Cool Gizmos – Gizmora

An experimental home robot developed at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU)in Taiwan called ‘NCTU Vision One’ can identify people and interpret hand gestures.
      The robot is a product of the Computer Vision Research Center at the university.
It is designed to recognize a particular person and follow them around in case they need help. After training it can understand hand gestures as commands for pre-programmed tasks such as “get my medicine” or ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
      It can also recognize facial expressions to help understand the gesticulations or to evaluate the person’s health. The robot can also take on duty as a guard. It can recognize the difference between a friend or foe. If an unauthorized person is spotted the robot follows at a safe distance and notifies a human.

Meccano is introducing a remote controlled Erector Set robot kit that runs on treads. It has a webcam and can communicate over wifi. Meccano is introducing it at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
     I am looking forward to more details. The Erector SpeedPlay line of kits includes motors and some USB downloadable instructions and are much cheaper than the similar VEX robot kits. If they have a smart enough processor they could really give LEGO NXT, at $250, a run for their money. Meccano was once a competitor of Erector in the early 1900’s but has owned the Erector brand since the 1990’s.
     There are some really cool and relatively cheap Erector sets out there these days but they seem to have fallen out of fashion. Check out some of the kits at the Erector Set page at Roboteria.

Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a robot to crawl along power cables to inspect for damage. The Robotic Cable Inspection System was developed by the Sensors, Energy and Automation Laboratory (SEAL) at UW.
The prototype has been tested mostly on underground cables on campus but was recently taken to Louisiana for field testing on the storm damaged network around New Orleans.

      The robot is designed to check for damage on 3 inch diameter main power distribution cables. It has three types of sensors for assessing the condition of the cable insulation. It uses heat sensors, an acoustic sensor to listen for arcing, and ‘fringing electric field’ sensors to find ‘water trees’ that have seeped into the defects in the insulation. The robot also has video to show where it is as it communicates wirelessly back to the control base.

                                                                                   Software to control WowWee robots, Go-Robo! is available now for testing.
     The windows software allows you to write programs for RoboSapiens,Robopets, Roboreptiles and Roboraptor and send the commands to them through infrared.
     Young robot masters can put together a program by building up steps using a graphical design mode. More experienced programmers can use the GRIDscript (Go-Robo ID Script) language.

      The mysteries of the Antarctic deep will be probed by a new vessel capable of plunging 6.5km (four miles) down
      Isis, the UK’s first deep-diving remotely operated vehicle (ROV), will be combing the sea-bed in the region in its inaugural science mission.
      Researchers hope to uncover more about the effects of glaciers on the ocean floor, and also find out about the animals that inhabit these waters.
      The mission begins in mid-January and will last for about three weeks.

Amazon has come to help you if you could not lay your hands on the Robosapien before Christmas. Robosapien V2 is available for $99 on the Amazon Gold Box but for today only. The Robosapien V2 is capable of talking, walking and interacting with the environment. On normal days the price of this robot is double the price what it has now.

We thought of bringing some attention about this new good item for any manga-hording-geek’s treasure trove since we are on an RC frenzy ever since the Micro Mosquito was released. You would not like to have flying anything in your room apart from the classic Doraemon. The RC Doraemon robotic cat has the suction cup propellers and the fourth-dimensional pocket.

It measues about 6 inches tall and can be controlled with the help of a remote. Its price is $74.63 which I think is very expensive and no other information is available right now.

      The Khepera III robot integration is based on 10 years of expertise in miniature robotics. The new generation of Khepera is still able to move on a tabletop but it is also designed to move on your lab floor. Rough floor surfaces, carpets, and even doorsteps are not a problem for the Khepera III. It is the perfect solution for real world swarm robotics experiments.
     The new Khepera extension bus is also compatible with the KoreBot system, so that any KoreBot extension can be plugged on top of the robot. The bus specification is fully open and available to enable custom extension developments for users.

     Now a Robo to learn english and do some work for them is all set to come in tha market as Robotics introduced ‘CUBO’, a network-based home robot specifically designed for delivering education and entertainment content. For example, he can read books for children or help kids to learn English. Especially by adopting OID(Optical Identification Device), when children click a certain icon in the book, the Cubo automatically recognizes what it is and read them for children.
     Besides, he can provide with multiple services like home monitoring service, news update, weather forecast, scheduling, wake-up call, robot mail, and etc.

     D2E introduced ‘IGURO’, an intelligent human interface robot at ‘ROBO world 2006′. The ‘IGURO’ designed to be a guide robot in public spaces comes equipped with built-in vision sensor on the head and automatic recognition system; so, he can tell a building manager from a visitor and escort them to different service properly. And he can monitor visitors outside the building using the vision sensor.

     Especially, based on embedded speech recognition module and a sort of voice composition device, voice communication is possible between the robot and human while people can utilize other service as needed using extra robot controller prepared in front of him. Besides, it can offer information service through wired/wires network and it can be managed from a remote location.