Robotic Blogs

From Daily Yomiuri:

A child-sized android with flexible joints and soft skin developed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency was unveiled Friday at Osaka University, where the agency's research and development team is based.

The 1.3-meter-tall, 33 kilogram humanoid robot has optical, auditory and tactile sensors. Fifty-one actuators inside its body run on compressed air and enable the robot to make complex movements smoothly.

About 200 tactile sensors are embedded in the robot's gray skin, which is made of silicon and other materials. The robot can react to its surroundings by blinking and altering its facial expressions.

The robot, which has the physical ability of a 1- or 2-year-old toddler, can turn over and stand up with assistance.
At the news conference Friday, the humanoid moved its hands and feet and turned its eyes.
The 33-kilogram humanoid is fitted with an artificial vocal cord can also form words.

Its name is CB2, an abbreviation of Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body.

Child robot makes debut : Science & Nature : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

When do you hold your meetings inside a robot?

When the robot is a conference room, of course.
But is it a robot?

Hiroshi Otsuka, SGI Japan's vice president for strategic business development explains, "Actually, it doesn't belong to the category of conventional industrial robots," he begins. "Also, this is different from two-legged robots. We do not want to cling to the definition. We want to use technology to develop something useful in our life."

"Without having such new types of robot, it will be difficult for the robot market in Japan to continue growing."

The robot he is talking about is the robot that senses the mood in a room and adjusts itself - the environment of the room that is - to match the occasion.
Spatial robot RoomRender.
If a meeting is too boring then the room pumps in fresh air and brightens the lights. If the discussion are getting too heated, the robot room softens the lights and sweetens the air with puffs of lavender as it plays calming music.

The room uses SGI Japan's sensibility technology (ST) to read the mood of the humans.
It can understand verbal commands. For example, when you say, "Let's begin the meeting," the room may close the shades and turn on the projector. But there is much more to understanding than just the words. Otsuka, "If the space robot was programmed to respond only to the meaning of words, communication between it and users would be limited."

It uses the rhythm and tone of the voices as well as the content to figure out what is going on. It distinguishes a spectrum of six basic human feelings: laughter, calmness, sorrow, anger, joy and excitement -- and the current mix of each.
Spatial robot is not limited to conference rooms. Otsuka sees homes and hospitals also turning into space robots.

For those who speak Japanese there is even an ST SDK available.


TIRED OR EMOTIONAL: A space robot knows | The Japan Times Online

Well it seems that there was some confusion with Ugobe. (see the comment to this post) They are not allowing any pre-orders yet. They are not quite sure of the price, maybe, or possibly they do not really have a firm date for deliveries, or maybe, they have not figured out why anyone would want to buy this thing anyway.
They have been taking a huge risk by making all kinds of fantastic claims about the wonder of their robot Life Form and the potential market for it.
The hype was more for the benefit of investors rather than users of the product but now they have painted themselves into a corner by trying to perform up to the expectations that they created. We shall see.



Matt Trossen has announced that Ugobe has given Trossen Robotics permission to start taking pre-orders for the wildly hyped dinosaur robot Pleo.

The cute little monster will set you back US $350 and has an 'estimated' ship date of July 2007. (My guess is that they may trickle out in August and September but they will not be widely available until Q4)
This may be your best opportunity to be the first on your block to have a Ugobe Life Form pet.

Here are some of mechanics behind the magic:
- 32 bit Atmel ARM 7 microprocessor - The main processor for Pleo
- 16 bit sub processor - The processor dedicated to the camera system
- (4) 8 bit processors that provide the low-level motor control for the servos
- (35) Sensors including a camera custom designed to fit into Pleo's very compact body.
- (4) foot-switches to detect footfalls and being picked up - assists with spatial orientation.
- (12) capacitive touch sensors (4) legs, (4) feet, back, shoulder, head, chin
- (2) microphones for directional sound detection
- (14) "Force" sensors, one per servo, to recognize abuse through force feedback joints.
- Orientation/tilt sensor
- IR transceiver for bidirectional data communication with other Pleos.
- IR interrupter for detection of objects in Pleo's mouth
- (14) motors. Standard low voltage DC motors
- (150) gears and clutches
- Rechargeable NiMH battery pack
- USB port with mini USB connector
- SD/MMC memory card slot

---All kinds of cute and cuddly built in all over the place

order it here:
PLEO #TY-20-PLEO