Archive for July 2nd, 2008

Who da man? Uman…u. U da man. The Uman robot is pretty impressive. It’s bots like this that will have us crying in a corner while our fellow humans are getting disemboweled nearby, in no time at all. It was developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, ad UMan stands for UMass Mobile Manipulator. It’s an intelligent robot capable of teaching itself how to use objects it has never encountered before. When you think about it that’s pretty amazing. I can’t get my grandmother to figure out a cell phone.

With a plain old webcam, UMan analyzes differences between side by side pixels and pokes an object around in an attempt to figure out its shape and how it moves. UMan then uses that information to figure out how to manipulate the object.

Frightening? Hell yes. Hit the link for a creepy video and then pack up and head for the mountains.

[Technologyreview]

Looks like Tufts is also joining in on the chembots project. If their research pays off, future robots might feature designs that are flexible and elastic. They are working on “chemical robots” with no solid parts at all. They could squeeze under doors, slither through cracks in walls, even crawl inside of you and kill you with ease and you wouldn’t even know.

[Physorg]

How often do you see our favorite little droid buddy all steampunked out? The only thing missing is C3PO in a gentleman’s suit. It was made by Deviant Art user Amoebabloke, who has mad droid modding talent.

You gotta be one crazy loving robot mofo to tattoo yourself with this robot using a laser-etch machine. And no, that ain’t me! It’s enough to make your skin hurt just looking at it. I mean, the laser cooks your skin. Well, when the uprising begins, he will be spared since he’s got the mark of the beast and all.

[Gizmodo]