Check out this cool robot cake from debbiedoescakes’ flickr pool. It looks like it could get up and walk. It’s modeled after a vintage style Japan space robot tin toy, complete with wind-up key. But how can one eat something this beautiful?

[Flickr]

So you’ve been jonesin for a robot that can cook you food and wash your filthy body while you sleep.  You have some ideas about how to go about making it, but, aw man, you don’t feel like going through the boring chassis build, the stupid motor calibration, and all the other poopy work that goes into the base of all robots.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could just slap a spatula and a loofah on a pre-made robot template?  Well, friends, the uBot offers you salvation at last.  The uBot is a robot base that can be specialized…by you!

Co-founders of DigitRobotics LLC Bryan Thibodeau and Patrick Deegan will market their uBot initially to academia.  Building robots for academic purposes is a quite involved process, so having a template robot to specialize would make things much easier for researchers .
“The uBot balances on two wheels, can pick objects up with its arms, and can interact via Skype using a camera and a computer monitor for a ‘head’.”  The pair is already building three uBots for the MIT Media Lab.  MIT will use the uBot as the body and chassis for Lexi, a social/dexterous/mobile bot that can express emotion.

Ultimately the team plans to market their uBot in the health-care sector.  The uBot prototype currently costs $65,000, but manufacturing efficiency could bring that price down to about $30,000.  Having an in-house robot to care for the elderly at all times could eliminate the need for a nursing home.  And with a $30K price point, the uBot might be a viable alternative to a geriatric rest home.  In a health-care scenario, the uBot would be able to check vital signs, lift someone who has fallen, call an ambulance, clear things out of the way, etc.

Happy 90th birthday grandma, I got you what you always wanted:  a machine in lieu of human interaction.

[Mass High Tech]

Last week we told you about the possibility of robots moving into low-level service jobs, and today brings research news that shows some baby steps in that direction.  UC Davis researchers are creating “follower robots”.  These bots are programmed to track and follow human leaders.  By analyzing the human leader’s movements, the robot effectively predicts where the human will go next, thereby preventing itself from crashing into walls or losing the leader.

Previous models of follower bot were equipped with a camera to track the human’s path, but it became difficult to keep up when the human turned or zig-zagged.  The current robots are outfitted with both a camera and a behavioral cue sensor to note human movements that work as predictive aids.  For instance, if a human points in a direction, it’s likely he’ll move that way.  Humans typically rotate their head 25 degrees about 200 milliseconds before making a turn.  By analyzing slight movements like these, the robot can more accurately predict the leader’s next action. The robots can also pick up on emotional cues that may affect movement, like the way sadness is tied to slower movement and stress or excitement to quicker movement.

As this research progresses, the robots’ functionality could expand to things outside of simple following.  While follwer robots have positive implications for the future of robotic workers, they are quite ominous to those of us who enjoy strolling down unlit city streets at night, occasionally glancing over our shoulders just to make sure we’re not being followed by a heartless, bloodthirsty machine.

[Popular Science]

If you like interactive exhibits, this may be up your alley. It’s an interactive installation from Golan Levin. The snout is an eight-foot long robotic arm, that resembles an elephant’s trunk. The idea is that you could install it on the top of your house for some really funny ‘double-takes’. Some of the themes it deals with are: trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood and autonomous surveillance.

When people walk near it, it moves which shows that it’s intelligent and aware that they are there. The robot uses a machine vision algorithm and appears to be surprised with each passerby’s unique qualities which it communicates without words. Commissioned by Robot250, the Double-Taker (or Snout) is an artwork displayed in Pittsburgh. The control system was built using RAPID and OpenFrameworks using OpenCV.

It’s alot like meeting an alien for the first time who has no speech.

[Flong]

Check out the Manoi robot. He’s ‘Must-Maru’ a character from a popular anime book. Thanks to some clever programming and the will to see a robot break dance, the one a half foot robot does just that. It’s all very creepy and yet you can tell he has some serious street cred. I’m pretty sure if you crossed this guy, he would cut ya.

How to explain this…It’s like watching that part in the Rocky movies where Rocky trains to music and you get all euphoric and like “Hell yeah”. Or the end of any other movie where the champion overtakes his opponent with victory music. It’s like that, but with crazy-ass robots.

[bbgadgets]

If you’re a Timelord, a talking Dalek will wake you up. Because when a Dalek talks, people die. Somehow they’ve survived the time-war and are in alarm clock form now. It’s officially licenced by the BBC and shouts things like “Exterminate”, “You would make a good Dalek” or “You are an enemy of the Daleks, you must be destroyed” to wake you up in the morning all bright and cheery. Other features are flashing white ears, a flashing blue eye stalk, and blue LED lights on the bottom. Turn off the alarm by pushing it’s head. It will cost you about $29.

[Otherland]

Mr. Pitful’s ode to the Roomba robot that’s cleaning up his entire life. His living room, kitchen, relationships, and even the deepest, darkest corners of his mind. Does it make you want to buy a new Roomba? I don’t know, but you’ll want to check out the other Mr. Pitful Band creations. With lyrics like “… the dirty dust balls of my mind…”, it’s catchy. It’s like if Tenacious D sang about robots.

As a collector of vintage toy robots I’m always on the lookout for cool new(Or old) stuff. Over at Darkroastedblend, they recently showcased a bunch of sweet vintage robots. These guys are all from those beautiful heady days before robots in real life started gaining the abilities needed to kill and maim. These babies are all treasured by human collectors and they are good to have around because in the future when a robot storms your house, you will be spared thanks to robo-worship.

[Darkroastedblend]

A robot made of food—a strange portmanteau indeed.  Food, man’s lifeblood of the soil, indispensable and delectable, combined with something wholly sinister…a robot, the mechanical man that will one day stamp out the spirit of our species.  The two contrast sharply, yet a Pittsburgh man named Mickey McManus has crafted them as one (a presumed lash against the random and unfair powers that granted him a life tormented by alliteration).  This Gouda and cucumber robotic hand…it’s fascinating…so desirable, yet so devilish…like the clockwork women of yesteryear.

As we yearn for nutritive fulfillment, so too do we yearn to create, and—in the case of robotics—to create that which is like ourselves.  Perhaps McManus was only hoping to capture the spark of life in fruit and dairy, for it is certain he planned not for the evil we now face.

His skills are rudimentary; by profession he is neither scientist nor chef, but rather an executive.  As the CEO of a Pittsburgh design and research firm, he felt it his duty to debut the mighty food-hand at a reception showcasing his firm’s designs.

Where, you may wonder, would a businessman acquire the mental tools necessary to construct such an appetizing appendage?  The answer lies in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.  The university last year launched a program called Robot 250, the goal of which was to bring the fundamentals of robotics to 13 surrounding neighborhoods.  Teachers spread throughout the towns armed with materials and know-how, instructing locals in the art of robotry.  All told, the participants built about 75 bots; things like paper flowers with automatic opening and closing petals, a robot to monitor street noise, and even a robot for photographing speeding cars.

The Robot 250 program also had an accompanying party, “billed as the city’s largest and most diverse public gathering of robots”.  Everything from homespun robots to industrial automatons were at the event.  With more than 30 robotics companies in Pittsburgh, the city seems to be a prime destination for robotics aficionados.

We hope to see more programs and events like this in the future.  Loving robots is pretty leet, but the more people that have a grasp on robotics, the more efficient human soldiers we’ll have during the robot apocalypse.  And as for the cucumber hand robot, well, it was eaten.

[The Wall Street Journal]