Latest Gadgets » Robots

House Sitting Robot Takes Snaps of Invaders

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:42:58 +0000

House security technology just went up a level thanks to the new house-sitting robot produced in Japan. Although it doesn’t water the flowers or feed the cat while you’re gone like the name might imply, the house-sitting robot has a highly important purpose, and that is protecting the robbery of your house. Although it doesn’t actually prevent robbers from entering your house its mechanism has a high importance in catching the intruders as the system works by taking snap shots of whoever enters your house without your approval.

Another useful feature is that if you own a cell phone equipped with 3G the robot will call you as soon as it’s sensor is set off so you can witness the incident or make sure that it isn’t your dog making all the trouble before you call the police.

Verro Poolbot Hydro-Jet System Cleaner

admin — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 19:35:16 +0000

It’s a summer day with temperatures beyond what you can cope with. The best answer would be a bath, but look at that pool! It’s like taking a dip in a swamp! And it’s to hot outside to go through all that trouble of cleaning the pool. Oh, but wait, no more troubles now because now the pool cleaning can only take up a few seconds of your precious time, with the all new Verro Poolbot.

The Verro Poolbot comes in two different versions. The Verro 300 uses an hydro-jet system that cleans the pool using a highly powerful jet of water. Its downside would be that it works only on gunite or concrete pools. The Verro 600 though is the more portable model and it works also on vinyl, tile or fiberglass pools. This model uses brushes for cleaning and scrubbing. Both versions are equipped with filters that pick up debris and bacteria for up to 2 microns.

iRobot sales The Verro robots for 799, the 300 version and 1.199 the 600 version.

(Video) Spyke spybot

admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 00:04:09 +0000

This awesome robot can beep and whistle just like his cousin R2-D2, but unlike his cousin he can be controlled through WI-FI over the Internet and can send visual feedback to your laptop, PC or phone.
With Spyke you can check your home when on vacation or business trips, you could check up on your kids while you are at work, or just scare neighbours. Spyke can sense movement and automatically start recording video making him extremely useful in case of a robbery. He may not stop the intruder but at least you will have a nice video with the burglar.
Even if the intruder sees the robot and steals it too (I would if I were a burglar) or destroys the gadget, the video is already somewhere on the Internet or maybe in policeme’s in-boxes already.

You can also use him to spy on your neighbors but I seriously don’t recommend it… Spyke can be easily spotted and he might just whistle in a moment of joy and whoops there goes he’s cover.

Spyke will be released on April 9th and he will cost about 300 Us Dollars.

Here’s Spyke in action:

(VIDEO) Biped robot walks on its own

admin — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 23:27:20 +0000

Here`s Dexter
being bullied.

In the video below we can clearly see a biped robot witch walks on its own legs. The robot is under development since 2001 by Anybots and has been named Dexter. Dexter`s walking seems to improve and it looks that in the near future he will be able to actually run with no support or help.
In the video Dexter is bullied in the name of science by another robot to demonstrate his ability to balance and move without falling, but can he dodge a football from your neighbor’s kid? Can he get up if he falls down?
We won’t see him in our house in the near future; he still has a lot to learn to be actually useful around the house.
Seeing this video made me wonder, how long until they take over the world?

Further read: anybots.

Robotic arm implant

admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:20:23 +0000

The robotic arm is curently being tested on monkeys at the University of Pittsburgh and it is controled with brain signals from their motor-cortex. The monkey in the video is aparently eating with no problems and it seams that it can controle the robotic arm with ease. It looks that in the near future persons who lost a arm due to a accident will have it replaced with the robotic arm.

Plen, the skating and skateboarding robot

admin — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:41:14 +0000

This gadget – believe it or not – can skateboard and skate!

It can be controlled by Bluetooth from your mobile phone, and it can turn a mean trick or two on a skateboard. This great gadget is a robot named Plen created by Systec Akazawa and has just been released in Japan.

Plen is the coolest toy robot I’ve seen in a long time. He glides around on a pair of roller skates (better than I can, honestly) with extraordinary grace and what seems amazing to me is how the gadget is able to hop on a skateboard, balance himself for a quick ride, and pop trick ollies to top it all off!

The 23cms high robot features 18 joints that are controlled remotely using custom software on your Bluetooth phone. The machine’s brain, a 32 bit ARM7 CPU at 33MHz is powered by a built-in battery that lasts a sweet 25 minutes on a single USB charge.

Plen is obviously aimed at those with money to burn because at 262,500 Yen (~$2075 US) he’s definitely not cheap by any means.

Check out the â€œGalleryâ€ section of the Plen website, to see more videos of this insane toy robot in action, or order one if you have a wallet that’s fat enough.