Bioloid users have been drooling over these controllers since they were first announced at Robogames 2008! Well, the time is nigh to get your robot a fix, the Bioloid Boomerang Zigbee Controllers are due on our next shipment! These controllers finally put wireless Bioloid control into user’s hands, enabling easier participation in humanoid kung-fu, soccer, and stairclimbing.

We are now accepting Pre-Orders, with an expected arrival date of November 15th, 2008. They come in two flavors, one with a set of Zig-100s, and one without (if you already had purchased a pair previously). Get em while they’re hot!

I added this to our nanotechnology category only in half jest. This board is so small my brain has a hard time recognizing it as a computer. Seriously, when being shown this modern marvel this was the conversation in my head:

Brain: “Oh, that’s cool, it’s the insides of a cell phone or digital camera or something.”
Me: “No, that’s a computer!”
Brain: “Shut the hell up. That’s not a computer and I’m not filing it away as such.”
Me: “For real, it’s an actual computer that can run an OS and plug into a monitor and keyboard and everything.”
Brain: “I don’t think so, I believe you are mistaken.”
Me: “I’m really not kidding, it IS an actual computer.”
Brain: “Computers aren’t that small, look for yourself, you have it right there next to a business card and it’s smaller. Are you using the same eyes that I am?”
Me: “Yes, I’m telling you IT’S… A… COMPUTER…”
Brain: “You believe what you want, I’m filing it under cellphone guts.”
Me: “You never listen to me!”
Brain: “That’s probably because you are an idiot.”
Me: “Look, it has USB ports on it and a CPU and a sound jack!”
Brain: “Just looking like something doesn’t make it so.”
Me: “Oh, back to Mardi Gras again. Will you ever let it go?”
Brian: “I was traumatized, I will never trust you again.”
Me: “It wasn’t my fault! She had adams apple surgery! What am I? A psychic?”

Anyhow, here is a picture of the Mobile ITX board below. Unfortunatly, these are only available in Asia.

The mobile ITX from VIA! Actually smaller than a business card.

We’ve been pretty quiet about CES 2008, mainly because the other tech blogs are doing such a good job covering it.  However, this is definitely something that warrants some attention.  While at CES, we swung by a great little press lunch held at Piero’s restaurant. (Martin Scorsese fans may be interested to know that some scenes from Casino were shot there) VIA had a large presence there and they were showing off all kinds of computers and fun stuff using their infamous line of tiny mainboards. They had a box of the new ARTiGO there and I dove on it like a spastic kid at Christmas. I’m not tech press so you will have to make do with a pile of poorly lit pics . We have been ranting about using mini-PCs for years in robotics and VIA continues to push the envelope shrinking their boards down smaller and smaller. With powerful single-board systems like the Pico, computers are truly getting small enough to compete with microprocessors as the brain of choice for mobile robotics. Click pics for larger versions.

The ARTiGO specs list. Since I’m incredibly lazy I’ll just post a pic instead of writing them out

We’ll tease you with the stats first.  More pictures after the break…
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"Standards, Hardware, & Architecture for Next Generation Robotics: Drawing a Roadmap for the Merging Worlds of Robotics and Computers"

If you're planning to attend the RoboDevelopment Conference in San Jose, CA (Oct. 25-26), don't miss your chance to see futurist, visionary, and robovangelist Matt Trossen speak about the rapidly-changing world of robotics!  The field of robotics is ripe and ready to move away from its esoteric roots, but how are we roboticists going to help bring robotics into the mainstream, for the betterment of mankind?  Matt will be speaking at 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26.

Follow this link for a complete schedule of RoboDevelopment speakers.

From the RoboDevelopment website:

Matt Trossen CEO, Trossen Robotics The advent of low-cost modular hardware built around ever-shrinking computers is ushering in a new era of innovation and advancement for robotics. Join Matt Trossen for a discussion about revolutionary new tools available in the marketplace that are changing the landscape of robotics development. Understand how migration from proprietary systems toward modular solutions, high-level languages and standards is driving a new wave of unprecedented growth in our industry. The future of robotics has arrived and is waiting on your doorstep. Don't get left behind! Matt Trossen is founder and CEO of Trossen Robotics, an online hardware store for robotics developers. Trossen Robotics serves the hobby, educational, and research robotic market places. Matt is also active in the community promoting advancements through establishing development partnerships between companies, driving standards, and advising in areas of product development, distribution, and market development.

