When you first see the I-FAIRY, it’s exciting. It’s exciting because the I-FAIRY has sturdy looking legs, and looks like it can stand up and maybe even walk around. Buuuut, it can’t. It’s all a big lie. It can move its head and arms and swivel its torso back and forth, but all its really designed to do is sit there and provide information. Which is okay, I guess… You provide it with a bunch of prerecorded audio and it will detect when people are standing in front of it and start talking, automatically generating its own movement program as it does so.

And it has light up eyes. Yay!

I-FAIRY is brought to you by Kokoro, a part of Sanrio Group. Yep, Hello Kitty does robots.

[ Kokoro ]

Danger Room already made the joke about this thing looking like a Star Wars landspeeder, but whatever you think it looks like, it is pretty sweet. Hovering on two giant ducted fans, the drone (from Israeli company Urban Aeronautics) is designed to be an unmanned cargo hauler and ambulance. It recently completed hover tests, and the next step is to get it moving around on its own… I hope it has a better time of it than this thing did.

[ Urban Aeronautics ] VIA [ Danger Room ]

Paro: Paro is still as cute and fluffy as ever; there are no hardware updates but Paro did get approval this year from the FDA to be sold as a medical device. Your insurance company still isn’t likely to pay for one if you get sick, but they’re working on that too.

[ Paro ]

Keepon: the big news here is that Keepon is getting redesigned with a new internal structure that reduces costs by a factor of ten without sacrificing any functionality. Four figures is still not a whole lot better than five as far as you and I buying one goes, but give it another year or two and maybe we’ll see another zero (or two, please make it two) chopped off of that price.

Oh, and thanks to a night out clubbing in Vegas with Marek Michalowski, I think I’ve figured out where Keepon gets his awesome dance moves.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

[ Keepon ]

I know the following about these images: they come from the November 2009 edition of Kokoro News (which is in Japanese). The guy in the picture is Dr. Javier Movellan, and the robot next to him is “Diego-San.” They’re from the Machine Perception Laboratory at UCSD. Since I can’t read Japanese, I don’t know what this robot is for or why on Earth it has a gigantic baby head. I also don’t know why these pictures were included in the article:

Look, we’ve been over this before… You don’t. Make. Robot. Babies. Humans are hardwired to respond in a particular way to other humans in general, but more specifically when it comes to babies, and we can instantly tell when something’s wrong and it’s like a punch to the gut. Like, it’s not just mildly creepy, it’s seriously #@$*%^ up.

I’m quite sure that Diego-San is an incredible robot doing incredible research, and hopefully we’ll get more details on that, but seriously now, whoever put that head on there needs to get out of the lab a little more.

If anyone cares to translate the article and let us all know what’s going on with this thing, there’s a PDF at the read link below.

[ Kokoro News (PDF) ]
[ UCSD Machine Perception Laboratory ]

You don’t need to be a robot vacuum to be good at autonomous cleaning, and Evolution Robotics’ Mint sweeping robot is proof of this in a clever (and adorable) little package. Instead of sucking, like the XV-11 and Roombas do, the Mint is designed to use disposable Swiffer pads (wet or dry) to keep your floors clean (rather like this). Just stick a Swiffer pad on the bottom of the bot, tell it whether you want it sweeping or mopping and hit the go button (one of only three buttons on the entire robot). It couldn’t be simpler. Simplicity, really, is one of the things that’s at the heart of the Mint: it’s very easy to set up and very easy to operate, because if it’s any harder than just busting out the Swiffer broom and doing it yourself, it’s useless.

Despite the simple way in which it operates, the Mint has some clever stuff going on under the hood. To figure out where it is, the Mint uses the NorthStar system (the same system that WowWee uses), which is a small projector that throws a couple of infrared spots up on your ceiling. A sensor on the top of the Mint can see those spots, and from their relative position and orientation, judge its location fairly accurately. The Mint also uses other sensors (like an inertial measurement unit, a bumper, and some proximity detectors) to get around, so it’s not a problem if it can’t see the NorthStar most of the time.

We got an overview of a bunch of the Mint’s features from an Evolution Robotics engineer at CES this week, check it out:

As he said, the Mint should be available in Q3 (Q4 retail) for somewhere around (but under) $250.

