A couple of years ago, Japan built itself a Gundam. Well, just an inanimate life size replica that could do a bit of maneuvering, much unlike the real Gundam. Apparently, leaders from Japan’s not so liberal Liberal Democratic Party are thinking of building Gundam, mechas that could possibly be used by the country’s defense establishment.
Created at the MIT Media Lab, this robot spider sits in his place, and moves its appendages to weave a web around itself. The robot is put in a wireframe enclosure where it uses its pre-programmed knowledge to pump out string and rope to weave itself a web. As you’d guess, this is just a step in the evolution of the robot.
Presentation really does go a long way. The first time we saw the Telenoid robot, we were creeped out by the looks of the bot and its premise. This time around, it has come in the shape of the Hugvie, a cutesy robotic cushion that can bring along a semblance of physical closeness to your loved ones.
The web tends to look at robots as “our future overlords” who will enslave the meatbags and rule the earth. Most of that is said as a matter of jest, rather than earnest. Though robots aren’t really helping their case by looking this creepy. Eccerobot for example, mimics the human skeletal and muscle structure in its plastic and metal body.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the future is here. A lot of science fiction has objects that seem to repair or grow themselves even after being utterly destroyed, much like the robot we saw in Terminator 2 (as pointed out by the good folks over at FastCoDesign). A team at MIT has developed a similar substance that they like to call “Smart Sand.”
We’ve always found mannequins a bit weird, but when they get moving and try to pass “emotions,” things get kind of creepy. The female robot came into being as a result of the work done by Osaka University’s Dr Hiroshi Ishiguro working with Tokyo based department store Takashimaya.
For an advertising spot in Japan, Samsung had the Galaxy tab join forces with RT Corporation’s RIC robot. The bare-boned metallic robot had its body covered in plastic air cushions so it could give out hugs. The bot has been (appropriately?) named Hug-chan for obvious reasons. The Galaxy and RIC make an easy pair, as both, the robot and the tablet run off Android.
Via PlasticPals
The tiny, flying Quadcopter robots are quite adept at working in tandem and executing complex oddjobs. This time around, the robots got together for a piece of Flight Assembled Architecture. This structure is a 20 feet tall tower built out of foam bricks.
We can’t remember the number of times we have tried to attach a gadget to a socket or a computer and that darned thing was just out of range. Kids, this never works out well. Japan’s Asahi Kasei corporation has decided to make things that much more easier, and the world that much more better with power and data cables that are elastic and can be stretched to 1.5 times their original size. How cool is that?
Nobotty series by photographer David Emmite features robots photographed going about their daily jobs. The homemade sculpted robots look quite well adjusted to their surroundings, and have been photographed masterfully. Great way to suck up to our future robotic overlords, David.