Robert Wood’s robotic flies are currently featured in MOMA’s “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit in New York. They’re definitely an engineering work of art, as the first insect-sized robots with the ability to lift themselves off the ground.
IEEE spectrum takes you inside Kiva Systems’ robotic warehouse, where orange robots make inventory move instead of workers. Over time the system becomes increasingly efficient, with the robots learning from the wisdom of the crowd.
Two kid testers get a sneak peek at KOTA, Hasbro’s dinosaur that you can ride (sort of-it doesn’t actually go anywhere). Although it doesn’t really buck or move, the kids weren’t too disappointed.
The Guitar Zeros use Guitar Hero controllers to produce a range of synthesized sounds.
Mateusz Bryning, CTO of Zikon, explains the companies new electronic ink technology that, he says, could even be used to produce color-changing fingernails.
The Capture-ID Mobile Scanner lets you see exactly what you’re scanning, as CEO Gordon Nuttall demonstrates.
Hanvon’s e-reader uses a color e-ink display in this touchscreen device. The refresh rate is slower than on a B&W e-ink display
At CES 2011 tech writer Evan Ackerman became the first person in the United States to test the robotic exoskeleton Hybrid Assistive Limb, or HAL, created by Japanese company Cyberdyne.
IEEE Spectrum got to take a quick ride in GM’s concept vehicle, and we took the camera along too. Being in the futuristic pod was exactly as fun as it looked like it would be, and the vehicle itself was quick and responsive.
There were plenty of unexciting tablets at this year’s CES, but one that stood out from the crowd was Motorola’s Xoom, the first tablet to sport the Android 3.0 operating system.
RIM was showing off their entry into the soon to be crowded tablet market. What’s unique is that it’s not running Android, Windows, (or even MeeGo). RIM is sticking with their own proprietary operating system that they’ve developed for this tablet, and the multitasking in particular looks impressive.
We stopped by Pixel Qi’s demo room to see how the displays are improving.
The Looxcie cam shoots up to 480p VGA quality video, and is worn like a Bluetooth headset. The company has just announced plans to support lifecasting, where a user can broadcast a live video stream from their smartphone.
PixelOptics have developed glasses that can change their optical properties at the touch of a button. They even have a tiny accelerometer inside so they can switch automatically between reading and distance settings.
iRobot has shrunk the Scooba to about half the original size. How does it work, and how did iRobot pull it off?
Most 3-D TVs and movie theaters rely on stereoscopic images to trick your visual system. But a couple of clever devices at CES provided non-stereoscopic 3-D alternatives.
This is part 2/3 of the keynote presentation by Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson on self-driving cars at IROS 2011.
University of Tsukuba AI Lab researchers are using a wireless headband that detects smiles and frowns to coach robots how to do tasks.