How To Tell If Your Significant Other Is A Robot [Robots]

Posted by Rosa Golijan on July 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Feeling unloved, but getting plenty of loving? This comic could be interpreted to suggest that such a situation may indicate that your significant other is a robot. [SMBC] More »

…

Filed under Gadgets, Main · Tagged with Comic, Comics, Humor, Image cache, love, relationships, Robot, Robot Love, Robots, romance, SMBC

Autom, the robot weight loss coach: we’ll just keep the friends that lie to us, thanks

Posted by Laura June on July 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Autom is a tiny robot, and he’s getting closer than ever to availability. His whole job? To coach you to lose weight… that’s right, Autom is a dieting robot. You start off by entering the details of your diet, fitness level, and exercise into Autom’…

Filed under Gadgets, Main · Tagged with autom, diet, Robot, Robots, weight loss, weight loss coach, WeightLoss, WeightLossCoach

Robot Land theme park gets investors, conceptual renders

Posted by Joseph L. Flatley on February 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Plans for the Robot Land theme park in Masan, on South Korea’s South East Coast, have been gaining momentum since we first took note way back in 2007. According to Plastic Pals, a group of private investors recently met with the city council (probably Masan’s city council, as Robot Land’s city council has yet to be built) to hash out details, with the result of the government ponying up some $229 million of a promised $600 million. But not everyone is happy about all this — indeed, organizers of Incheon City’s robot theme park are unamused by the thought of a similar attraction competing for those hard-earned tourist dollars. Of course, there’s one way to settle any potential conflict that Engadget wholeheartedly supports: Robot theme park fight! Just as long as the winner doesn’t turn on us.

Gallery: South Korea’s Robot Land theme park

Robot Land theme park gets investors, conceptual renders originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Plastic Pals | Robot Land | Email this | Comments

Filed under Gadgets, Main · Tagged with incheon city, IncheonCity, Korea, masan, Robot, robot land, RobotLand, Robots, South Korea, SouthKorea, theme park, ThemePark

DARPA job posting talks of developing an autonomous, grenade-wielding robot

Posted by Laura June on February 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment

DARPA‘s just put up a pretty interesting job posting… if you’re the wary-of-our-future-being-controlled-by-robots type, anyway. The call involves a new research and development program called ARM. Basically, DARPA’s looking to build a robot that can use its arms to dexterously and autonomously grasp objects. The quote from the job posting which is raising eyebrows around here says that the bot should be able to “hold an inert grenade with one hand, and pull the pin with the other hand” without any direction from humans. Now, we’re not really trying to hit the alarmist angle, and we’re all for advancements in robot tech… but it seems to us we’d have less to worry about if the job posting had said “should be able to hold a kitten in one hand, and pet it with the other.” Right guys?

DARPA job posting talks of developing an autonomous, grenade-wielding robot originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Plastic Pals | Federal Business Office | Email this | Comments

Filed under Gadgets, Main · Tagged with arm, autonomous, Darpa, hand, hands, Robot, Robots, terminator

Robonica Roboni-i programmable robot toy review

Posted by Richard Lai on February 4, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Life became duller ever since FedEx took away our last annoying little robot, so we got our hands on a new but less chatty plastic companion — say hi to Robonica‘s Roboni-i programmable robot. Since its last Engadget appearance we’ve seen a drastic price drop from the original $299.95 to $159.95 at Hammacher Schlemmer, but the robot is no less awesome — those unique wheels alone deliver plenty of coolness already, not to mention the bunch of peculiar accessories in the box for games and even interaction with other fellow Roboni-is. Read on to find out if this bot’s a keeper.

