DailyDirt: Robots Making Their Move...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Nov 29th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Robot locomotion doesn't seem very natural so far -- and there's almost an "uncanny valley" for how some robots move that make them look undead. But it won't be long before robots are moving more fluidly. Here are just a few projects that are developing machines that can move like animals and people.

Low-pressure air pumps can power "soft robots" that mimic the locomotion of invertebrates like starfish and squid. Watch them wiggle. See them jiggle. [url]
The RoboBee is communicating with bees in their own "waggle dance" language. This robot bee isn't quite fluent yet, but it can almost give directions to real bees -- and it doesn't get attacked as an intruder to the hive. [url]
The University of Michigan's MABEL biped robot can run a little over 6 mph -- beating Toyota's walking robot and ASIMO by a pretty good margin. MABEL will probably catch up to human marathon runners soon, but it isn't a wireless robot yet... [url]
To discover more interesting robotics-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: biomimicry, biped, locomotion, mabel, robobee, robots, soft robots

6 Comments

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Mel (profile), 29 Nov 2011 @ 5:12pm

Welcome
I for one, welcome our .... GAAahhhhh!
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Michael Ho (profile), 29 Nov 2011 @ 5:28pm

Re: Welcome
Robots that figure out how to control bees... are actually kind of scary -- if these robobees get hacked and start telling bees not to pollinate important crops, etc...
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Nov 2011 @ 5:45pm

You forgot the PETMAN that one walks like a human and it maintains its balance.

There is also the Japanese one HRP-4C Miim's Human-like Walking.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Nov 2011 @ 6:02pm

You forgot the PETMAN that one walks like a human and it maintains its balance.

There is also the Japanese one HRP-4C Miim's Human-like Walking.

On other news:

Printing your own bones may one day be a reality.

Regenerating muscle tissue in mice.

EU says you can't copyright programming languages.

The cyborg cat from the CIA The Acoustic Cat Project, in the 60's, ended badly for the cat though.

Acoustic Kitty on Youtube

No the government didn't give up after the cat incident as they are now trying with bugs Cyborg Bug Army

Maybe Cory Doctorow found something without realizing it yet Cyborg Bugs Concept.

There are people feeling the good vibes on this and are trying to power the cyborg bugs
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Nov 2011 @ 6:26pm

Re: Re: Welcome
You are worried about not pollinating crops?

You could control swarms of killer bees. Way to think small Michael.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Nov 2011 @ 7:11pm

After seeing some nightmarish videos on Youtube of black friday incidents around the country and with titles like "the braindead go out to shop", those softbody robots may one day save lifes, instead of waiting in a line you just live your robot there and when it is time to inside robots will make a run for it, assuming of course that physical stores still exist in the future, since in Asia we can get a climpse of what they may probably look like as more and more they start being more like Netflix operations having depo's in physical strategic points and using virtual points of sales everywhere like subways, bus stops and so forth.

Tesco Homeplus Virtual Subway Store in South Korea
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