Are you prepared to welcome our experimental toy robot overlords? They’re adorable, and they are taking no prisoners here at Google I/O . Hasbro and Google are collaborating to bring these little critters to life by docking a Nexus S brain to an exoskeleton-like body containing a battery, a Bluetooth radio and a gaggle servomotors (the type you discover in RC models). The battery powers the dock and gives additional juice to the telephone which in turn controls the servos via Bluetooth. Where things get interesting is that these toy robots don’t just act according to a collection of rules programmed into the Nexus S, but actually react to their environment (using the handset’s sensors, front-facing camera, and touchscreen) and communicate with Google’s cloud services over WiFi (for facial and object recognition) if you want to enhance their behavior. Shake them and that they get dizzy, rub their display and that they get happy / angry, show them a Decepticon card and so they cower away. They are going to also take an image of you, decide if you’re friend or foe, and respond accordingly. Predictably, Hasbro is sticking with gender stereotypes by providing basic female and male “personalities,” complete with accessorized docks. Take a look at these experimental creatures in our gallery and hit the break for our hands-on video. Just don’t go in expecting a cost and release — it’s prototype cuteness just for now.
Mozilla rumored to debut LG-made Boot to Gecko device at MWC
Drexel University turns to 3D scanners, printers to construct robotic dinosaurs