Gallery: Robonica Roboni-i robot toy review

Continue reading Robonica Roboni-i programmable robot toy review

Robonica Roboni-i programmable robot toy review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Filed under Gadgets, Main · Tagged with bot, features, hammacher schlemmer, HammacherSchlemmer, programmable robot, ProgrammableRobot, review, roboni-i, robonica, Robot, robot toy, Robots, RobotToy, rolling robot, RollingRobot, Toy

Evolving robots navigate a maze, help each other, plot descruction of mankind

Posted by Darren Murph on February 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Evolving_robots_navigate_a_maze_help_each_other’; You’ll say the whole Robot Apocalypse meme is played out. We say it’s your lack of focus that’ll eventually be the downfall of society. Gurus at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne have been working on “evolving robots” for quite some time, but the latest breakthrough is easily the most astounding (and in turn, terrifying) of all. According to new research that was just made public, a gaggle of robots programmed to use Darwinian selection in order to learn, evolve and mutate have now successfully moved sans collisions through a maze and helped each other push tokens around in order to achieve a common goal. Moreover, some of the creatures even displayed early signs of a predatory-prey relationship, which effectively assures mankind that these cute little learners will one day assimilate to rule the world however they please. Keep laughing if you must — it’ll probably make the painful sting of reality a bit easier to take when Doomsday rolls around.

Continue reading Evolving robots navigate a maze, help each other, plot descruction of mankind

Evolving robots navigate a maze, help each other, plot descruction of mankind originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashdot | PLoS Biology | Email this | Comments

Filed under Gadgets, Main · Tagged with Altruistic, darwin, evolution, learn, learning, mutations, neural, Research, Robot, robot apocalypse, RobotApocalypse, Robots, Science, sensor, sensors, University

Splitterbot Headphone Splitter Makes Sharing Music Even Cuter [Accessories]

Posted by Dan Nosowitz on July 31, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Some gadgets scream out for an adorability upgrade, like netbooks or Roombas. Headphone splitters aren’t exactly one of them, but Splitterbot is too cute to deny.

As much as there’s nothing more adorable than sharing one pair of earbuds, one bud per person, sometimes you just gotta have the full stereo. Splitterbot is here to keep the cuteness factor up while retaining superior sound quality. You have to pop his head off to reveal the audio-in jack, and then the two pairs of ‘phones are plugged directly into the little guy’s eyes. That sounds way more grotesque than cute, now that I write it, but probably in practice it’s not quite so gruesome. Splitterbot is available for $16, because cuteness demands a slight premium. [Product Page via Nerd Approved]

Filed under Gadgets · Tagged with Accessories, adorable, Audio, Cute, Earbuds, headphone splitter, Headphones, Robots, Splitter, Splitterbot

Insecure Emo Robot Musician Needs Our Attention [Robots]

Posted by Dan Nosowitz on July 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Cybraphon is an interactive, internet-connected musical art project that’s sort of a riff on insecure emo bands—when more people online discuss it, it plays happier music, and when it’s not getting enough attention, it gets melodramatic.

Created by Scottish musical collective Found, Cybraphon is basically a collection of mechanical instruments in a box, including some acoustic instruments and a whole lot of junk machinery. It constantly searches the internet and adjusts its “mood” between depressed and ecstatic by such vapid statistics as number of Myspace friends and Facebook invites. Its mood is then demonstrated by the tone of the music it plays, from dirgey melodrama to perky upbeat tones.

It’s a really cheeky and fun project, and we’re in a unique position here to overflow the Cybraphon’s happiness sensors by bombarding its social networking pages with hits. Let’s make the cabinet-sized whiner as cheerful as it can possibly be. [Cybraphon]

Filed under Gadgets · Tagged with Art, Cybraphon, Emo, Facebook, Indie, Internet, Music, Myspace, Robots, Scotland

The Broomba Self-Propelled Broom For Harry Potter Fans [Robots]

Posted by Sean Fallon on July 21, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Unfortunately, the Broomba doesn’t clean up after you like a Roomba might, but it does travel autonomously around the room cackling and playing scary music.

As menacing as that sounds, this evil can be stopped in it’s tracks by carpet, stairs and / or a gentle push. It can also be humiliated by children attempting to play Quidditch. [Grandinroad via TGH via OhGizmo via Likecool]