Robotics

German robotics company Festo offers a postfuturist menagerie: autonomous kites, silver air-jellyfish and flying robo-penguins.

Scientists at Tokyo Tech have tapped into the neurons of a male silk moth, connecting its tiny brain to a little wheeled robot. When the moth�s sense organs are exposed to female pheremones, the robot performs the silk moth�s mating dance.

The uncanny valley is getting crowded. A female-modeled version of Geminoid, roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro's creepy android, is now appearing opposite a human actor in Japan in a short play entitled Sayonara�as in, "sayonara, humans."

Micromouse competitions are an attribute to the growing popularity of robotic entertainment. This particular competition in Chubu, Japan appears to be going normally until you hit the 4:30 mark, at which point the EggTorte bot solves the maze in less than five seconds. Its owner probably threatened it with a robotic mousetrap. According to Wikipedia, the world-record for solving a ...

AIST (Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) recently opened up their doors to the public for a few days, allowing an inside look at just how ridiculously realistic robots have become. The Actroid-F, developed by Kokoro Co. Ltd and ATR, can mimic the operators facial movements and tics with unbelievable realism. Would I be fooled into thinking ...

Coffee has all sorts of untapped potential, as we saw with the Nespresso-powered clocks and radio. DARPA takes a handful of sweet caffeine-assisted glory with this mechanical coffee grounds-filled balloon. I know, it sounds like the leftovers of a futuristic Starbucks office party, but the resulting product is actually a helpful gripper which sucks objects into its crushed coffee grounds ...

The Hoff might never have been able to seal the deal with Pam Anderson, but Emily, short for Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard, just couldn’t resist. Literally, it’s physically unable to resist. Robosexuality aside, Emily is good for more than satisfying entries on your bucket list (consider getting to third base with a tubular robot crossed off my to-dos). The four-foot ...

After hearing that one of his friends had been stung upwards of 90 times while trying to exterminate wasps from his property, Professor Sekine of Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, who was undoubtedly dealing with a wasp problem of his own, decided to come up with an easier way to conquer the problem of painful and potentially dangerous insect stings. Mohican, ...

NASA has a little treat for all of us robot and/or space junkies out there. From 8 a.m. PT (11 a.m. ET) every morning, Monday-Friday, work begins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif, as engineers carefully assemble the Curiosity Mars Rover. And you can watch them do it live with NASA’s Curiosity Cam. Other than occasional “maintenance periods” ...

At McGill University Health Centre, prostate surgery was quickly becoming just a tad too routine. So they decided to mix it up a bit. Paging, Dr. DaVinci and Dr. McSleepy! DaVinci, a widely used surgery bot which allows doctors to operate from a remote location, and McSleepy, the anesthesiologist bot, joined forces to perform the world’s first fully robotic surgery. ...