Poor Peppy. He just can’t win. Whenever he gets the green balloon, he wants the red balloon, but he can only hold one at a time. Peppy was built largely from spare parts, and while the video is self explanatory, it’s pretty amazing how Peppy’s programming translates into a very human sort of behavior. My guess is that if Peppy had a fancy case and stuff, he wouldn’t be so easy to anthropomorphize… There’s just something about a DIY robot exhibiting relatively primitive behaviors such as “want” that makes it human in a way much more complicated robots just can’t match.

[ Pi Robot ] VIA [ Trossen ]

Thanks Andrew!

We cover a lot of robots around here, and to be fair, not every one of them makes you think “yeah, I could totally use one of those around the house!” Well, I could totally use a PR2 around my house now that it can autonomously fold stuff. Not sure how I’d get it up the stairs, but anyway…

So far, UC Berkeley’s Pieter Abbeel has only taught his PR2 to fold towels and other rectangles, but the important thing is that the PR2 is entirely unfamiliar with the things that it has to fold. Just toss a pile of towels of various sizes on the table, and PR2 will pick up each item, inspect it, and figure out how it should be folded. The folding routine even ends with an adorable little pat ‘n smooth. You have to remember, too, that even though PR2 is quite an impressive robot, the capabilities are mostly in the software:

“The reliability and robustness of our algorithm enables for the first time a robot with general purpose manipulators to reliably and fully-autonomously fold previously unseen towels, demonstrating success on all 50 out of 50 single-towel trials as well as on a pile of 5 towels.”

50/50 on towel folding? Yeah, that would definitely be an upgrade in my house.

[ UC Berkeley Robot Learning Lab ] VIA [ Willow Garage @ Twitter ]

There’s one very easy way to keep a robot out of the Uncanny Valley: don’t give it a face. Take ASIMO, for example… It’s humanoid, but since it doesn’t have a face, it’s not creepy. The question, then, is how do you make a robot expressive without relying on facial expressions? This animation, from Masahiro Ushiyama, shows just exactly how that can be accomplished. It’s just an animation, of course, but real robots are also starting to use techniques like these to interact more effectively with humans. Remember PR2′s needy behavior?

Behavioral expressions don’t just offer non-creepy ways for robots to communicate with humans, they also make robots seem less robot-y, which will likely help them integrate better into environments where humans aren’t used to having robots.

Now, this is by no means an argument against robots having faces… For some things, faces are necessary. I simply think that there are disadvantages to robots with faces, and in many cases, those disadvantages would outweigh the advantages if the robots were able to effectively express themselves in other ways.

[ Masahiro Ushiyama ] VIA [ Robots Dreams ]

Wood isn’t really what comes to mind when you think of robots, which is a shame, as these beautiful toys from Takeji (Take-G) Nakagawa illustrate. At least, he calls them toys, I probably wouldn’t. Each one is hand made, and they’re really little works of art, combining the essences of natural materials and future technology. The artist, understandably proud of his work, refuses to let you buy one unless you’ve seen it in person, so you’ll have to go to Japan if you want one. Once you get there, the small figures start at $50, the medium sized ones are mid three figures, and the large figures add another zero onto that.

[ Take-G ] VIA [ DVICE ]

Back in January we posted about a couple robot movies showing at Sundance. One of them, Spike Jonze’s I’m Here, is now viewable (in its entirely) online. The movie shows every two hours, and there’s limited seating, so (just like real life) you may have to go find a coffee shop and wait for the next showing. It’s worth it, though, and you don’t have to go broke for popcorn.

[ I'm Here ] VIA [ Laughing Squid ]

It’s times like these that I’m reminded just how miserable the world was before we had robots. Before robotic dental practice patients, what poor unfortunate souls had to sit through the inept and bumbling ministrations of wet behind the ears dental students? I weep for them. Hanako here weeps too, if you screw up. Touch sensors inside her mouth allow her to give authentic wincing and gagging feedback on your dental technique. She can obey orders like “ooooooopen… wider please… wider…” and she also sneezes, coughs, drools, turns her head, and fails to understand why dentists try to ask her about her life while they’re elbow deep inside her skull.

Hanako is brought to you by a group of universities in Japan in partnership with Tmsuk, makers of your favorite net-tossing security bot.

[ NODE (Translated) ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

Kevin Kelly from Wired recently interviewed Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage from Mythbusters for the Commonwealth Club of California. As part of the interview, Adam and Jamie were asked (somewhat jokingly) whether they’re afraid that machines will take over in the future, particularly with regards to the present development of armed robots.

Now, if you’ve been reading BotJunkie for a while, you’re probably aware that this is one of my favorite subjects to harp on, and as much as I respect admire worship ::cough:: like-in-a-strictly-professional-manner Adam Savage, I won’t let you down. (Read more…)

The Robovie mR2 is not the first iPod robot that we’ve seen. Neither is it the first iPod dock/controllable robot that we’ve seen. However, it seems to be the most functional and least, uh, potentially obscene thus far. Developed at Japan’s ATR Robotics and Communication Laboratories, the Robovie mR2 has 18 servos, a 3.2 MP camera, two mics, WiFi, and speaker with a classic Japanese robot voice:

It’s not entirely clear just how the mR2 integrates with your iPod much beyond (one has to assume) charging it. Is it an app? Does it just use the phone for connectivity? Is it programmable? Really, we don’t even know what the mR2 does besides perform this demo and make a vague promise or two about its gesturing capabilities. Maybe this is why you can’t buy an mR2 yet, although ATR is actively working on commercializing it.

[ NODE (Translated) ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

Update- Honda’s Canada PR firm threatened me in a rather heavy-handed way, and I had to take the video down. ‘Cause I guess Honda has no need for good publicity or anything. Oh, Canada!

Or at least, that’s what this new commercial from Honda would have you believe. I don’t know much about Canadians, besides what everybody knows (plaid/hockey/moose/syrup/eh), but ASIMO looks like he fits right in.

Having said that, I’m curious: does this video creep you out at all? Does it seem unnatural to have ASIMO just hanging out with people, warming his hands by the fire, or hitchhiking on a lonely stretch of road? Is it weird, or is it a future you can picture comfortably (whether you’re a Canadian or not)?

[ Honda Canada ]

Thanks to the magic of the internet, you (yes YOU!) can control NIKO N900, a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot via a hacked Nokia N900 phone.

How does it work?

1. Make or login to a Twitter account
2. Tweet one of the following commands, preceded by “@N900Niko”: move forward, move backward, turn right, turn left, turn around, photo
3. In other words, to make the bot move forward, tweet “@N900Niko move forward”
4. The Nokia N900 cellphone associated with NIKO The N900 will receive your tweet within a few seconds, and translate it into a message, which is then sent to the NXT
5. The NXT interprets the message sent by the N900, and translates it into motor movement
6. Success! Your tweet has made a robot move.

I, for one, am very impressed at the success of the NIKO The N900 project- in just a few short weeks, the team has gone from a cool idea to a working robot with an idea that to my knowledge has never been done before (controlling a LEGO robot via Twitter). Kudos to the guys- keep up the good work!

[ NIKO ] VIA [ MAKE ]