It seems that Wall-e has gotten everyone thinking about robots lately. It’s no surprise really, as that was one of the best robot flicks I’ve seen in a while (does he remind anyone else of Johnny 5?). Time Magazine has caught the bot bug too, and released their 15 most adorable automatons.

I don’t know if it’s because I just watched the movie two nights ago, but I think Wall-e takes the cake on their list. If I had to pick a second favorite, it would have to be this little butler bot. Apparently he can identify the flavor and brand of a bottle using infrared rays. Make sure to check out the full gallery.

[ Time ] VIA [ Robots ]

Have you ever taken a look at one of those dancing stuffed children’s toys and wondered just what the insides look like? Well, if you’re reading this site, then it’s a safe bet that you’re not alone. (However, if you’ve ever looked at something which was alive and wondered what the insides look like, you’re definitely in the wrong place.) Artist Matt Kirkland has taken that extra step and actually opened up 25 toy robots and exposed their inner workings for all to see.

I have to say that I never really expected something so dark and menacing to come out of Barney (or maybe I did). You have to check out the full gallery, as some of those bots are just downright creepy without their furry exteriors.

[ MattKirkland ] VIA [ RobotLiving ]

Hey, did I mention that I’ve seen Wall-E and it’s the BEST MOVIE EVER?! Here’s another little featurette to whet your appetite (like it needs any more whetting):

Wall-E and Eve are cool and all, but I gotta say, M-O is my mostest favoritest bot of all. Wall-E will be in theatres just about everywhere on June 27. Be there or be, um, sad and lame.

[ Wall-E ]

Well, do they? It’s something to seriously ponder. Also ponderable: what’s an electric carrot, and would this bot know how to grow one?

For some reason, I’m not sure I want to know what’s going to come out of that egg. These works of digital art were both created by Goro Fujita, a freelance artist with no small amount of talent and (if I may say so) a warm and fuzzy (ish) feeling towards robots. Check out his website for a few more samples.

[ Area-56 ] VIA [ io9 ]

This piece of robotic art by Paul Granjon features a male robot and a female robot who occasionally go into heat and attempt to mate with each other. The video does a good job explaining how it all works (and don’t worry, it’s pretty sterile), but I thought it was quite interesting how these robots have been able to so effectively reduce the human sex act to the most basic mechanical action. My feeling, though, is that emulating humans is a time consuming and inefficient way for robots to reproduce. What robot sex should be is an exchange of “genetic” information (namely data) that can be used to create a more effective robot. In some ways, every time a robot downloads a new program from a computer, you’ve got a form of reproduction happening, but on that level, it’s only creating a clone, a genetic duplicate. “Sex” implies the recombining of data from two different robots to create a new and improved robot (not necessarily in the physical sense) with the most successful characteristics preserved. ‘Course, robots getting too smart is the root of just about every evil machines enslaving humanity nightmare, but if we want our robots to learn and grow and be able to adapt to serve us better, metaphorical sex is going to have to be a big part of it.

[ ZProd ] VIA [ Communist Robot ]

“Study for Lit from Within,” an art installation by Ryan Wolfe, consists of a bunch of living plants (common horsetail) situated in a dark room. LED lights have been surgically embedded inside the plants, and when they’re turned on, the plants are able to photosynthesize the LED light, keeping themselves alive. Each plant has been programmed to brighten and dim to its own internal sun cycle. All together, the field of plants is supposed to “remind us how modern advances increasingly reconfigure lives while offering an imaginative glimpse of the future of this intertwining.” Er, yeah… They’re cyborg plants, man. No need to try and hype it up any more than that.

You can catch these cybernetic organisms at the Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery in Brooklyn up until June 29th.

[ Ryan Wolfe ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

Vibrobots are pretty squirrelly little guys, easy to make by yourself and fun to watch. BrushBots are a sort of super-sized vibrobot, with multiple toothbrush “legs.” Stick them in a paper floor arena with some drops of paint, and watch them create a piece of artwork for you:

[Direct Link]

Designed by Christian Cerrito, BrushBots are simple, cheap, and do a much better job with abstract painting than I ever could. The paths they make aren’t purely random; as the bots cross over the drops of paint, the viscosity causes them to slow down and change direction, helping the piece evolve. Not bad for a hacked up toothbrush and a pager motor, I’d say.

[ Brush Bots ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

He may not be doing the job he was designed for down in Los Angeles, but this (lifesize?) animatronic Wall-E robot is wandering around anyway, doing what he does best: being cute and charming. Take a look:

[Direct Link to Vid]

Apparently, these Wall-Es are being purpose-built for Disney parks, and there will be one of them on each coast (Disneyland and Disney World). They’re rumored to be showing up before the release of the movie. Too bad we consumers get stuck with the Ultimate Wall-E and not one of these awesome bots.

VIA [ io9 ]

It’s not too often (yet) that a group of humans takes orders from a robot. But if we’re going to obey one, it may as well be one developed and owned by a major corporation. Last night, Honda’s ASIMO directed the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance of “Impossible Dream,” and it managed not to kill anyone or fall over:

Don’t get too excited, though… Although there’s no specific information, I’m reasonably certain that ASIMO isn’t doing anything dynamically. The routine doesn’t look completely preprogrammed, but you can bet that there are a whole heap of people backstage pushing buttons. The performance was to open a fundraiser concert featuring Yo-Yo Ma, and Honda donated over $1 million to set up a music education fund for Detroit public schools. See? Robot are our friends. Just don’t play a wrong note, or ASIMO will kick you in the nuts.

[ Press Release ]

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commented that Eve, Wall-E’s girlfriend, looked kinda like an iPod. I didn’t agree, not so much because I couldn’t see the resemblance, but mostly because I didn’t want to admit that Apple may have some subtle influence over the design of a major character in a Pixar movie. Turns out I was dead wrong, and Apple’s influence over Eve wasn’t even particularly subtle, reports Fortune Magazine. Here are some excerpts from the article:

“I wanted Eve to be high-end technology - no expense spared - and I wanted it to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous,” Andrew Stanton, Wall-E’s director, told Fortune. “The more I started describing it, the more I realized I was pretty much describing the Apple playbook for design.”

A call from Stanton to Jobs in 2005 resulted in Johnny Ive, Apple’s behind-the-scenes design guru, driving across the San Francisco Bay to Pixar’s converted warehouse headquarters to spend a day consulting on the Eve prototype. Stanton said that it was a “lovefest” with Ive, but that the notoriously tight-lipped design wizard offered few specific modifications. “Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn’t even really allude to where the future of technology was going,” says Stanton. “The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do.”

I’m honestly not sure whether this should matter at all, but it kinda does, to me anyway. It’s not exactly product placement, but at the same time, it’s a little unsettling that Pixar, to some extent, is looking to Apple to help them define what is futuristic rather than trusting what (until now?) has been a wonderful imagination and vision of their own.

[ Fortune ] VIA [ The Pixar Blog ]