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Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don’t have to (video)

This one has been quite a long time in coming, but Robosoft’s service drone has finally made it off the drawing board, collected a catchy name, and headed off to the big world to seek its fortune as an R&D platform. Kompai is a personal assistance bot built around speech — it understands basic instructions and requests and offers appropriate responses with its own monotonic style. It’ll serve as a note and shopping list recorder, a calendar, a music player, or a video conferencing tool for when old grandpappy needs to call his doctor. If you think having a programmable hunk of mobile metal that’s permanently connected to the net in your house is a good idea, look out for OEMs picking up the design during the Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference taking place next week. And if you just wanna see a bug-eyed bot talk to an old dude, click past the break for the video.

[Thanks, Erico]

Continue reading Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don’t have to (video)

Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don’t have to (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Customer greeted with malware on Vodafone-issued HTC Magic (good thing it’s discontinued)

Crapware’s bad enough, but having your life torn asunder simply by plugging in that shiny new (insert USB-connected device here) is an exciting new trend — viruses find their way into the darnedest places, don’t they? It seems an employee at anti-malware firm Panda Research who’d ordered a new Magic off Vodafone UK’s site was greeted with no fewer than three nefarious executables upon plugging the device into her PC: a bot client, a password stealer, and a Conficker variant, and running a network sniffer quickly confirmed that the virii were live and ready to do harm as soon as the autorun in the Magic’s mounted mass storage was executed on her Windows machine. If this were a widespread issue, we’d certainly have heard about it in other places, so odds are good (as Panda points out) that this was simply a case of HTC or Vodafone doing an awful job of wiping a refurbished set — but it gives you pause and kind of makes you wish you worked for an anti-malware firm, at least on days when you’re plugging in a new phone for the first time. The silver lining, we suppose, is that Vodafone has recently discontinued the Magic, though that creates another problem: the only Android device it currently stocks now is the lowly Tattoo, so the X10 and Nexus One can’t come soon enough.

Customer greeted with malware on Vodafone-issued HTC Magic (good thing it’s discontinued) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shoulder Mounted Cheeky Monkey Bot

Did you always wish that you had an annoying sidekick to go through life with you, just like how many of the heroes do in the stories? Well, it’s not quite as gallant and intimidating, but the Cheeky Monkey is probably as close as you’ll get to enlisting a sidekick to join forces with you. Controlled by a remote control that can be easily hidden in your pocket, the Cheeky Monkey also has Velcro on its rear end in order to prevent it from falling off. The infrared sensing eyes that it sports will help it keep its eyes trained on the people that it’s entertaining, which is rather cool. If you’re not controlling it via the remote, apparently it’ll perform a variety of actions. Video on it after the jump.

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MIT’s MeBot makes telerobotics fun again

We know how you feel. Sure, telerobotics has changed your life for the better, allowing to interact with people as if you’re really there, coasting through the halls of an institution of higher learning, dropping knowledge on anyone within shouting distance. But something’s missing. You aren’t happy, you aren’t free. MeBot, developed at MIT’s Personal Robotics Group and prepped for presentation at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in Osaka, Japan, looks to solve this. It adds movement to the equation, hoisting an OQO aloft for a head and adding in gesticulating arms to the equation. The idea is to allow the teleoperator to be more engaged through “head” and “arm” movements, with the arms being moved by handheld controls, and the head movement created by tracking the face of the operator. We could obviously conceive of a more elaborate representation, but the off the shelf components like the OQO brain seem worthy of commendation. Check out some video of the bot in action after the break.

Continue reading MIT’s MeBot makes telerobotics fun again

MIT’s MeBot makes telerobotics fun again originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Paparazzi Bots will chase you down until you love them

Sony’s Party-shot dock is fun and all but it suffers from one major limitation: it’s fixed in space. Oh sure, it’ll pan and tilt around its base until the last reveler is unconscious, but it won’t go to where the action is. That’s where the Ohio State University developed Paparazzi Bot comes in. The autonomous, sensor-laden, mobile robot stands at human height and decides for itself whether or not to snap your photo based upon your facial expression (hint: it likes smiles). If chosen, the bot stops, aims, shoots and uploads your image to a social networking site for other robots to mock, presumably — a kind of fleeting celebrity anointment as described by the bot’s inventor, Ken Rinaldo; or a kind of precursor to robots with automatic weapons, if you ask us. Video demonstration after the break.

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Paparazzi Bots will chase you down until you love them originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s Navibot robot vacuum charting European living rooms in April

Roomba has ruled the roost when it comes to domestic chores for a long time — too long. It’s getting some serious competition from Samsung, which is finally going to unleash one of its robovacs onto the rest of the world. Well, to Europe anyway. The Navibot is set to spread its wings across the EU in March, having been apparently warmly received in limited Italian tests last year. The bot captures 30fps video of your abode, documenting your feng shui and charting the most efficient course around your coffee table and the display case that houses your TMNT collection. It’s even sophisticated enough to pick up where it left off should it run out of juice mid-stride, after returning home for a recharge, but that kind of smarts will cost you: €399 for the basic model with a single virtual wall, and €499 for a slightly posher version with touch-sensitive buttons and a second virtual wall. There’s no word on an American release just yet, meaning Roomba’s home turf is safe — for now.

