Humanoids

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Real Steel Giveaway! Real Steal?

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Us, robot geeks, love robot movies (…even if we sometimes complain about inaccuracies and fallacies), and Real Steel is a great robot movie now available on DVD and Blue-ray. So, in order to satisfy both your cravings for robots and your desire for entertainment, we are giving away three Blue Ray + DVD copies of Real Steel!

Real Steel Blu-ray Combo

Real Steel Blu-ray Combo

FREE MOVIE?! WANT!

That is right, we are giving away three of these combo Blue-ray + DVD boxes for free! To participate simply leave a comment below. Two random comments will be chosen on February 24th and the authors will receive the goodies.

What about the third Combo, you wonder? The third combo will be awarded to the most original/funny (but still relevant) comment. We will choose the comments that made us laugh, think or cry the most and send the author the third movie combo.

Want to see some sweet (and very anthropomorphic) robots? Check them out below.

What are you waiting for? Start commenting now!

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    Posted in Humanoids, Movies | 7 Comments »

    Happy New Year for all Robots and all Roboticists

    Friday, December 30th, 2011

    During this end of the year, we could remember all the amazing robots 2011 brought to us including the new Asimo, the awesome bionics projects and incredibly popular Tankbot. But instead, we would like to show you a single picture that might inspire you, or more likely instill some fear into your soul:

    Spidernaut + Robotnaut

    Spidernaut + Robonaut

    You might remember Robonaut 2 from earlier this year. It was the leg-less humanoid robot accompanying the ISS crew.  The golden hexapod robot you now see beneath it is the Spidernaut, a NASA project designed for constructing and maintaining large orbiting structures in space. The combination of both these amazing robots, although totally awesome and resulting in one of the most scary looking robots of 2011 is… not real (yet).

    That is right, a freaky giant spider robot with a humanoid torso and a Cylon head does not exist yet and the picture above is showing a dramatic angle of two separate robots : Spidernaut and Centaur 2

    Spidernaut

    Spidernaut

    Centaur 2

    Centaur 2

    On this note we wish you the best possible 2012 and hope it will be filled with crazy robots (including golden spider-humanoids of doom).

    Pictures via IEEE Spectrum.

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      Posted in Future, Humanoids | 1 Comment »

      New ASIMO Is The Most Impressive Humanoid so Far

      Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
      New ASIMO from Honda Robotics Running

      New ASIMO from Honda Robotics Running

      Honda Robotics released a new version of ASIMO which is much faster and much more agile than its predecessors. The new ASIMO, is capable of running much faster, has dexterous hands and can even jump on one foot. This robot is clearly the most advanced humanoid there is.

      Here are the specs of the new ASIMO and a summary of its new capabilities:

      1. Height: 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches)
      2. Weight: 48 kilograms (106 pounds), decreased 6 kg from previous model
      3. Degrees of freedom: 57 DOF total, increase of 23 DOF from previous model
      4. Running speed: 9 km/h (5.6 miles per hour), compared to 6 km/h for previous model

      –IEEE Spectrum

      Asimo Badass Dexterous Hands

      Asimo Badass Dexterous Hands

      As shown in the video, ASIMO has new dexterous hands which allows him to express how much he likes Heavy Metal as seen in the picture above (actually he is hand-signing “I Love You”). No wonder the little humanoid is so popular with the ladies, see picture below.

      New ASIMO gets all the ladies

      New ASIMO gets all the ladies

      Via IEEE Spectrum

       

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        PETMAN, An Early Version of The T100

        Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

        PETMAN has to be the most physically capable humanoid robot in terms of flexibility, range of motion and robustness. It has been developed by Boston Dynamics, the same people who created BigDog, and is intended to tryout military equipment. Check out this video in order to see the robot, walk, move and get kicked.

        Kicking a full humanoid robot that has similar capabilities to a human soldier does not seem to be the wisest thing to do. Let’s just hope PETMAN won’t take it personally and that he is simply Stayin’ Alive.

        Via IEEE Spectrum

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          National Geographic Gets Into Robotics

          Friday, July 29th, 2011

          The August issue of National Geographic magazine features a fascinating article on robots, find it on newsstands July 26th 2011. In ”Making Robots Human,” the author Chris Carroll explores the world of robotics, and the advances in technology that allow robots to speak, blink, smile and perform such tasks as folding clothes and cooking. From childcare provider to chef, roboticists have big plans for these human-like machines, which raises the question: how human is too human?

          Credit: National Geographic

          National Geographic August 2011 - UK, Australia, & New Zealand cover

          In five or ten years robots will routinely be functioning in human environments,”

          - Reid Simmons, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon

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            Posted in Art, Books, Humanoids | 1 Comment »

            Robots Shift Shape and Fits In Your Clothes

            Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

            The Fit Bot by fits.me started as a human male-shaped robot that would adjust to a man’s body size in order to test fit clothes when buying at on-line retailers. Now, they developed a female version of the robot that can don ladies’ clothes in a “prettier”way.

            Fits Me Robot Detail

            Fits Me Robot Detail

            As shown in the video, the robot can adapt to take pretty much any shape a human can have by shifting the soft panels that make up its body.

            Via RobotSnob and Fast Company

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              German Robot Plays Pool

              Monday, June 6th, 2011

              Thomas Nierhoff, a masters student at the Technische Universität München (TUM) programmed a humanoid robot to play pool. Of course we have seen PR2 play pool in the past but this robot does not need any special accessories to hold the pool cue. As shown in the video below, the robot can be very accurate and even the pool table can be augmented with the software developed for the robot in order to help humans play better.

              We are eager to see this new contestant play against PR2, this could sprout a new kind of robotic competition.

              Via IEEE Spectrum.

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                DLR Engineer Hits Robot Like a Girl, Robot Takes it Like a Man

                Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

                As we reported in the past, DLR is the proud creator of Justin a very advanced humanoid robot. Lately they have been working in a very robust robotic arm and hand system.

                The videos below show how they punish their robots with hammers and baseball bats in order to demonstrate how well they endure the impact while retaining accuracy and calibration. Also notice how the hand can perform very similarly to its human analogue and uses flexible “tendons” to convey the motion.

                These robotic limbs (especially the hand) look incredibly similar to something Skynet would design. One thing is for sure, the guy with the bat will probably loose his smile once the robot learns how to take the bat from him and retaliate.

                Via IEEE Spectrum and Hack a Day.

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                  Why Get a Single Nao When You Can Get Two?

                  Friday, May 20th, 2011
                  Get the Second Nao at Half Price

                  Get the Second Nao at Half Price

                  This is an incredible promotion from RobotShop and Aldebaran. If you purchase a Nao H25 by June 15th 2011, you can get a second one at half price. This represents savings of almost 8000$.

                  As you may already know, Nao is an awesome humanoid robot that can be used as a very versatile development platform for serious research such as machine learning and robot-human interaction, and for more surprising development as shown below.

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                    Robot Catches Two Balls at Once, Humans Wish They Could

                    Thursday, May 5th, 2011

                    It becomes more and more obvious that robots outperform humans in tasks that require speed, precision and complex computations. The video below featuring Rollin’ Justin, a mobile version of the well known Justin humanoid robot from DLR, catching two balls that are thrown at it.

                    An interesting fact is that all the complex computations, that lead to predicting the ball trajectory and positioning the hand accordingly, is off-loaded to a more powerful (stationary) computer which in turn sends the digested results to the robot.

                    Via IEEE Spectrum.

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