Professor Jimmy Or says he’s developed the world’s first self-supporting, walking humanoid robot with a flexible spine.

Household androids, like flying cars and Martian colonies, have disappointed generations of science-fiction enthusiasts by failing to materialize. Most research in robotics has drifted toward robots that, like Mars rovers and Roombas, have no resemblance to anything living, let alone human. And while it may be cute, let’s face it: Asimo can’t dance.

Bucking the trend, a small coterie of devoted professionals and amateurs are working to make fully articulated, humanoid and even sinuously dancing robots a reality.

Read the full article via Wired

SciFi.com has an interesting blurb about fruit picking robots. It’s nice to see the occasional post about potential actual real world robots that have actual real world uses and actual real world feasibility using actual real world technology. If you’re not catching on to the gripe see here for full detail
Via Robotster, SCI FI Tech

For real this time!

Everybody’s favorite designer life form!

This is not a drill, folks. Pleo, the first UGOBE Life Form, is now available for pre-order, and Trossen Robotics is proud to be one of the first to make it available to you! I promise this time it’s legit! I know it’s been a long journey, and it’s not over yet, but the important thing is this: You are one step closer to having an adorable robotic pet dinosaur waddling around your house. This guy is not just a pile of touch sensors, prox sensors, microphones, motors, and microchips. UGOBE has pulled out all the stops to make Pleo as lifelike as possible. The “Life OS”â„¢ artificial intelligence focuses on behaviors that should remind us of the baby animals we’re more familiar with. He explores, communicates, responds to his environment, and develops a personality that reflects the way he’s treated.

Pleo is officially slated to start shipping in October, but it will be a limited production run so you’d better secure yours today.

Click the picture above to see all the bells and whistles!

For more tech information and a bunch of high-quality photos, check out our UGOBE Pleo pre-order page.

We will pay for our hubris.

We can always count on Stephen Colbert to let us know when we should be cowering in fear. According to last week’s ThreatDown, the robots are coming. They are coming, and they hate America. He cites a facial expression imitating robot that is disgusted by our president; the ever popular CB2 toddler robot, which will undoubtedly grow enormous and wreak havoc; and of course BEAR, the cuddly and heroic battlefield extraction robot, which Colbert fears is teaching us to trust bears a bit too much. Click the following link if you want to learn more about the threats posed to us by robots, bears, robots, bears, and robot-bears.

And I’ll leave you with one last visual:

A human imitating a robot imitating a human. How deliciously recursive.

Ever wish you didn’t have to hire a babysitter to watch the kids? Well, that time is certainly near, if it isn’t already here if Korea-based KornTech (English translation) has anything to do with it:

At 1-metre tall, Rogun, a robot babysitter and security guard uses two cameras for eyes for facial recognition abilities and is able to recognize “good guys vs. bad guys”. While Rogun runs around your home playing with your kids, it can broadcast video wirelessly so that you can check up on your kids throughout the day. It can also act as a videophone and wireless Internet, so when everyone is gone or asleep, and there’s a stranger lurking around in your home that Rogun doesn’t recognize, it’ll give you a call so you can sneak back into your home and beat the stranger with a wooden spoon!

Rogun is the culmination of only three years’ worth of Korean bipedal robot research, and although prototypes have been very expensive to produce, KornTech expects that a mass-produced Rogun will reach a predicted price point of around US$5000.

Read the full article via Gizmag

This man is crying on the inside.

The pasty figure on the right in this picture is “CB2,” a name which is derived from “Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body.”  This highly advanced robot, meant to mimic the behavior of a human toddler, was created at Osaka University by the Japan Science and Technology Agency.  It’s body movements and facial expressions are controlled by 52 pneumatic actuators, and it has roughly 200 tactile sensors embedded in its skin.  It receives input in the form of audio, video, and the aforementioned tactile sensors.  Though it cannot speak, it does communicate vocally by making a series of squawking sounds.  Just like a real child.  The robot’s movement, for the most part, is surprisingly fluid and lifelike.  It’s all very impressive, technically, but there is one other consensus among those who have seen the videos of CB2 in action:  This thing is creepy as hell.  The short stature, overlarge eyes, gray skin, and muted facial features make it look like something that’s about to beam me into its ship and perform orifice-violating medical experiments on me.

OH DEAR GOD GET IT AWAY FROM ME

This robot fell into the Uncanny Valley and hit every rock on the way down.

Video 1 (YouTube)
Video 2 (YouTube)

From Daily Yomiyuri, via Endgadget.