Dec 4, 2008
This robot, named Motoman-SDA10, is a versatile humanoid industrial robot currently on display at the International Next-Generation Robot Fair. He’s intended to serve both at the factory or at a workplace alongside humans. It’s an industrial robot so I couldn’t find any indication of vision, hearing or other sensors to make it more aware of its environment, so we can expect it to work in safe distance from humans until one of us provides that Change He Needs.
Read on for videos and specs.
Dec 7, 2007
Toyota recently unveiled their latest musical robot; a violinist. This latest type joins the band of trumpet and drum players, the violinist being the most graceful in my honest opinion. In its public debut, the robot showed its ability to play Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance which, although it’s not human quality, is a delight to watch. Video after the jump.
Jul 13, 2007
Today’s robots are too slow. Here’s a hypothetical recap of what’s going on in my mind when I’m watching some humanoid robots: “Yes, yes … you’re moving the leg… still moving the leg… wow! Totally awesome maneuver over that threshold!”. Given some time, that tends to get boring quite quickly. Well, thankfully technology advances and robots get faster: Runbot is a small robot that walks only slightly slower than humans.
Jul 4, 2007
In my post on what makes a robot look feminine, a friend of mine posed an interesting observation in the comments. He felt too much time was being spent on humanoid development. He’d rather have development focus on non-humanoids that are useful now, at his home, than watching prototype humanoid robots through a glass window at the lab (not his words, I’m adding a bit of color). While this is a very understandable opinion, it’s based on a false assumption: Time spent on humanoids is miniscule in comparison to the entire range of robotics.
Jul 2, 2007
The Female Type (FT) is a humanoid robot designed in female proportions, and whose movements resemble a model’s. Tomotaka Takahashi, creator of FT even consulted a few real models during FT’s year of development. Personally, I think they’ve done a magnificent job. Both when it comes to shapes, color and general movement. But she’s made out of plastic and lacks facial features: What exactly makes her look feminine?
Jun 12, 2007
It doesn’t seem too long until humanoid robots for the home become as advanced as Sony’s late QRIO, judging by the humanoid robot RoGun from the Korean company KornTech. This impressive robot is one of the latest models from Korea, and needless to say, sports some of the latest of technological innovations in the fields of robotics and A.I. I talked with the company’s marketing director, Lee Jea-Hyun, to provide you with an in-depth article on this new and very impressive humanoid.
Jun 6, 2007
Just when you think Hiroshi Ishiguro is busy amplifying the uncanny valley effect of one of his previous androids, he rolls out a new model. This time, it’s a gigantic bionic baby. Boasting about 200 sensors (optical, auditory and tactile) and 51 air actuators — the 1.3 meter tall robot is designed to mimic the physical motions of a two year old.
May 12, 2007
All this Transformers talk reminded me of this video of a robot called WR-07, that morphs from humanoid form to car. It was created by Nakamura san at Himeji Soft Works in Japan. See video below.
Apr 26, 2007
An excellent debate has been raging in comment threads the past few days, on the potential dangers and fear of artificial intelligence. In the last round, the following point was raised:
An AI destroying all of humanity might solve our currently existing problems, but I’m not sure if I’d like that to happen. I’d much rather take the Friendly ones - but those won’t be developed if nobody fears the possible consequences of AIs. Therefore, I can only hope for more fear. 
Read more…
I decided this deserved a blog entry and here we are. My answer is this:
Apr 22, 2007
Over six thousand people have voted in the Who’s Afraid of Robots? poll (which will remain open indefinitely). Many people supported this effort (see below), propelling the entry to the frontpage of Digg, as I had hoped, which increased the number of voters and brought a heap of varying opinions on the matter. The survey’s results are quite intriguing.
