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Robosoft Kompai introduced

Robosoft of France has introduced a brand new robot known as Kompai, where it is meant to help the elderly as well as disabled, not to mention others who require special care. Kompai is intelligent enough to understand speech while navigating autonomously. Smart enough to remind you of meetings while keeping track of shopping lists, Kompai can also play music to entertain you during those down-moments alongside functioning as a videoconference system. for users to talk with their doctors, for example. No idea on how much Kompai will cost though.

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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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Mad Catz Cyborg Rat: a guided tour (video)

We’ve talked up Mad Catz’s Cyborg Rat before — and even given it the hands-on treatment — but even still, we thought it’d best to show you with the power of moving pictures all the crazy functions of this Franken-mouse (that’s pronounced “Fronk-in-mouse,” thank you very much). Check out the guided tour of the Rat 7 from the CeBIT show floor, and an explanation of the differences in each series iteration – after the break, care of global PR manager Alex Verrey.

Continue reading Mad Catz Cyborg Rat: a guided tour (video)

Mad Catz Cyborg Rat: a guided tour (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lotus outs wild Evora 414E Hybrid plug-in concept car

Concept cars are like unicorns — they’re so prevalent and vaporous, they’re hardly worth remarking upon. Every so often, though, one pops out into the ether that’s really worth a second look. Lotus’ Evora 414E Hybrid concept certainly fits into that category.This plug-in car boasts (or would boast, should it come into existence), 1.2 liter, three-cylinder engine, independent electric motors for the rear wheels, with a range of about 300 miles. The glass engine cover pictured above, however, is just one of the features we find ourselves double-taking here. The Evora 414E would also pack some ‘vroom vroom’ noises by way of its audio system to take care of the ever-pressing danger of silent auto engines. The engine can operate on alcohol-based fuels or regular old gasoline, and the battery-only range is in the neighborhood of 35 miles. The Lotus Evora 414E hybrid will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.

Lotus outs wild Evora 414E Hybrid plug-in concept car originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple prepping a Mac mini with HDMI? And Blu-ray?

The Mac mini has long been a HTPC fan favorite. It’s small, quiet, yet powerful. But it doesn’t have an HDMI port, which makes many Apple clowns sad. But hold on, a rumor just popped up that states that Apple is working on a Mac mini with *gasp* an HDMI port!

Nexus One coming to Verizon March 23rd?

What better way to start your Saturday afternoon than with another Nexus One release rumor. Without further ado, today we’ve got whispers care of Neowin that the recently-FCC’d CDMA device is launching on Verizon’s network March 23rd, perfect timing for the beginning of CTIA. And while that fits pretty neatly into that initial “Spring 2010″ launch window, there’s really no way for us to corroborate at this point other than just taking their word for it. You can wait diligently, can’t ya?

Nexus One coming to Verizon March 23rd? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PeeWee Kit keeps kids safe on computers

Making sure your little one remains safe from the dangers of cyberspace might end up being an expensive affair as you try out program after program, but the PeeWee Kit aims to change all that without breaking the bank. It comes with a USB flash drive, seven different games and software titles alongside the PeeWee Security suite that delivers online and offline security for less than $30. PeeWee Patrol was designed for computer access controls and the PeeWee Privacy ensures Internet privacy is taken care of. Parents will be able to limit the time and hours that their kids can use the Internet, blocking out inappropriate websites, keeping track of browsing history as well as control the computer remotely. The PeeWee Kit will hit the markets later this March with free shipping thrown in. If you’ve tried out everything else without any success, how about the PeeWee Kit as a final lifeline?

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DARPA planning to test Mach 6 hyperplane in April

This rather unconvincing video shows a current project of DARPA’s, in which a jet is accelerated first by regular propulsion, then ramjets, then scramjets — eventually pushing the vehicle to a ridiculous Mach 6. That’s somewhere around 1700-2000 meters per second, or ~4000MPH. That’s if they can keep the thing from breaking apart. Wikipedia tells us that “while very short suborbital scramjet test flights have been performed, no flown scramjet has ever been designed to survive a flight test.” That’s not very promising.

The video is years old but it’s news because they’re planning a test flight for April. The landing site is actually just a place in the ocean they’re going to let it crash, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing these things overhead any time soon.

Oh look, another hack attack that could have been prevented

I could sit here and talk about the latest big “hack attack” to strike the civilized world, but these have become so tedious. The story is always the same: hackers from scary place (here, China and Eastern Europe) attack Western government/corporation (here, corporations) for unknown, shadowy reasons. Blah, blah, blah. Instead, I’ll take this opportunity to remind you all of a very basic thing: please use the Internet with care. Don’t go clicking things willy nilly.

CNN & Cracked take the piss out of Apple and Jobs

As much as we love Apple products here at CrunchGear, sometimes we don’t particularly care for Apple the company. Realistically, if you look at their track record, there’s quite an interesting list of abuses towards their customers with the supposedly untouchable Steve Jobs at the center of it all.

Talkatoo: Tell your kids every little thing’s going to be alright

I just got back from the New York Toy Fair and saw quite a few great items, including this clever little thing called the Talkatoo. It’s a little tag that can record your voice and then attach to your wee one’s backpack or bag. When your kid is upset at Day Care or on a [...]

Windows XP patch fiasco gets even crazier, Microsoft now scrambling for solutions

If you ever needed a reason to go Linux, here you go. The noise surrounding this patently obscure Windows XP bug / patch fiasco has just reached a fever pitch, and now we’ve got engineers within Redmond scratching their heads, too. As the story goes, Microsoft recently patched a security hole that took care of an antediluvian DOS vulnerability, and in doing so, some users began to see BSODs and endless reboots. Today, we’ve learned that the patch has been yanked, and Microsoft is suggesting that malware is to blame. But here’s the skinny — the patch simply disturbed the malware, which called a specific kernel code that directs your PC to keel over; in other words, any application that calls that same code could theoretically leave your machine in dire straits. And that, friends, probably explains the software giant’s following quote:

“In our continuing investigation in to the restart issues related to MS10-015 that a limited number of customers are experiencing, we have determined that malware on the system can cause the behavior. We are not yet ruling out other potential causes at this time and are still investigating.“

Rock, meet hard place.

Windows XP patch fiasco gets even crazier, Microsoft now scrambling for solutions originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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