Filed under: Household, Robots

Samsung’s Navibot robot vacuum charting European living rooms in April originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon

You’d have to be heartless to walk by Interbots’ Quasi and not crack a smile. Q, as we like to call him, isn’t an autonomous bot, but instead everything from his facial expressions to his speech are controlled wirelessly via a tablet PC. As you can see in the video after the break, his master can change his eye color and arm / hand movements with just a touch of the stylus. So, why did Quasi, who was born at Carnegie Mellon in 2006, make an appearance at the 2010 Toy Fair? Interbots is planning to bring an affordable child-friendly version of the $80,000 bot to market by the end of the year, and the reps on hand told us that it’ll even have similar puppeteering capabilities. Sounds like a potential nightmare for parents, but there’s something about this guy that makes us sure about his future as much-adored, bona fide family member.

Continue reading Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon

Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spy Video TRAKR runs custom kid-built ‘applications’ for stopping snooping siblings in their tracks

We didn’t know the toy industry was ready to jump into the app store game, but apparently’ we’ve underestimated its fad-grabbing prowess. Wild Planet is calling its new Spy Video TRAKR remote controlled robot the first “app-enabled” toy, with special filters and routines that kids can program for the vehicle and share online. We sort of thought Lego’s Mindstorms beat them to the punch on this, but we’ll try not read too far into things. The bot itself is equipped with a camera that streams video to an LCD-equipped remote, and videos and stills of the TRAKR’s exploits can even be stored to an SD card. Sample programs include a routine to detect an intruder, shout a few choice words at the doomed sibling out of the TRAKR’s built in speaker, and scurry off into the night, but Wild Planet hopes kids will program even more imaginative routines and share them online. The bot will be available in October for $120.

Spy Video TRAKR runs custom kid-built ‘applications’ for stopping snooping siblings in their tracks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Hero-controlled Mindstorms bot hints at Android uprising

Using a cellphone to control a robot — or a pretty sweet helicopter — isn’t exactly a new idea, but there’s something about the combination of Android and Lego Mindstorms that promises to break the possibilities wide open. Swedish tech company Enea Linköping is one of the first we’ve seen to directly link an Android app to the Mindstorms brain over Bluetooth — they’re using an HTC Hero to control two simple rover bots. Unfortunately, since Android 1.5 doesn’t support the Bluetooth serial profile, there’s a hack involved: the phone actually sends out commands over WiFi,which are passed through a WiFi-Bluetooth tunneling app on laptop before hitting the bots. That means there’s a little lag involved, but now that Android 2.1 has serial Bluetooth support we’re hoping things get a little more streamlined in the future. Video after the break.

Continue reading HTC Hero-controlled Mindstorms bot hints at Android uprising

HTC Hero-controlled Mindstorms bot hints at Android uprising originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Heineken Bot Might Be Your Next Best Friend

This is probably just what you need during the next World Cup finals. This robot, aptly called the Heineken Bot, was created by the folks over at Middlesex University, and displayed at the Kinetica Art Fair in London. It’ll steadily make its rounds along a preprogrammed path, and all you have to do is hover your hand above its sonar-sensing head, pop a cup into its holder and you’ll be rewarded with a nice drink, perfect to see your country win the World Cup. Maybe if they mass produced this before the World Cup, it’d turn into a nice and healthy business.

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Heineken Bot does what it says on the keg, soon to be man’s new best friend

If you ask us, our theory is that the Daleks are rather huggable by nature, but they probably partied a tad too hard with these beer-toting fellas before trashing the world. One such “Heineken Bot” — crafted by the geniuses at Middlesex University — turned up at Kinetica Art Fair in London. Daring humans can stop this drifting bot by hovering their hands above its sonar-sensing head, and then place a cup in its holder for some bevvy spat out of its keg. When you’re served, the lonewolf continues to wander along its pre-programmed path, probably waiting for the assassination signal from Skynet. See for yourself after the break while you’re still alive.

Continue reading Heineken Bot does what it says on the keg, soon to be man’s new best friend

Heineken Bot does what it says on the keg, soon to be man’s new best friend originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Robonica Roboni-i programmable robot toy review

Life became duller ever since FedEx took away our last annoying little robot, so we got our hands on a new but less chatty plastic companion — say hi to Robonica’s Roboni-i programmable robot. Since its last Engadget appearance we’ve seen a drastic price drop from the original $299.95 to $159.95 at Hammacher Schlemmer, but the robot is no less awesome — those unique wheels alone deliver plenty of coolness already, not to mention the bunch of peculiar accessories in the box for games and even interaction with other fellow Roboni-is. Read on to find out if this bot’s a keeper.

Continue reading Robonica Roboni-i programmable robot toy review

Robonica Roboni-i programmable robot toy review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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