Exmovere Holding company’s Chariot system is a sort of wrap-around Segway that turns your lower half into a robot on wheels. You control it intuitively by moving your torso around inside the machine; this lets you keep your hands free and concentrate on other things. Although you can simply step into the Chariot and go, it was specifically designed to help members of the US army, to “offer dignity, strength and increased mobility to those who were wounded serving our country.” That sounds great, except I’m not entirely sure about the dignity part at this point. Ever seen someone tooling around on a Segway? Not especially dignified.

The top speed of the current version is about 12 mph, but Exmovere is working on a “performance-oriented Chariot” that will either be faster or incorporate machine guns or something like that. No word as of yet on price or availability, but we’ll keep you updated.

Oh, and we should probably mention that while what you see in the above video is almost certainly fake, the design itself seems to be legit. Engadget did some digging and found that the thing in the video is the bottom have of a Showbots robot suit. Go figure.

[ Exmovere Press Release ] VIA [ Daily Mail ]

Finally, it’s a Roomba knockoff from Asia that appears not to be a Roomba knockoff! The CW100 robot vacuum has been developed not by a robotics company, but by a telecom (KTF), for use with their 3G mobile phones. Although the robot is autonomous like a Roomba, you can send it commands to clean specific areas at specific times. You can also control it more directly, and it will stream live video back to your phone, which sounds like an awesome feature if it works. Like, awesome enough that it makes me start to wonder what’s so great about my Roomba after all…

The CW100 is going to be exported to France through a partnership with France Telecom. From the sound of things, the robot is sort of like an exclusive cell phone: it’s a reason for you to sign up with a specific carrier. The price really isn’t that bad, either… The robot itself is about $370, plus about $3.70 per month for the video feature.

[ KTF ] VIA [ Unwired View ]

[Update- Norri Kageki from GetRobo explains it all in her comment below]

Um, yeah. Bear with me here… The way the God-Jesus Robot apparently works is that you pray to it for romantic advice, and then it either nods or shakes its head to tell you what to do. If anyone reads Japanese, please post what it says on the box (it’s in the link below) in the comments, because I can only imagine that the actual instructions are even weirder.

[ Toyranch ] VIA [ Commeantenna ] (who found it via John Hodgman’s Twitter feed, of all places)

Looks like Stanford has a couple different bots in the fire when it comes to climbing with claws. There’s RiSE, and there’s also SpinyBot, who climbs with spiny legs instead of gripper claws. SpinyBot works sort of like StickyBot, except using claws that are on the micro scale instead of the nano scale. Each leg has a foot with 10 toes, and 2 spines on each toe. SpinyBot itself weighs 400 grams (including an onboard video camera), and can climb any surface with a high enough density of little porous spineholds, which includes stucco, brick, and concrete.

[ Spinybot ]

Despite their many advantages, fuel cells (which are powered by hydrogen) may not yet be ready for mainstream consumption, due (among other things) to the noticeable lack of a hydrogen distribution system. But if you’re the navy, who cares? The ION Tiger UAV is powered by a 500 watt fuel cell generator, which besides being good for the environment (which as we all know is the primary focus of our armed forces) has a high power density in a small package and is practically silent. It also doesn’t produce a lot of heat, meaning that the ION Tiger doesn’t show up as readily on infrared. This spring, the ION Tiger is slated to make a 24 hour endurance flight with a 5 pound payload, something that “nobody can do right now.” I’m not exactly sure what ONR means when they say that no other UAVs have that capability, since Global Hawks are able to stay aloft for up to 30 hours. ‘Course, they cost like $35 million, too.

Anyway, ONR wants to take this technology and do what they always do: make it smaller, cheaper, and more powerful. Will we see any of this technology trickle down into something that would be able to power something I can use? Maybe, maybe… Unless private industry beats ONR to the punch.

[ ONR ION Tiger ]

Hexapods just keep getting better and better, don’t they? This awesome ant was designed and constructed by TRC member Zenta, and features an extremely flexible 3 DOF head, working mandibles, and a controllable abdomen. Click on through for plenty more pics and video.

[ TRC ] VIA [ Trossen ]

I won’t belabor the creepiness of this robot. You know it, I know it, and it obviously knows it… Just look at those eyes. The CB2 (Child-robot with Biomimetic Body), for all its looks, is really a sophisticated little thing. Underneath the silicone skin are almost 200 pressure sensors, and CB2 is able to associate touch with action and emotion, just like a real child. With the aid of a human mommy, CB2 has taught itself to walk, using 51 pneumatic muscles. The basic idea is really to create a robot that mimics the physical and mental learning abilities of a 2 year old child.

