Archive for December, 2008

Is it a marketing gimmick? Sure. Are these robot watches more awesome than your typical watch? Hell yes. Casio’s 25 years of G-Shock celebration continues with the offering of a new set of character watches designed by Shiro Nakano.

Now that I’ve given you the good news, it’s time for the bad. These robot characters themselves are not available for sale. And yes, that’s a big mistake, because they are amazingly cool. They would make great desktop clocks.

[IT Media]

Wall-E Down to Earth Part 2 : Define Dancing from Anthony Meadows on Vimeo.

I’m sure many of us have wondered…What if Wall-E were real?

Anthony Meadows wonders about that too. He created Wall-E: Down to Earth, which is beautifully shot using a JVC GZ-HD3 with music from the soundtrack and Thomas Newman.

It’s well worth checking out. Part 2 is above. Part 1 here.

[Vimeo]

Worried about the rise of the robots? Sure we all are. But we never saw it coming from our trusty flashlights. Yes, they will transform and enslave us by being useful in the dark. Which is a brilliant plan. We will never see it coming when the light goes out and they finally attack.

This awesome flashlight can transform into three different forms: humanoid robot, scrambling spider and standing spider. That’s three cool things in one flashlight. Which is two more than your current flashlight does. All this coolness for only $20.

Proof that even flashlights, if designed right, can be fun and functional.

[Poptherapy] VIA [Slipperybrick]

Researchers in Japan are working on a tiny ornithopter that weighs only 0.39 grams. It uses flapping wings modeled on a butterfly with a rubber band as a battery. The simplicity of the biological design is pretty sweet.

With high speed video, the designers found out that the most efficient wings for flight are wings with micromolded veins that flap at 10 beats per second.

So I guess our future flying bots will be of the pretty variety and may even stop to suck the nectar from a flower or two before dealing death to humans.

[Smart-Machines]

Lenny&Meriel make these cutesy figures they call Sparebots out of resistors, caps, pots, chips, sockets, and other electronic parts. Some are arranged into little scenes, and some are even animals. Pretty neat way to use all those spare parts you have laying around.

[Flickr] VIA [Neatorama]

Artist Dave the Chimp’s second video for electro pop superstars Robots In Disguise sees the girls settling in for an evening on the couch watching porn on VHS. This isn’t new, by any means, but someone tipped me off to this video because it features some fairly interesting and potentially NSFW scenes of robots doing the nasty.

If you consider telescoping robo-wangs, robo-blow jobs, and even a robo money shot NSFW.

At only $20 you have to get this cool robot calculator. He’s got movable arms, hands that squeeze and hold small objects (like pens, miniature ray guns and his included super awesome night-light) and a magical magnet on his back that holds paper clips!

He will watch over you and protect you from difficult math problems.

[UrbanOutfitters]

Why buy a Transformers toy, when you can build your own? That’s what this engineer did. The end result is completely awesome and the best actual transforming toy ever.

It’s called the Humvee Biloid. A fully transformable robot that comes equipped with a camera for surveillance tasks. Just push of a button and it will go from a car into robot mode. Unfortunately, it’s just a prototype..for now.

Damn, I can’t wait for the robot toys of the future. Hit the link for an awesome video that unfortunately will not embed here.

[Techeblog]

I have no idea what this is or how to make sense of it, but this video series follows the adventures of a pair of robot Coca-Cola vending machines. It isn’t new, but it’s fairly entertaining as an alternative to doing hardcore drugs. Kinda leaves you feeling wtf. You can click on the user and find the entire series.

Us at Botropolis aren’t typically a nostalgic bunch, but as the year comes to an end, we can’t help but take a look back at the notable robotic technologies of 2008. Some of my favorite robot news stories this year revolved around technosexuals like Zoltan, the man who crafted a robotic girlfriend for himself based on the A.L.I.C.E. language processing bot, and Le Trung, the man who created the “perfect woman” Aiko. And who can forget robotic nightmares like Big Dog, Boston Dynamics’ quadruped dogbot, Geminoid and Repliee, two examples of hauntingly lifelike bots, and that robot controlled by a blob of rat neurons. Yep, if 2008 was anything it was a harbinger of the robot apocalypse.
MIT’s Technology Review named a few other technologies as the most remarkable of 2008. They cite the growing presence of robots involved in medical procedures, minimizing the negative effects of surgery and allowing surgeons to perform complex procedures in less time and with reduced risk. The review also mentions nascent research relating to small robots that will be able to deliver drugs within the body. Military applications for robots have also been big this year, with entities like iRobot Corp and DARPA pouring millions into robomilitary research. 2008 has been filled with significant advances in the world of robotics and technology in general. Hopefully 2009 will see more medicinebots and sexbots and a few less killbots.

[Technology Review]