NASA's Athlete Rover Can Hop Like A Rabbit

Gizmodo has an interesting article titled "The Two-Ton Robot That Can Leap Over Asteroids".  It's about a new NASA robot with 6 legs and the ability to leap over obstacles.  They're talking about creating a version for the NBA next!

Athlete from Woodrow Jang on Vimeo.

Robotic Lego Sorter

Popular Mechanics Article "Build Your First Robot"

Popular Mechanics has an article on how to Build Your First Robot including step by step instructions.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/robots/build-your-first-robot-2

Great Article Titled "Time for robots to get real"

What a great article by Helen Greiner regarding steps that need to happen before robots will change the world!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328485.800-time-for-robots-to-get-real.html

Georgia Tech Using Snake Locomotion Techniques To Build Better Robots

Apparently snakes are pretty energy efficient when going from place to place, so David Hu and Hamid Marvi's  team at Georgia Tech are trying to learn from them to build better robots.

At least snakes are good for something!

Adele Robots --- Uday meets Tico

Tico may look like Wall-e, but he acts like Siri!

Robot Vacuum That Can Empty It's Own Dust Bin

Interesting how the Chinese companies are innovating new ways to separate themselves in the US market.  But will a robot vacuum that can empty it's own dust bin and sell for $599.00 be enough to suck away market share from the leader in the business, the iRobot Roomba?

Doctor Makes a Mini Paper Airplane with his Da Vinci Robot

Xybotyx at CES 2012

Another example of companies creating inexpensive but highly intelligent robots thanks to attaching an iPhone to it.

iRobot's Ava will be an awesome platform for future business opportunities!!

I just saw a great article in Popular Mechanics about iRobot's latest creation:  Ava

Here's a video of the new robot taken at the recent CES show in Vegas:

This inspires a lot of thought and ideas for future business opportunities in Robotics.  With the ipad being used to control it, it will be very easy for developers to create unique apps to take advantage of it's capabilities.  I bet this will be a hot platform for future entrepreneurs! 

Who wants to start a Cubelets Store with me?

Robots Interacting with the iPad

We're going to have robots all around us much sooner than most people realize.

Control This Robot Right Now Using Skype!

WorldofMindstorms just posted this Incredible Video showing how You can control a Robot right now using Skype!

Here's their instructions and a video demonstration:

LINK: http://www.goo.gl/7LLaU


MORE INFO: http://wp.me/p10flW


HOW TO DRIVE THIS LEGO CAR USING SKYPE: - 


Go to http://www.goo.gl/7LLaU 
Make sure your window is maximized 
Click the "Start" button 
Go through the dialog windows you get 
Wait for my video to start (this can take up to 20 seconds) 
Open the "call menu" at the top bar 
Click "Share Your Screen" - it's about 3/4th of the way down the menu 
Click "Share Full Screen" 
Use the arrows to drive the car around. 
To stop, hover your mouse over the little screen where you see the car, and click the red phone button 


Music by Kevin MacLeod at http://www.incompetech.com

Motley Fool Names Robotics as 1 of the 5 Biggest Tech Trends of the Next 5 Years

If you're looking for one of the hottest areas of the future to invest your money, time, and energy, the legendary Motley Fool website says Robotics is one of the Top 5!

Here's a Brief Excerpt:

The War on Terror is increasingly fought with drone strikes, which have become so prevalent in the American arsenal that they have their own lobbying group. There are more than six million iRobot (Nasdaq: IRBT ) house-cleaning bots scuttling about the world's living rooms. Rosey (the Jetson's robot maid) it ain't, but robotics development has been accelerating, and five years is a long time for technology.

Google has self-driving cars and Sergey Brin-bots. Military development has often been a springboard to civilian use -- think nuclear power plants and ARPANET -- and Google's cars are already street-legal in Nevada. The first systems you'll notice are freight deliveries made without people and multifunctional cleaning solutions for businesses. The next decade won't be a good one for the humble truck driver or the hardworking dishwasher, and will start to very visibly highlight the fact that we may not need as many humans to keep the economy going as we used to.

Read the rest of the article here:

The 5 Biggest Tech Trends of the Next 5 Years

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/01/03/the-5-biggest-tech-trends-of-the-next-5-years.aspx

Learning from Lizards to Design Robots

Nature seems to have a lot of problems figured out that mankind doesn't.  So to continue to improve our lots in the world, scientists go back to the basics by studying animals to make our machines operate in new and better ways.


Scientists and Engineers at University of California, Berkeley, recently studied some creep, crawly creatures to learn about the value of tails.

Leaping lizards and dinosaurs inspire robot design

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/01/04/leaping-lizards-show-robots-the-value-of-a-tail/

The Many Applications of Underwater Robotics

Robotics is an area where our society should be focused in making public investments.  The job opportunity potential is mind boggling when you think of all the new applications will be created to take advantage of these incredible new tools.  Here's a glimpse into the future of one niche focused on underwater robotics:

Guy Uses Kinect Controlled Robot to Brush His Kitty Cat

Youtube User taylorveltrop posted this cool video on December 30, 2011: 

This is the culmination of my last year's work. I control the robot's arms through the Kinect and Wii remotes. I control the robot's navigation through the Kinect and treadmill. I control the robot's head through the head mounted display (HMD). I also see through the robot's eyes with the HMD.

2011 --- The Year in Bots

There's an article in Fast Company going over the year in Bots.  


When you check out these videos, it starts to make you feel like the future is rapidly advancing on us.  It wasn't that long ago that robots were mostly stuff of science fiction magazines, comic books, and movies.  But as this article shows, technology is getting better and better every year.  There's a video showing robots who look just like a real man.  

Another, has a robot named Petman walking on a treadmill and staying balanced even when pushed.

There's even robot dogs now!

Check out the article because there's a bunch more great stuff in there.  And as somebody commented in one of the videos:

 "Prepare for our robot overlords!!"