The grand vision of the CB2 project will terrify you: “in coming decades, [project leader Minoru] Asada expects science will come up with a “robo species” that has learning abilities somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee.” And what are they going to DO with this new robot species? Why, teach them to play soccer of course, with a goal of besting a World Cup team by 2050 (or sooner).

The end of the article at Physorg has some interesting quotes about how robots are perceived in Japan:

“Robots have hearts,” said Kokoro [a subsidiary of Sanrio] planning department manager Yuko Yokota.

“They don’t look human unless we put souls in them.

“When manufacturing a robot, there comes a moment when light flickers in its eyes. That’s when we know our work is done.”

Public opinion in Japan may be more open to robots than in the West, where dark science fiction visions from movies such as “Bladerunner” and “Terminator” have conjured images of robo-soldiers taking over the world.

Thanks to such benign cartoon characters as Astro Boy, “Japanese people have a friendly image towards robots,” said Toshiba’s Yoshimi.

Asada said Japan’s indigenous animistic belief system may also have readied people to accept human-like robots with minds of their own.

“Everything has a mind — the mind of the lamp, the mind of the chair, the soul of the desk,” he said, pointing at objects in his office.

“Therefore the machines should have their mind too. If we proceed in this study, machines may have something like a human mind or ‘robo-mind’,” he said.

It’s a good attitude to have, and it’s something that we here in the states need to work on, which is where robot education comes into play. However, I have to wonder if even the Japanese would be ready to accept CB2 into their hearts… If I saw a flicker of anything in those eyes, I might go after it with an axe.

[ Asada Lab ] VIA [ Physorg ]

There are quite a few different ways that you can become a robot, but many of them involve some kind of substantial body modification that is most of the time unpleasant in one way or another. This joint venture from MechRC and ThatsMyFace.com won’t exactly turn you into a robot, but you will be able to create a robot in your image, with an exact 3D replica of your head mounted onto a biped. All you have to do is upload a few pictures of yourself, alter your age or gender or ethnicity if you wish, and a model of your head will be sent to you atop a 17 servo MechRC humanoid robot. It’s not just your face they’re willing to put on there, either… You can order a robot with anyone’s face on it, as long as you have some decent pictures. Imagine the possibilities.

You should be able to buy a MechRC with your face on it sometime this summer, for some small premium in addition to the MechRC’s price of about $580. if you just can’t wait, ThatsMyFace.com offers all kinds of other weird products involving your face, starting at $30.

[ ThatsMyFace.com ]
[ MechRC ]

Adam, a laboratory robot created by scientists from Aberystwyth University (that’s in Wales, in case you were wondering) and the University of Cambridge, has been able to determine (more or less all by itself) which genes are responsible for several enzymes in baker’s yeast. Adam formulated a hypothesis from a database of previous research, autonomously performed genetic tests, and identified the origins of the enzymes.

Adam itself is about 17 feet long, and consists of a whole bunch of different modules connected together to allow complex lab tasks to be performed autonomously. There are freezers, incubators, washers, filters, analyzers, a bunch of robot arms, and of course all of the computer hardware and software to get everything working together the way it’s supposed to. There’s an embedded video over at Technology Review.

I have to ask, though… Is this really a scientific discovery? It’s true that Adam experimentally derived information that was not previously known. But, there have been programs sifting through data looking for exciting stuff in the field of astronomy for years, and I guess in the strict sense, all such things are scientific discoveries made by artificial intelligence. But all the discovery is, really, is the result of automated grunt work. What Adam is good at is performing a whole bunch of lab analysis that requires patience, precision, and reproducibility, testing permutations of things over and over until it hits on something relevant. The cool part about Adam, then, is its ability to reduce the huge data sets that it produces to results that mean something. Whether or not this is discovery (in a more conceptual sense) is perhaps arguable.

Personally, I would like to think that humans are capable of some kind of ineffable spark of creative genius that would be will be very hard for machines to duplicate. But perhaps I’m fooling myself… Perhaps there will soon be robots that will be able to absorb inhuman amounts of raw scientific data, analyze it, and then crank out amazing and insightful discovery after amazing and insightful discovery. Undoubtedly, this would be good for scientific progress, and good for humanity. At least, for a little while… ::cue ominous music::

Next, the researchers are working on a robot called Eve, who will be able to work in concert with Adam to search for drugs to combat malaria.

[ Robot Scientist ] VIA [ Scientific American ]

If Optimus Prime can do it, SO CAN WE!

VIA [ IWasteTooMuchTimeAtWork ]

Thanks Andrew!