Robotics >>

Older adults reported in a study that while they were not likely to become physically and emotionally dependent on robots, they worried that young people might become too dependent on them ...

There aren’t many low-cost robot vacuums for commercial buildings, but startup Avidbots is tackling the idea. ...

Robots are designed to complement a large touchscreen or projected tabletop interface. Finger taps and hand gestures still remain the prominent way to interact, but the robots can jump in any time. ...

These four robots teach students science, technology, engineering and math by demonstrating the practical results of the day’s lesson. ...

Conventional industrial robots are becoming safer to work around, making them more likely to collaborate with humans. ...

Members of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots are calling on the government of Canada to ban the creation of fully autonomous weapons. ...

Older adults' fears that companion robots will negatively affect young people may create design challenges for developers hoping to build robots for older users, according to researchers. Companion robots provide emotional support for users and interact with them as they, for example, play a game, or watch a movie. Older adults reported in a study that while they were not likely to become physically...

Gimmicky contest ads and flashy free-prize messages may be an instant turnoff for mobile users, according to researchers. In a study, a tempting offer of a free prize drawing for registering on a mobile website led users to distrust the site. ...

Scientists have developed faster, more energy-efficient microchips based on the human brain -- 9,000 times faster and using significantly less power than a typical PC. This offers greater possibilities for advances in robotics and a new way of understanding the brain. For instance, a chip as fast and efficient as the human brain could drive prosthetic limbs with the speed and complexity of our own...

The massive adoption of mobile computing platforms creates the urgent need for secure application execution on such platforms. Unfortunately, today’s mobile platforms do not support strong security solutions equivalent to smartcards in set-top boxes or to dongles to reliably control licensing terms. Furthermore, many of these mobile devices are shared for professional and private applications, and...

A test flight later this week will challenge a set of sensors to map out a 65-yard square of boulder-sized hazards and pick out a safe place to land. Mounted to an uncrewed prototype lander called Morpheus that flies autonomously several hundred feet above the ground, the sensor system will have 10 seconds to do its work: six seconds really, as it will take four seconds to map the area before choosing...

President Obama attended a robot demonstration in Japan and played soccer with Honda’s ASIMO human robot. Obama said “the robots were a little scary, they were too lifelike.” ...

Petronics has a prototype robot mouse that senses a cat’s movements and react the way a real mouse would, resulting in playtime for the cat. ...

Texas EquuSearch is challenging a February ruling that grounded its fleet of four unmanned aerial vehicles that are equipped with cameras. ...

NASA has announced plans to use Google’s Project Tango on the International Space Station to guide SPHERES robots’ navigation within the facility. ...

Robots now account for half of all milking installations in the UK and the change in the tax rules in the last Budget may result in this increasing further. ...

Robot Construction Kits can be distinguished from normal robot kits since they use modular parts and allow you to assemble different robots using the same parts. A robot kit on the other hand only allows you to build one robot. Robot construction kits are a great investment because they tend to include everything you need [...] ...

A fire is raging in a large building and the fire leader is sending a message to all firefighters at the scene. But they don't need a mobile phone -- they simply check their jacket sleeves and read the message there. ...

Agricultural and fruit producers could acquire high-tech greenhouses at a considerably less cost, thanks to researchers who are developing computer systems to control climatic variables within such infrastructures. The technology consists of a motherboard, embedded computer systems (for specific functions), a graphical interface for monitoring variables such as humidity, temperature , wind speed and...

In episode #154, Per Sjoborg speaks with Henrik Schunk about his company’s work in gripping technology, modular robotics, dexterous manipulation, and this year’s SCHUNK Expert Days (video), the subject of which was service robots. Henrik Schunk joined SCHUNK GmbH as Managing Partner in 2001. Today, he is responsible for management of gripping systems, automated solutions, and mobile gripping systems....