Pepper will understand human emotions.
Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son announced last week they have developed an amazing new robot called Pepper. The most amazing feature isn’t that it will only cost $2,000, or that Pepper is intended to babysit your kids and work the registers at retail stores. What’s really remarkable is that Pepper is designed to understand and respond to human emotion.
Continue reading… “Advances in emotional computing will give businesses an unfair advantage”
Futurist Thomas Frey: In March, when Facebook announced the $2 billion acquisition of Oculus Rift, they not only put a giant stamp of approval on the technology, but they also triggered an instant demand for virtual reality designers, developers, and engineers.
Continue reading… “The Growing Dangers of Technological Unemployment and the Re-Skilling of America”
SporoBot would increase the speed of production 20 – 30 times over.
What if you had developed a vaccine for malaria that, in early trials, was 100% effective. But you couldn’t get the funding you needed to produce enough of the vaccine to market it because of political wrangling over the budget. What would you do? (Video)
Continue reading… “Sanaria will use robots to mass produce a promising new malaria vaccine”
Electric cars and robotic cars are moving to the market hand-in-hand.
Google’s new experimental fleet of robotic cars are electric. That’s important because as one of the leaders of developing the software and artificial intelligence that will move autonomous cars through the streets, Google is now also helping set the path for the hardware of the future industry, and it’s skewing that path toward electric vehicles.
Continue reading… “Thanks to Google and Tesla, the first driverless cars will be electric”
Tody is a squishy, four-limbed dust-busting robot cephalopod. If you hate those cobwebs that seemingly pop up overnight in your home’s hardest to reach corners, then you just might leap at the chance to get your hands on a house-dusting robot.
Continue reading… “Tody – a wall-climbing robot that will keep your house squeaky clean”
OutRunner
OutRunner is a six-legged bot that uses two sets of three legs to propel itself. The footfalls are staggered to mimic how a biped runs, but mechanically it’s just spinning wheels to which the legs attach. If you have a smart enough algorithm it will not only remain upright but be steerable too. (Video)
Continue reading… “OutRunner is a six-legged robot that never uses more 2 legs at a time”
BionicKangaroo
A team of engineers in Germany have completed work on a new robotic kangaroo that mimics the movements of the real-life flesh and blood kangaroos. (Video)
Continue reading… “BionicKangaroo – a robot that mimics the movements of kangaroos”
Cubli robot
Cubli is a cube-shaped robot made with off-the-shelf parts that can jump up, balance on a single corner and “walk” itself across a desk. (Video)
Continue reading… “The Cubli: a cube robot that can jump up, balance, and walk”
Kuka Agilus robot
We expected a fair fight when robot maker Kuka announced that it would be pitting its Agilus robot against table tennis star Timo Boll last month. Conditioned professional human athlete against a cold, merciless, bright orange mechanical arm on a small wooden field, both wielding the same armament: a miniature bat. Boll was once ranked world number one, but Kuka claimed its robot was the quickest in the world. The Agilus was named for its lightning-fast movements, and would presumably be able to rapidly spin into position and return Boll’s balls from anywhere on the table. (Video)
Continue reading… “Kuka robot plays table tennis world champion Timo Boll”
Air Hockey Robot
The Air Hockey Robot, developed by Jose Julio out of some spare 3D printer parts and a PS3 camera, is a tough competitor to beat. The robot uses its camera and an Arduino Mega to correctly predict the trajectory of the puck, even when it’s rebounding haphazardly across the table. With freedom of motion on two axes, the robot can even predict how best to return your last futile attempt to score against its robo-defense. (Video)
Continue reading… “Air Hockey Robot built from 3D printer parts”
Dyson Vacuum entrepreneur to announce new robotics laboratory in London.
Sir James Dyson, the British entrepreneur, has outlined his vision for a new era of household android robots that will be able to clean the windows, guard property – and, presumably, vacuum the carpet.
Continue reading… “Dyson enters race to provide ‘advanced household androids’ for all”
Baxter, the flagship robot by Rethink Robotics in Boston.
Computerization. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Technology. Innovation. Robots. These are the many names of an invisible force that has been stoking progress and killing jobs for centuries. But it’s different now because nearly half of jobs in America today could be automated in the next 10 to 20 years, according to a new paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, discussed recently in The Economist. The question is: Which half?
Continue reading… “Almost half of American jobs today will be automated ‘in a decade or two’”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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