This project was led by Dr. Michael Beets and Dr. Bernd Radig, part of a team or researchers in the IAS group at Germany’s Technical University in Munich. The robots they created actually go shopping and prepare a traditional Bavarian breakfast. Two robots were created for this project, TUM-James and TUM-Rosie. TUM-James takes care of the shopping while TUM-Rosie does the cooking. TUM-Rosie can boil sausages, skim them out and serve them. TUM-James can cut some baguettes for you. These ‘bots learn from doing, so sure enough, we’ll have Skynet (or a robotic Denny’s) on our hands soon.

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The ‘bots use MS Kinect sensors as their vision, and the robots can make logical decisions when handling materials that they are unfamiliar with. Hopefully, at some point, they’ll be making a fruit salad or some eggs to go with the sausages.

[IEEE Spectrum via Designboom]

Designed by artist Markus Lerner for lighting company OSRAM, the installation samples traffic patterns and maps them onto seven colorful light towers side of the road, each containing over 110,000 individual LEDs.

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The waves at the bottom of each panel represent the amount of traffic that has recently passed, while a “spark” that flashes across each screen whenever a new car passes by. The more cars that pass the sensors, the bigger the waves, and the faster the motion.

The installation is currently on display alongside Munich, Germany’s highly-congested Mittlerer Ring, a thoroughfare that conveniently happens to be right in front of OSRAM’s headquarters.

[via today in art]