Robots on Technabob...

Admit it Japan – you really are working on making giant mecha and super robots real. You started off with life-size robot statues. Now you’re working on scaffolding that can be programmed to change shapes and volume? Isn’t that what happens when oh I don’t know, an elementary school transforms…

At this years CeBIT consumer electronics expo in Hannover, Germany, you’d expect there to be lots of cool innovations. A pair of pole-dancing robots was not what I was thinking, though. These are life-sized humanoids, with camera-shaped lights as heads that gyrate suggestively to music, which is played by a third DJ robot,…

We’ve all heard countless times how simply petting an animal can decrease stress and help improve a person’s state of mind. But what if you’re unable to take care of a real pet? There have been plenty of attempts to create robotic animals over the years, but none of them…

Those mad scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) won’t be happy until we are all hunted down by their creations. Working towards this goal, some of their robot animals are getting way faster than you or I can run. The latest, called Cheetah, can run at speeds…

iRobot makes a bunch of different robots that are in use by the military and police to apprehend bad guys without getting humans killed. About this time last year, we mentioned the then new 110 FirstLook robot. The manufacturer has announced that it has received $1.5 million order from the…

I recently showed you a video in which a Gundam mech taught itself to walk using some sort of “genetic algorithm”. Around the same time, it turns out engineers have been giving real robots the tools they need to walk on their own.…

It seems that quadrocopters can do just about anything. Like the other robots, they are busy taking our jobs. In this case, they are getting ready to put conductors and orchestras out of business. They’ve hijacked the James Bond theme and have Moneypenny and Q tied up in the back!…

Would you expect anyone to be able to assemble a drawing robot for less than $70? Well, the Diatom design studio, run by Tiago Rorke and Greg Saul, collaborated with Cheng Xu and Huaishu Peng of the CMU CoDe Lab to create this pocket-sized robot kit. They’ve named it Piccolo.…

Geeks have been doing all sorts of wild things with Microsoft Kinect sensor since Microsoft launched it. The Kinect for Windows sensor hasn’t been around as long as the original gaming sensor, but it already has one of the most awesome uses I’ve ever seen for anything Microsoft manufactured. What…

In 2011, Volkswagen had the best Super Bowl commercial, featuring a diminutive Darth Vader. This year’s commercial was fun, but it didn’t have the Star Wars… tie-in as its main theme. Maybe this what Volkswagen should have done for their 2012 Superbowl commercial instead.