It is becoming increasingly common for countries to now deploy autonomous robotic solidiers to conduct their modern day wars. Today we take a look at 5 types of robots that are helping eliminate the need of a man for the act of war. Skynet can’t be too far away?

1. Robobug: The British defense and aerospace company BAE Systems have created small electronic insects, spiders and snakes that have the ability to enter places before combat soldiers and electronically report back what’s inside.  BAE signed a multi-million dollar contract to develop the robots for the U.S. Army.

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2. RoboDog: The US army is poised to unleash the dogs of war – four-legged, petrol-powered robots to help its troops in battle. Billed as ‘the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth’, BigDog has been devised to support American troops by carrying up to four packs of equipment on awkward terrain unsuitable for wheeled vehicles. Standing at over 2ft tall and more than 3ft long, BigDog comes equipped with all manner of high-tech gadgets, including laser gyroscopes, a video camera sensor system and a sophisticated on-board computer – but, sadly, no wagging tail.

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3. The firebots: The bots - which were used to detonate bombs in Afghanistan - have been converted and are now being used to tackle dangerous fires across London. Defence company Qinetiq say the robots will protect fire fighters and minimise disruption to travellers by reducing delays on major transport systems. After assessing the risk, LFB officers can call out the team of robots some of which range from a small, stair-climbing unit which has video and thermal image cameras to ones with water hoses and giant claws on.

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4. The Marathon robots: How do you make sniper target practice more helpful and more fun? By shooting at Segway robots, of course. To train its snipers in realistic conditions, the Australian Department of Defence enlisted the help of Marathon Robotics of Sydney, Australia, to set up a course populated by Segways with plastic, 3D, human-size dummies onboard.

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5. Robot Swords: The army’s machine-gun wielding, insurgent-slaying robot SWORDS is no longer spraying foes with hot doom in Iraq. Actually, it never had the chance to notch a single frag, and never will. Apparently, there was an incident where “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move,” meaning it totally pointed somewhere it wasn’t supposed to—like at friendlies, which resulted in recall from the field and might’ve set the program back 10-20 years, according to the Army’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey.

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Researchers at UC Berkeley used Willow Garage’s PR2 robot to fold towels. The UCB programming used some innovative visual scanning techniques, allowing the PR2 to pick up a towel, find its corners, and fold it on a table perfectly. According to the paper presented at the 2010 ICRA (PDF), the robot successfully completed 50 out of 50 attempts to fold a single towel, and also folded 5 out of 5 towels when they were presented in a group. Is watching a robot do laundry really that exciting? Hell yes — wait until you see the video!

UC Berkeley used a Willow Garage robot to develop their own sophisticated robotics program. That validates the whole premise of the PR2 — faster development by letting researchers use a common platform. Score one for open source robotics!

The Arneis robot arm is equipped with a marker pen, to perform writing and drawing actions.  It can produce several thousand portraits a day (it’s not all about clean tech entrepreneurs) and share it’s creations with the audience (as seen in the video above).

The robot receive input from a camera eye and draws whatever is seen thorough the camera. Portrait artists look out Arneis is coming to a street corner near you soon…

The washing-up is piling up in the kitchen, you are too tired to get up and make dinner or even just grab a beer - do not fear! Those crazy Robots from Japan are here. They will take care of your cooking needs, supply you with drinks and even wake you up for work…Here are five robots every lazy person wishes they could command!

1. Motoman Robot: Fancy breakfast in bed? Robots could soon be taking over kitchens up and down the country if the impressive Motoman is anything to go by. The industrial robot expertly flipped and cooked a Japanese pancake on a hotplate during a demonstration at an exhibition in Osaka. Built by engineers from the Japanese giant Yaskawa Electric, the SDA10 has ‘human-like’ flexibility of movement. Both its arms can work together or independently and the robot can operate in confined spaces. The Motoman robot can also be used for more traditional tasks such as assembling and packaging items as heavy as 20kg as well as complex handling that could once only be done by people.
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2. Kitchen Robot: Professors at Tokyo University have developed a robot that can help out around the house. Its movements are jerky and not very fast, but this robot can pour a cup of tea and even wash the cup afterwards. Because really, if you’re gonna invest four years of your life into a robot, your primary goal should be getting it to do the least exciting things possible. Why not build a robot that sits in a chair and reads a book?

   

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3. Twendy-One Robot: Have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? Japanese scientists have developed a robot who can help you do just that - AND bring breakfast to your table. The 17-stone robot called Twendy-One was developed at Waseda University in Tokyo. Built with arms and hands the size ‘of an average adult female’, Twendy has enough strength to support humans as they sit up and stand, and can pick up and manipulate delicate objects such as a drinking straw.
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4. El E Robot: The nuances and imprecise nature of human language pose big challenges for developers looking to advance voice control technology of helper robots, but researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found an effective way to circumvent verbal communication by instructing a robot to fetch items under direction of a laser pointer.
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5. ApriAttenda Robot: Japanese society is already hedging its bets in the face of a rapidly declining population with the promise of robot workers. The latest addition to Japan’s emerging service class is the updated version of the ApriAttenda, created by Toshiba. At just one meter tall, the robot can open doors, handle trays and drinks and comes equipped with cameras in its three-fingered hands. The robot is expected to join the ranks of day care and nursing robots being designed to meet the needs of the graying populace. Shown below is the ApriAttenda being trained by one of the humans it will soon replace.

Info From 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Looking Good! Soundwave, Devastator & Jetfire are all confirmed to be in Transformers 2.

Even though I can’t wait to see the new The Day the Earth Stood Still and see the updated Gort terrorize us with his planet love, the film will be overshadowed by the lameness of: Keanu Reeves.
No matter how many microbots Gort becomes, his shiny metal coolness will still be overpowered by the pure evil of Keanus’ acting.
Why can’t we just have a whole film of robot induced destruction and no Reeves? why…

The Tokyo toy show is in full swing and we are not there …….aarggh!

The i-sobot @ 2.28 looks like it is going to be a big deal when released (hype?). The one shown in the video is the standard edition which is available any day now ($258). There is also a cam i-sobot scheduled for release in October. It can send pics to your PC or phone via WiFi and is voice activated ($344).

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Meet HRP-3 Promet Mk-II from Kawada Industries. A robot which will eventually replace many manual jobs performed by humans today. On the market for a cool $3 million he can handle rain, slippery surface, use tools.

The math doesn’t ad up but still would be very cool to have a robot workforce. Wait we have that already we are the robotic workforce!!!

Unplug Now……….

Great video on Robot Culture in Japan by TokyoEye. Info on where to buy your robot kits in Tokyo and where to meet up with other robot otaku enthusiasts. Also features quite possibly the coolest arcade robot game you have ever seen.

Hasbro are releasing a series of toy electronics that turn into robots known as the ‘The Real Gear Transfomers’ ala Soundwave style as a tie in with the Transformer Movie (release date July 4th).

Some real world functionality wouldn’t have gone a miss ie: the camera turning into a usb webcam (one for the toy mashup/homebrew makers). From what I can find on the Transformers website they will be relased same day as the Movie itself. Source - Engadget