Femisapien has started shipping from Amazon.com like the WowWee Tribot. If you like a little female friend, the Femisapien is for you. In Japan Sega is selling the Femisapien as E.M.A.
The Femisapien features fluid movements and speaks her own form of Femmish and responds to user gestures, touch, and sounds with her own.
The Femisapien can even interact with and control other Wowwee robots. If you tilt her head you can access her three main function modes: Attentive Mode with interactive wandering, seeing and hearing functions, Responsive Mode for walking and scripted actions, and Learning Mode where she remembers exactly how you move her. Read more

Posted on Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:56:44 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

WowWee Tribot Robot is shipping

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The new WowWee Tribot is here and ships from Amazon.com and other retailers. WowWee announced the Tribot at the CES 2008.
The WowWee Tribot is a three-wheeled personality-packed companion, the Tribot robot is equipped with different play modes for hours of entertainment – joke telling (if you like animatronics joke telling, check out Elmo Live), story sequences, games and more. Complete with distinct expressions and animated eyebrows, the Tribot robot features an omni-directional motion easily controlled by a tilt sensor remote control. Read more

Posted on Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:48:28 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Wall-E Ultimate Control Robot available for Pre-Order

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Here is another very hot toy for the Holidays. We already reported about the Elmo Live Pre-order start earlier today. Now we are bringing you news about the cutest robot of 2008: Disney's Wall-E. The Wall-E Ultimate Control Robot from Disney is the most advanced Wall-E replica robot and is now available for pre-order on Toys'R'Us for $249.99. Wall-E Ultimate Control robot already ships on September 13th, but that could be a mistake as the editor of RobotsRule told me. He got a shipping date of Mid-October after he pre-ordered this Wall-E robot.
Disney announced the Ultimate Wall-E robot in April. Read more

Posted on Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:26:38 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Lego Introduces Robotics Kit for Elementary School Students

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Lego Education and National Instruments have announced a new product resulting from the two firm's educational collaboration. The kit is a robotic construction kit that is powered by NI LabVIEW software to allow kids to program motion into the robot with drag and drop icons.

The kit is intended to allow students to design robots and then learn basic programming skills. The software is designed to run on cheap classroom notebooks like the Intel Classmate, XO Laptop and other PCs or Macs. Read more

Posted on Fri, 8 Aug 2008 12:22:46 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Toyota Unveils Winglet Personal Transport Assistance Robot

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Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) has announced what it calls a personal transport robot today that is ridden in a standing position. Toyota says that the Winglet is still being refined at this point. The Winglet is a compact transportation tool that TMC says is designed to enhance a user's mobility.

TMC created three different models dubbed the L, M, and S. Each model has different handling features for different needs from practical to sporty and hands free. The body of the Winglet has an area about the size of an A3 sheet of paper. Read more

Posted on Fri, 1 Aug 2008 08:55:20 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

iRobot Study Looks at the Balance of Home and Work

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iRobot commissioned a study to be performed on its behalf by StrategyOne and the results were announced at the BlogHer conference in San Francisco over the weekend. The study looked at how people are balancing home and work life today across the nation. The study shows that people spend 40% of their waking in-home hours with household chores like vacuuming, mopping and cooking.

According to the study over 50% of Americans say that household tasks get in the way of enjoying the weekend and 49% say that thinking about home chores stresses them out. One in three Americans says they would rather stay at work than go home and face the list of chores. Read more

Posted on Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:57:42 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Vstone Black OX Robot on Sale

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Japanese Robot kit maker Vstone is taking order for a limited edition robot dubbed Vstone Black Ox.

The Black Ox robot measures 440mm in height, has width of 340mm and a depth of 130mm. The anime inspired robot weighs 2.5kg.
Features of the Black Ox include 22 degrees of freedom, wireless controller and LED eyes. Only 15 Black Ox robots will be available at a price of 798,000 yen (~$7,436). Read more

Posted on Wed, 9 Jul 2008 03:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Kenaf Rescue Robot [Video]

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At the 2008 Tokyo International Fire and Safety Exhibition, the International Rescue System Institute displayed the Kenaf Rescue Robot, a highly mobile robot for use in disaster or emergency rescue situations.
See the video on JCN. Read more

Posted on Mon, 7 Jul 2008 09:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Kit Kittredge battles Robot at Box Office

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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Kit Kittredge: American Girl" has her work cut out for her as she expands to movie theaters across North America on Wednesday after two weekends of solid returns in limited release.
Read more

Posted on Wed, 2 Jul 2008 02:50:57 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Mr Clock Radio Robot is ugliest Alarm Clock around

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With the Mr Clock Radio Geewiz entertainment offers what is in my opinion the ugliest alarm clock I have seen so far. Judging from the feature set it is well fit to be very annoying too.

The talking robot head has working eyes and can move around.
Other features include LCD backlit display, Analog, AM/FM Tuner, MP3/Ipod Player, 50 Wake-up Shows (Sick!), Broadcast Time, Light & Motion Sensor, and Multiple Wake-up Settings. Read more

Posted on Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:45:33 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Tiger A.M.P. Automated Music Personality Robot

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Hasbro's Tiger Electronics developed a music robot dubbed A.M.P. (Automated Music Personality Robot).

If the three letter acronym reminds you on another recently introduced toy robot you are not mistaken. Sega announced the E.M.A. robot (aka WowWee Femisapien) last week. Tiger Electronics is also selling the A.M.P robot through Sega. Read more

Posted on Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

How to teach Femisapien aka E.M.A Robot Fencing

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As reported last week the Sega E.M.A female toy robot is actually the WowWee Femisapien which will be released in the States soon for $99. Besides the good looks the Femisapien is actually quite powerful. Through simple posing of the robot you can program whole sets of scripted moves.

The videos below show how to teach the Femisapien to fence against each other. Read more

Posted on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:22:09 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sega E.M.A. female Robot is actually WowWee Femisapien

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Yesterday Sega announced the E.M.A. (via CrunchGear ) female robot toy in Japan. Robotsrule points out that this robot is actually made by WowWee and is called Femisapien. The Sega E.M.A. is just adapted for the Japanese market.

The WowWee Femisapien is schedule for a late summer release in the U.S. for $99. Read more

Posted on Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:04:45 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

WowWee Tri-Bot Robot Review

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WowWee announced the Robosapien successor WowWee Tri-bot in January at the CES 2008. Robotsrule already got their hands on this unreleased WowWee robot and published a review and a video review you can see below.

Quote from the review: "When you combine Tri-Bot's ability to be driven merely by tilting his remote control along with his unique three wheel base, the net result is a simple to own and easy to love robot with amazing mobility not seen before in consumer robots." Read more

Posted on Fri, 30 May 2008 06:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

KumoTek KT-X Humanoid Robot Kit

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Texas based KumoTek announces the KumoTek KT-X (KumoTek-X) bipedal humanoid robot developed in cooperation with Japanese Vstone.

KomuTek targets the educational market with its KT-X robot kit. KumoTek has built an entire education system around their robots called Robot P.E.T.S. (Robots Promoting Education Through Science). Read more

Posted on Wed, 28 May 2008 05:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr