Showing posts with label Robot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robot. Show all posts
RoBoHon is the world's first robotic mobile phone. It's concept is given by Sharp and engineer Tomotaka Takahashi, inventor of first robot astronaut 'Kirobo'. It is a smartphone which looks like a robot. RoBoHon, a pocket-size walking and dancing robot, started sale on Thursday in Japan at a starting price of 198,000 yen ($1,800 roughly Rs. 1.21 lakhs).
To mark the launch, and to let the users use it the Osaka-based company opened the RoBoHon Cafe in Tokyo where visitors can test the robot until June 7.
Sharp says it is a “phone you have never seen before… a phone in human shape.” The smartphone which looks like a Robot toy lets users check emails and other text on a screen at its back.
Special feature of phone is it can walk up to you when there is an incoming call, it can remind you of an important event, can be a standalone camera, project videos, photos or maps. RoBoHon is just fun to have around.
The Japanese electronics manufacturing company is producing 5,000 units per month. Company is aiming to be the leader of this type of mobile after sealing a takeover agreement with the Taiwanese company Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, otherwise known for assembling iPhones and iPads for Apple.
RoBoHon's standing height is 19.5cm and weighing all of 390 grams, RoBoHoN supports various connectivity options LTE and Wi-Fi with 1.2GHz quad-core processor. Despite its large size, the display is a tiny 2-inch QVGA.
It also offers a wide range of applications based on conversation with the android.
RoBoHon can also recognise faces of people using its front camera and then address them by their name.
London, April 12 : Humanoid robotics and computer avatars may help rehabilitate people suffering from social disorders such as schizophrenia or social phobia in the near future, finds new research.
A team from European universities created a system to enable a robot or computer avatar to interact with a patient while playing a version of the mirror game, in which two players try to copy each other's motion while playing with coloured balls that can move horizontally on a string.
Initially, the avatar was like an alter ego, created to look and move like the patient to enhance his or her feelings of attachment. But over time it was slowly altered to become less similar, therefore, helping with social rehabilitation.
The team found that players sharing similar movement features or motor signature, interacted and coordinated better.
This experiment can be used for rehabilitation of patients with serious social disorders as an avatar can be created to act like an alter ego, programmed to look and move like the patient to enhance his or her feelings of attachment, said the authors in a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
"It is very challenging to build an avatar that is intelligent enough to synchronise its motion with a human player, but our initial results are very exciting," said Mario di Bernardo from University of Bristol.
The team used the principles of dynamical systems and feedback control theory to embed the avatar with enough "intelligence" to synchronise and respond to the motion of the human player.
The next step would be to build on the technology and set-up multiple human-machine interaction for social rehabilitation and make groups of people and avatars interact with each other to perform joint tasks together.
A man created his own life-like robot and, while he won't confirm who his inspiration was, it has a clear resemblance to "Avengers" actress Scarlett Johansson.
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| (Photo : Jason Merritt/Getty Images) |
Ricky Ma, a graphic designer, spent over $50,000 and over a year creating Mark 1, a female robot prototype that was designed to look like an actress he won't name but strongly resembles Johansson.
The robot, which was mostly made by using 3D printed technology, has blonde hair, hazel eyes, plump lips and similar facial features to the 31-year-old actress.
"When I was a child, I liked robots. Why? Because I liked watching animation," said Ma. "All children loved it. There were Transformers, cartoons about robots fighting each other and games about robots."According to Ma, a lot of people told him that besides being extremely expensive it would be too hard to make his own robot but he was up for the challenge.
Ma hopes that his prototype will be bought so that he can have the funds to make more and also wants to write a book about the experience.
The robot responds to programmed commands and makes a variety of facial expressions. She also moves her arms, legs, turns her head and bows.
When told that she is beautiful, Mark 1 will respond with a laugh and say "Thank you."
Check out the video below to see the robot in action.
The robot, which was mostly made by using 3D printed technology, has blonde hair, hazel eyes, plump lips and similar facial features to the 31-year-old actress.
"When I was a child, I liked robots. Why? Because I liked watching animation," said Ma. "All children loved it. There were Transformers, cartoons about robots fighting each other and games about robots."According to Ma, a lot of people told him that besides being extremely expensive it would be too hard to make his own robot but he was up for the challenge.
Ma hopes that his prototype will be bought so that he can have the funds to make more and also wants to write a book about the experience.
The robot responds to programmed commands and makes a variety of facial expressions. She also moves her arms, legs, turns her head and bows.
When told that she is beautiful, Mark 1 will respond with a laugh and say "Thank you."
Check out the video below to see the robot in action.
1.iPad 2 Gold History Edition
This one is definitely at the more expensive end of this list – you would need £5 million to get your hands on this diamond encursted iPad with a 24 carat gold Apple logo.
Designer Stuart Hughes is known for turning Apple products into ridiculously expensive gadgets – the 53 individually placed gems in this one are bound to attract bling lovers.
2. A hovercraft
Yes, we thought we’d start you off with one of the more ridiculous toys out there. For a very reasonable price of around £112,000 you could have your very own hovercraft to send you flying over land and water at up to 70 mph.
This insanely expensive half-boat half-flying-car is actually available from Hammacher Schlemmer – so if you have a spare £100,000 then you can check it out.
3. iPhone 5 Black Diamond — $15 million
Made using 135 gram solid gold of 24 carat, the $15 million iPhone 5 Black Diamond took nine weeks to build. The chassis was inlaid with 600 white diamonds, while the Apple logo on the back boasts of 53 of these gems. Apart from these precious materials, this phone also utilizes sapphire in the screen.
The highlight of this black-and-gold iPhone 5 is the single, flawless black deep-cut diamond that has replaced the home button. Weighing 26-carat, this black diamond belonged to a Chinese business man who commissioned this phone from luxury product maker Stuart Hughes.
4. Camael Diamonds iPad — $1.2 million
Diamonds are a girl’s best friends, goes the saying. How about a diamond-encrusted iPad worth $1.2 million? This gadget is crafted with 18-carat gold and has 300-carat diamonds on the back. The Home button in the front and the Apple logo on the back are made using black diamonds. Made by Camael London, this gadget weighs over 1kg.
5. Ecosse Titanium Series FE Ti XX Motorcycle: $300,000
Yes, there is the $555,000 Dodge Tomahawk that can compete as the world’s most expensive motorcycle. But it technically has four wheels! Many have christened the Ecosse Titanium Series FE Ti XX Motorcycle as the world’s most expensive motorcycle. It gives other motorbikes a run for their money with its price tag of $300,000 and a high-end titanium chassis fit with carbon fiber wheels. This motorcycle also delivers 210-foot pounds of pure torque.
6. The Emperor Chair
We’ve written about this before but it’s just hard to get over how epic ‘The Emperor Chair’ sounds, right? Just imagine sitting in a £12,700 chair with five PC monitors held up by the “scorpian tail”.
The Emperor Chair (yes you have to say the full name every time) supposedly provides total office comfort, has a built-in Bose sound system and, let’s face it, is just undeniably awesome. this one is for the secret film villain inside all of us.
7. 201-carat gold watch
Take a guess – how many diamonds do you think feature on this watch? 50, 100? Oh no – it’s actually a whopping 874 diamonds. Underneath it’s just a watch, there’s no other functionality other than telling the time. We’re willing to bet than it feels pretty heavy on your wrist.
Due to the number of diamonds we’re sure you won’t be surprised to hear the price tag – this is available for almost £15 million.
8. A killer whale submarine boat
Some millionaires might have a boat – but you? Oh you have something on a whole different level. This is what all the rich and famous want – at least it should be anyway.
For around £59,000 you could have a killer whale submarine boat, or a shark boat – basically you can have the king of boats.
Seabreacher claims to build the ‘ultimate diving machines’ and we’re inclined to believe them. In these you can dive, roll, jump and just generally do water acrobatics – all while looking like one of the most majestic creatures of the ocean. Sign me up now.
9. The BBQ boat
This isn’t just any boat – oh no – this is a 10-seater, built-in barbeque grill boat for floating parties. There’s storage, an umbrella to shade you from all that blazing sun (because obviously you’ll be somewhere far sunnier if you win the lottery) and a motor to take you out to where ever you want to be.
The motor on this expensive gadget has four rechargeable batteries too, so there’s not much of a time limit on how long you can spend in one of these in a day. £30,000 well spent? Maybe, just maybe.
10. Bulletproof air-conditioned suit
If you have a spare £1.9 million then
Tweet this!this suit is bound to make you feel like a total James Bond. This is on our list as surely anything with built-in air conditioning counts as a gadget – it’s certainly more than just a suit.
It’s diamond encrusted – 880 black diamonds to be precise – made with bulletproof fabric, and has steel, black diamond encrusted buttons. The lining of the suit is even designed by an artist from Costa Rica. Just imagine wearing this and sitting in the ‘Emperor Chair’.
11. A disappearing swimming pool
This is the James Bond of pools – to match your suit of course. Certain gadgets like this actually make quite a lot of sense though – this pool disappears when you’re not using it to reduce the risk of someone falling in. So you wouldn’t have to worry about your kids running around the pool.
It’ll still cost you – around £40,000 to be precise – but it would also look nice in your mountain surrounded mansion, right? Go on, splash out – you and your beautiful world need this.
12. A giant robot warrior
So that when the apocolypse hits, or robots take over the world – you have the ultimate weapon. These are totally customisable too, so they can be camoflaged, have water guns installed in the hands, or you could even be practical and have it made into a house-cleaning pro.
That’s right, your own robot warrior would cost you just £785,800 – a small price to pay for such amazing technology surely?! We actually think this looks pretty terrifying, especially when you consider that this is one of the most expensive gadgets on this list.
13. The Kohler Numi Toilet System: $6,400
For the rich and powerful, it is not enough to take care of your excretions through normal means. The Kohler Numi breaks all boundaries when it comes to toilet systems with this contraption worth $6,400. This unit has a touchscreen interface and a smart bidet for easier cleaning. The seat is also heated and there is a vent underneath that blows warm air for additional comfort.
14. Victorinox 1TB Swiss Army Knife: $3,000
We know Swiss knives should be everything you need in a nice and neat package. With the advent of the digital revolution, why not include a thumb drive with it? This is the new feature of the upcoming Victorinox 1TB Swiss Army Knife. Yes, that’s one terabyte of data storage in a little bundle in the comforts of your pocket.
For practical purposes, the USB 2.0 thumb drive can be detached from the Swiss Knife so that there won’t be a dangling hazard each time you have to transfer files. But for a thumb drive with a few practical knives and features, are you really willing to shell out $3,000?
15. A Dark Knight home cinema
I suppose this is a combination of gadgets, but the end result is just incredible. Your luxury mountain-surrounded mansion with secret swimming pool, bulletproof suit and Emperor Chair just isn’t complete with a Dark Knight home cinema (do tell us when we’re getting too carried away).
Built at a cost of around £1.2 million, this Batman themed cinema has a 180 inch screen – framed with Batsuits, obviously – and has a stainless steel life and secret escape tunnel. The best bit about it – the company behind it all has created Star Wars and Titanic-themed home cinemas too. You could basically have whatever you want.
Immune Engineering
Genetically engineered immune cells are saving the lives of cancer patients. That may be just the start. Breakthrough Killer T cells programmed to wipe out cancer. Why It Matters Cancer, multiple sclerosis, and HIV could all be treated by engineering the immune system.
Key Players in Immune Therapies
Genetically engineered immune cells are saving the lives of cancer patients. That may be just the start. Breakthrough Killer T cells programmed to wipe out cancer. Why It Matters Cancer, multiple sclerosis, and HIV could all be treated by engineering the immune system.
Key Players in Immune Therapies
- Cellectis
- Juno Therapeutics
- Novartis
Precise Gene Editing in Plants
CRISPR offers an easy, exact way to alter genes to create traits such as disease resistance and drought tolerance. Breakthrough The ability to cheaply and precisely edit plant genomes without leaving foreign DNA behind. Why It Matters We need to increase agricultural productivity to feed the world’s growing population, which is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050.
Key Players in Engineering Crops
- The Sainsbury Laboratory and John Innes Centre, Norwich, U.K.
- Seoul National University
- University of Minnesota
- Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Beijing
Conversational Interfaces
Powerful speech technology from China’s leading Internet company makes it much easier to use a smartphone. Breakthrough Combining voice recognition and natural language understanding to create effective speech interfaces for the world’s largest Internet market.Why It Matters It can be time-consuming and frustrating to interact with computers by typing.
Key Players in Voice Recognition and Language Processing
- Baidu
- Apple
- Nuance
Reusable Rockets
Rockets typically are destroyed on their maiden voyage. But now they can make an upright landing and be refueled for another trip, setting the stage for a new era in spaceflight.
Breakthrough Rockets that can launch payloads into orbit and then land safely.
Why It Matters Lowering the cost of flight would open the door to many new endeavors in space.
Key Players in the New Space Industry
Rockets typically are destroyed on their maiden voyage. But now they can make an upright landing and be refueled for another trip, setting the stage for a new era in spaceflight.
Breakthrough Rockets that can launch payloads into orbit and then land safely.
Why It Matters Lowering the cost of flight would open the door to many new endeavors in space.
Key Players in the New Space Industry
- SpaceX
- Blue Origin
- United Launch Alliance
Robots That Teach Each Other
What if robots could figure out more things on their own and share that knowledge among themselves?
Breakthrough Robots that learn tasks and send that knowledge to the cloud for other robots to pick up later.Why It Matters Progress in robotics could accelerate dramatically if each type of machine didn’t have to be programmed separately.