Press release vid, after the jump. (Read more…)

Next door to CES is the Adult Entertainment Expo, and as a journalist, it’s my obligation to go. And I heard that the world’s first sex robot was going to be making its (her?) debut. The official press conference is on Saturday, and they’re saving the actual robot features until then, but I spent about 10 minutes interviewing the CEO of True Companion about the robot to get an overview and some background.

We’ve got a video after the break that’s probably NSFW, since it shows a scantily clad (but not naked) android and there is some mild discussion of sex. I’d probably call it PG-13, but certainly not R or X. If this type of thing bothers you, no worries, just skip this post. (Read more…)

We covered the Neato Robotics XV-11 robot vacuum in detail back in December, and last night at Digital Experience here at CES we got a chance to check it out in person. Just to recap, the Neato is unlike most other robot vacuums in that it isn’t a gussied up Roomba knockoff but rather an original design, the flagship feature of which is a laser based room navigation system that can clean much faster and more efficiently than a Roomba’s pseudo-random patterns. Check out our earlier post for more details, or just watch the demo, narrated by Neato Robotics CEO Max Safai:

Notice how the XV-11 finished cleaning its little area in exactly the time of the demo… That’s precision PR, folks. Seriously though, it’s striking just how different the XV-11′s cleaning technique is from a Roomba. It undocks, looks around the room, and then makes one circuit around the wall (notice how precisely it avoids its dock) followed by an overlapping pattern to cover the center of the floor. And then, it’s done. It moves slower than a Roomba does, but since it knows where it’s been and where it’s going, overall it cleans much, much faster.

The XV-11 only has one brush on the bottom, and it’s supposed to be really good at not getting all kinds of stuff tangled up in it. The dustbin is fairly spacious, and lifts out of the top of the robot, making it somewhat easier to access without either having to lift the robot or get dirt all over the floor, as with a Roomba.

It remains to be seen how well the XV-11 performs in a more realistic environment, like my living room, which is full of furniture, hardwood to carpet transitions, electrical cables, and miscellaneous random crap all over the floor. The key here is going to be whether or not the XV-11 can actually do what the Roomba was supposed to be able to do: vacuum by itself without you having to prep the floor and pay attention to make sure that it doesn’t get stuck, try to smash things, or kill your pets.

You’ll be able to get an XV-11 in March, for $399… It’s significantly more expensive than an entry level 500 series Roomba, but it also has the potential to be a significantly better vacuum. If you have any questions, just post in the comments and I’ll get answers for ya, in person.

[ Neato Robotics ]

BTW, that iRobot patent from 2008? Neato knows about it but says it’s not a factor due to several examples of prior art.

This week is the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and BotJunkie is here, bringing all the best robot bits of it to you live and in perso. There’s going to be more robots here than ever, and since it’s the Consumer Electronics Show, these are all robots that you either can buy right now, or will be able to buy soon, unlike (sadly) much of the cool stuff we write about here on BotJunkie.

I’m also covering CES for our sister site OhGizmo, so if you’re interested in gadgety stuff, be sure to check out our coverage by clicking here.

CES runs through this Sunday, after which we’ll be back to our regular schedule of posts.

Pay attention kids: If you want to grow up to be a robot, or a robot builder, or both at the same time, listen to C-3PO:

Like robots, you should only smoke when you’re on fire. And you’d better hope that unlike robots, being on fire is not a common thing for you.

Yeah, it’s hard to top Keanu.

VIA [ Gearfuse ]

According to military budget documents, “Project Anubis” has been successfully completed. All that we really know is that Project Anubis was begun in 2008 by the Air Force Research Lab with the goal of “develop[ing] a Micro-Air Vehicle (MAV) with innovative seeker/tracking sensor algorithms that can engage maneuvering high-value targets.” In this case, successful completion probably means one of two things: either the development was completed to the satisfaction of the original goal and then the project was simply considered finished, or the project actually produced something that may be fielded.

If no operational robot came from this project, it’s only a matter of time (a short time) until one is produced. There’s no reason why it’s a technological impossibility, and tactically, it would be extremely valuable, as it would (as Danger Room points out) solve both the positive target identification and collateral damage issues that come with Predators firing guided missiles.

VIA [ Danger Room ]