Honda’s Asimo is back after taking a fall last year and literally breaking his face, when he fell down some stairs.

He is returning to the Disneyland stage, running at about 4 mph. Apparently, he is also doing a lot of interacting with a live host in the Say Hello to Honda’s ASIMO show which started on August 29. The show demonstrates all of ASIMO’s new technological advances, including his new speed and artificial intelligence capabilities for human interaction.

It is the only permanent installation in North America where you can see Honda’s robot, who is smarter and more mobile then ever before. ASIMO continues to advance closer to in-home applications.

Nice to see one of our favorites back in action and better than ever.

[Gizmodo]

All the robots seem to be dancing lately. I wonder if they have a new dance show in the works. It’s beginning to get a bit competitive.

Humanoido, an online robot friend of Robots-Dreams.com wrote in to tell them about some new software he developed that converted the 4″ tall Parallax Penguin robot into a dancing machine. Check out his imitation of Mumbles from the Happy Feet movie. Pretty impressive and needless to say, the cuteness factor goes off the chart.

But the story does not end there. i-SOBOT just had to respond to that video, with a Latin number that will leave you wanting more.

So, who is the winner? Who cares? Robots are dancing! We all win!

[Robots-Dreams]

By Evan Ackerman

I love cats. It’s too bad I’m so damned allergic to the beasts. But is there really anything more satisfying than something warm and fuzzy and purring? A robot cat may be just what I need, especially one that’s touch sensitive and will purr when you rub its back. The Purring Cat also makes mewing noises when you scratch its head, and its belly moves in and out to simulate breathing. It’s only $10, probably because it doesn’t include any other features that you might enjoy in a real cat, like inexplicably deciding to try and claw your eyes out.

If you’re looking for something a bit more lifelike that will get pissed off if you abuse it, here’s a robot cat from Segatoys featuring authentic tail pulling, yowling action:

Cost: about $80.

[ Purring Cat ] VIA [ UberReview ]
[ Yumeneko ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Evan Ackerman

NEC‘s PaPeRo personal robot has recently gotten some programming enhancements that apparently allow it to write your blog posts for you. It’s not just simple speech recognition: according to (a translated version of) an NEC press release, PaPeRo listens to what you say and is capable of restructuring the text from conversation form into article form. It’s also able to recognize keywords in the conversation, and then search the internet for multimedia (including video) to include in the post. I’ll believe it when I see a blog post written by a PaPeRo… But honestly, even if it doesn’t work especially well, I’d read it anyway just because it was written by a cute little bot.

[ NEC Press Release (in Japanese) ] VIA [ GetRobo ]

Like a lot of people, I usually don’t pay attention to beer commercials. Apparently, Marketing knows this. So what did Heineken do? They merged a sexy robot and a beer keg, then threw in some dancing. Well, that got my attention.

First the sexy femme-bot (green tinted) comes on stage and does a little dance as a Heineken keg is extracted from her torso. Next, she sprouts robotic arms and pours herself a draft. As if that weren’t enough, she then proceeds to dance herself into 3 separate and equally sexy entities.

The end result? Product successfully sold to robot enthusiasts everywhere.

Keep up the good work Heineken.

By Evan Ackerman

We all know how philanthropic Bill Gates is, and it’s good to hear that he’s investing in the future. And what’s the future? That’s right, robots. Gates is throwing some of his considerable weight behind the ANTY Foundation and its “intelligent autonomous huggy robot,” Probo. According to Gates, Probo “will be used as a tele-interface to interact with [hospitalized] children on three different levels: entertainment, communication and medical treatments.” Although the robot will have some practical applications, it’s primary purpose is to give hospitalized kids a huggable friend. The first prototype should make an appearance in 2008, and although details are limited, Probo should have vision, tactile sensors, speech recognition, a mobile face to express emotions, and some form of AI that lets it recognize emotions in people.

More info on the evolutionary history of Probo after the jump. (Read more…)

Jackie shoots perfect free throws and does not miss a single basket. He has no NBA ambitions however, he is busy enough loading skids full of seed and corn at Beck’s Hybrids.

At Beck’s annual Becknology Days, he wowed crowds with his hoops skills.

The Atlanta plant is home to two robot palletizers made by Columbia Okura in Vancouver, Washington. Jackie is the only one that shoots free throws.

So, how does a pallette stacking robot become a basketball star? In just one day, an engineer at Beck’s wrote a program that gave Jackie his gift. He was even given arms with round hands.

A basketball sits at the end of a black tube. Every 5 seconds the arms grab one, then the robot moves the ball into shooting position, before being catapulted by a release plate and shot toward the 7-foot-tall basket. All the while, the Harlem Globetrotters theme song plays.

Next year they want to make him continually shoot the balls or play catch. Jackie may want to get an agent.

[Indystar]

Gordon Bennett creates these robot sculptures from a wide variety of both old and new found objects. He was inspired by Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Loewy, two visionaries of the “Modern Age” who played a large part in shaping industrial design in the 40′s and 50′s era.

When you look at his body of work, these robots scream Industrial and as with any good robot sculpture, your eye can almost see movement where there is none. As art, it does what it should do, which is take you away and bring you into the artist’s world.

Bennett doesn’t just churn them out either. His robots can take roughly a month to build, range in height from 14″ to 25″ and are made with parts that he finds where you might expect: garage sales, construction sites, garbage dumps as well the occasional basement and who knows where else. Materials include wood, metal, Bakelite, plastic, rubber, paint and even glass.

Of course, just like the parts that make them, each robot is unique and comes with a metal tag which is numbered and proves that it is an Authentic Bennett robot. Judging by his prices, which are in the thousands of dollars range, bot junkies all over are in love with Bennett’s creations. It is easy to see why.

[Bennett Robot Works]

The InRob Front Runner is a highly modified version of the Caterpillar 257 Multi Terran Loader. When I say “highly modified,” I mean that it’s capable of operating in your backyard, whether that means Baghdad or New Jersey. Not only is it teleoperated at distances of up to 3 km, but it comes with any or all of the following: armor plate, color/IR/thermal cameras, a GPS system, machine gun mounts, mine detectors, electronic jammers, riot shields, HAZMAT/corrosion protection, smoke or tear gas grenade launchers… The list goes on.

I have to say, I really like it when companies take commercially available platforms and modify them for autonomous and/or military operations. It makes sense for a lot of reasons besides cost; the most important of which may be that companies like Caterpillar already build great platforms, leaving other companies like InRob Tech to focus all of their resources on the robotic aspect, as opposed to trying to custom design a dedicated (and inevitably way more expensive and less durable) platform of their own.

[ InRob Front Runner ] VIA [ Crave ]

Here is a story that is sure to make robots everywhere itch.

This bot has the ability to leap like a flea in it’s quest to cover vast areas of ground as it sniffs for pollution. Developed to detect mercury poisoning in the ground, it leaps about the way a flea would.(But looks much cooler. And doesn’t bite.)

The little palm sized creature measures about 10cm long and weighs in at 80g. Researchers at the University of Lucca debuted it in Switzerland during a symposium.

It’s creators believe that tiny robots like this are far more efficient than the larger variety at searching huge areas of land in a shorter time. This is just the latest in a long line of robots that mimic real life, animal behavior. Efficiency is just one way in which it is paying off.

Many of the nature documentaries that we watch are filmed with the help of small robots like this, enabling them to get up close and personal.

Try to watch your step while out and about. These bots are expensive!

[Axcess News]