Key Players in Advanced Robotics
- Ashutosh Saxena, Brain of Things
- Stefanie Tellex, Brown University
- Pieter Abbeel, Ken Goldberg, and Sergey Levine, University of California, Berkeley
- Jan Peters, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
DNA App Store
An online store for information about your genes will make it cheap and easy to learn more about your health risks and predispositions.
Breakthrough A new business model for DNA sequencing that will make genetic information widely accessible online. Why It Matters Your genome determines a great deal about you, including your likelihood of getting certain diseases.
Key Players in Consumer Genomics
An online store for information about your genes will make it cheap and easy to learn more about your health risks and predispositions.
Breakthrough A new business model for DNA sequencing that will make genetic information widely accessible online. Why It Matters Your genome determines a great deal about you, including your likelihood of getting certain diseases.
Key Players in Consumer Genomics
- Helix
- Illumina
- Veritas Genetics
Solar City’s Giga-factory
A $750 million solar facility in Buffalo will produce a gigawatt of high-efficiency solar panels per year and make the technology far more attractive to homeowners.
Breakthrough Highly efficient solar panels made using a simplified, low-cost manufacturing process.
Why It Matters The solar industry needs cheaper and more efficient technology to be more competitive with fossil fuels.
Key Players in Photostatic
- Solar City
- Sun Power
- Panasonic
Slack
A service built for the era of mobile phones and short text messages is changing the workplace. Breakthrough Easy-to-use communication software that is supplanting e-mail as a method of getting work done. Why It Matters In many kinds of workplaces, the “water cooler” effect that lets people overhear their colleagues’ conversations can enhance productivity.
Key Players in Communication Software
- Slack
- Quip
- Hip-chat
- Microsoft
Tesla Autopilot
The electric-vehicle maker sent its cars a software update that suddenly made autonomous driving a reality. Breakthrough A car that drives itself safely in a variety of conditions.
Why It Matters Car crashes caused by human error kill thousands of people a day worldwide.
Key Players in Autonomous Driving
- Ford Motor
- General Motors
- Nissan
- Mercedes
- Tesla Motors
- Toyota
- Uber
- Volvo
Power from the Air
Internet devices powered by Wi-Fi and other telecommunications signals will make small computers and sensors more pervasive.v Breakthrough Wireless gadgets that re-purpose nearby radio signals, such as Wi-Fi, to power themselves and communicate.
Why It Matters Freeing Internet-connected devices from the constraints of batteries and power cords will open up many new uses.
Key Players in Harvesting Radio Waves
- University of Washington
- Texas Instruments
- University of Massachusetts, Amherst
The unique way in which our fingertips can detect changes in both temperature and pressure have been reproduced in an electronic 'skin'.
In tests, the grooves in the e-skin were able to respond to water droplets running across them and could detect when a human hair was placed on their surface.
The breakthrough could be used to make more life-like prostheses or improve the accuracy of wearable sensors and medical diagnostic devices.
The electronic skin was developed by researchers at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, led by Professor Jonghwa Park.
Human skin contains unique epidermal and dermal microstructures and sensory receptors.
The microridges on the fingertip are especially designed to fine-tune perception of surface texture and transfer sensory information to the brain.
Existing electronic skin technology lets robots and robotic prostheses grasp and manipulate objects, discern the surface texture and hardness, and feel the warmth of objects.
However, electronic skins that can simultaneously detect both heat and different types of pressure with a level of high sensitivity have been a difficult to develop, until now.
Professor Park and his colleagues have designed ferroelectric films that mimic the grooved, microscopically 'mountainous' structure of human fingertip skin.
By adding composites made of a polymer and reduced graphene oxide, the films are able to detect touch and temperature using sensing electric charges.
The authors tested the e-skin's response to sensory changes created by water droplets and found that the skins can detect water falling at different pressures and temperatures.
They also found that the artificial fingertip skin could detect a tiny amount of pressure created by a human hair.
And when attached to a human wrist, Professor Park and colleagues said their e-skin can be used to monitor pulse pressure by detecting the changes in skin temperature that occur when blood vessels dilate or constrict.
Last month, researchers from Stanford University developed touch-sensitive artificial skin that not only detects pressure, but can transmit signals to nerve cells.
They hope the proof-of-concept experiment will lead to artificial hands that allow the wearer to feel different textures and distinguish between hot and cold.
Electronic SKIN can 'feel' heat and pressure at the same time: Film is so sensitive it can tell when a human hair is placed on it
- Human skin contains unique microstructures and sensory receptors
- Researchers have mimicked these structures in an electronic film
- The grooved surface is made from plastic and graphene oxide and can detect touch and temperature using electric charges
- It is so sensitive it can detect the weight of a human hair being placed on it


























