Come tomorrow, Robonaut 2 will become the first humanoid robot to enter space. R2 will initially operate inside a space laboratory for operational testing, but eventually its territory and its applications could expand, says NASA. The long-term goal for R2 is for it to assist astronauts during space walks and to work alongside engineers in the space station. Once it leaves Earth tomorrow on the STS-133, NASA does not plan on bringing him back to our blue speck. Go boldly where no humanoid robot has ever gone before, little buddy. Bon voyage! (Cue the overly dramatic liftoff trailer embedded above.)
The tinkering geniuses at Willow Garage have decided to put their beer-fetching PR2 robot on the market for a cool $400,000. Besides grabbing you a beer and informing you when the fridge is out of stock, PR2 can also play pool, clean up your mess with a cart, plug in devices, fold towels, and open doors. The most exciting bit about PR2 is that the personal robot is open source; with the hardware platform and over 1000 software libraries open to potential buyers, developers, and hackers, Willow Garage is supplying PR2 owners with the tools to come up with their own applications. In fact, the company imagine a future where a Robot App Store exists. In this exciting (frightening?) world, human owners will have the option to purchase “robot apps” for their personal smart machines in effort to make life at home and work “more productive.” Today’s PR2 is the first major step in that direction. I’m excited to see what sorts of applications (people with tons of money to spend) come up with.
Engineers from the Italian Institute of Technology have taught a robot how to flip pancakes. There’s nothing more rewarding than laughing at a robot’s failings!
After 50 trials, the robot learns that the first part of the task requires a stiff behavior to throw the pancake in the air, while the second part requires the hand to be compliant in order to catch the pancake without having it bounced off the pan.
The hacker boys of Willow Garage put their minds together to make the coolest robot ever–one that can fetch and serve you beer. The PR2 robot responds to a web application called Beer Me. Let’s come up with a situation… It’s the Super Bowl and you and the fellas want a batch of fresh cold beers from the back fridge. You, the host of the party, will hop onto the nearest computer and run the Beer Me web app. In it you can access a pull-down menu and specify the exact type of beer everyone wants. Once the order is set, clicking the Beer Me button will activate the PR2 robot to fetch the beers for you. The robot will navigate your house, identify the fridge, open its door, scan the racks for the beer, grab and place the beers onto a four-holed foam block (that’s located behind the robot’s base navigation laser), close the fridge door, and report back to you with the drinks. (Note: If your type of beer is out of stock, the robot will notify the web app so you know to make a beer run.) Now it’s time for the handoff. The robot uses facial recognition to detect when a face is in close proximity so that beers are not dropped; in fact, PR2 will not let go of its death grip on the bottle until a face is detected. After you take your drink, the robot will whip out a bottle opener; you have the option to take it to open the beer yourself, or the robot can do it for you. Mind blown yet? See it all happen in the “OMG”-inducing video above. I want one.
Meet Bina48. She’s It’s a body-less robot that manages to exhibit some compelling advancements that will surely lead to Judgement Day, but also reassures us that J-Day isn’t coming anytime soon. Bina48 was created by David Hanson of Hanson Robotics and it’s based on a real life person named Bina Rothblatt. Though the robot is pretty adept at answering simple questions (like any chatbot it can scour the Internet for relevant information), what’s most exciting (and rather frightening) is it’s eye movement and facial expressions and reactions. It seemed distracted when the NYT reporter asked it questions, but when the answers did come I was impressed. Watch the robot-human conversation go down in the video above. And let’s all pray to our respective saviors that Moore’s law doesn’t apply to humanoid robotics. Ah crap it does.
LuminAR, created by Natan Linder and Pattie Maes at MIT, combines a Pico-projector and camera inside a lamp-shaped robotic device to augment reality by beaming computational images onto a surface. While the projector is there to display information and content from the Internet, the camera enables user-defined gestures. Theoretically the LuminAR can be “screwed into standard light fixtures everywhere” meaning you might find such technology in a household lamp sometime in the (likely distant) future. Watch Linder demo it in the video above. Very Tony Stark/JARVIS-like, am I right?
NASA and General Motors are collaborating to send a robot to the International Space Station to aid the human astronauts who reside there. Sure we’ve sent robots into space before; you’ve heard of the Mars Rover, right? This is different. Robonaut 2, nicknamed R2, is preparing to become the first humanoid robot to enter space. It’s got arms, legs, a body, and head. R2 looks like one of us. So what’s it going to do up there? According to The New York Times, it “will be monitored in space to see how it performs in weightlessness, but NASA hopes to eventually use R2 to assist astronauts during space walks and to work alongside engineers in the space station.” R2 is scheduled to leave for space via the Space Shuttle Discovery in September. To infinity and beyond, I say! Look after the break for a video that takes you behind the construction of R2.
TV’s Craig Ferguson from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson made a Twitter account. Then he decided to call all of his followers his “robot skeleton army.” Then Grant Imahara from MythBusters send Ferguson a tweet ultimatum: if Ferguson could somehow get Imahara to exceed 100,000 followers, he would help him create an actual robot skeleton sidekick for the late night show. Since Ferguson had a massive “robot skeleton army” it did not take long for them to help Imahara gain over 120,000 followers. Also, Ferguson happens to be a huge Mythbusters fan so he was psyched for all this to happen. Watch the video above to learn about Geoff Peterson, robot skeleton sidekick.
How will Geoff Peterson interact on the show? Says Imahara: “In auto-mode setting, Craig can sit at his desk with a black box and hit any of seven red buttons for these pre-recorded responses. In manual mode, there’s radio-control movement. [Geoff can be put] “on a stand… and by remote-control, Craig can move [the robot’s] head, jaw, and arm.” “[Ferguson’s] very into the design of it. They have big plans for Geoff Peterson. Craig and the writers think they may want to send Geoff out into the world, interview people — things like that.”
You can see the recently unveiled Geoff Peterson in action on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It airs weeknights at 12:37PM on CBS.
Meet Japan’s Maino Go break-dancing robot sent from the future to entertain us. The scientists who built this robot actually consulted professional dancers to add the realism you see in its moves. Step aside, Tickle Me Elmo; this break-dancing robot is the new hot robo-toy in town. Jump after the break for a second video.
