robots

News

• Researchers build a robot you can’t knock down; Robot apocalypse begins

  By Kevin Lee | 09 May, 2012 03:09

  After all of our advancements in walking robots, we still have yet to see one that can pick itself back up. Current automatons either need to be helped back up or specifically designed to do so.

• Scientist unveils mind-controlled robot

  By AAP | 26 April, 2012 09:46

  A professor at a Swiss university has unveiled a robot that can be controlled by the brainwaves of a paraplegic person wearing an electrode-fitted cap, news agency ATS reported.

• Flying robots play James Bond theme

  By AAP | 06 March, 2012 08:27

  A video shows flying robots darting through hoops, working together in swarms and even forming a band to play James Bond film theme music.

• Cyborg plants render humans even more obsolete

  By Rachel Martin | 21 September, 2011 04:25

  The cyborg plant is not a new concept. The robot plant replacement is even less new: You can buy one for a price of $4.19 from ThinkGeek, after all. But a team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich isn't interested in solar-powered plastic toys or surgically-altered self-lighting plants that hang on a wall (creepy!) -- they're giving plants the ability to feed, water, and sun themselves, by augmenting them with iRobot technology and wheels.

• Robotic Herds Could Be the Next Step in Farming

  By Blair Hanley Frank | 01 March, 2011 12:39

  Fully autonomous herds of robots could be the future of farming, or at least that's what one roboticist thinks. Trossen Robotics forum member Vanmunch has developed an "Autonomous Micro Planter," which he's named Prospero.

• Robot speeds up cancer research effort

  By AAP | 15 February, 2011 11:22

  A robot like an oversized inkjet printer is dramatically speeding up the Australian search for new cancer-fighting drugs for children.

• Robotic privacy curtain fails, but amuses the masses

  By Elizabeth Fish | 12 January, 2011 04:39

  More than ever, people are taking their online and real-life privacy more seriously. Swedish inventor Niklas Roy also felt that his privacy was being invaded on a more basic level--by passers-by looking in through his large workshop window. Most might have just opted for a normal curtain, but Niklas got inventive and created the robotic curtain.

• WA robot off to NZ mine

  By AAP | 23 November, 2010 14:31

  The West Australian government is sending a robot to New Zealand to assist in the rescue operation for 29 miners, including two Australians, trapped underground at the Pike River coal mine.

• Behold the robotic future of cake decoration

  By David Daw | 20 October, 2010 11:55

  Developments are still continuing apace in the field of delicious-food-making robots. This time we have an automated cake decorator that extrudes designs onto your cake in a process that's one part frosting, one part spirograph, and 100% awesome.

• iRobot demos 'shape shifting' next-gen robots

  By Robert S. Anthony | 16 October, 2010 05:21

  Meet the next generation of robots that shape-shift, are squish-able, and can troll the world's oceans for months on a single battery charge. iRobot, best known for its Roomba disc-shaped robotic floor sweeper, is going way beyond scooping potato chips from under couches with its latest robot offspring.

• MIT builds swimming, oil-eating robots

  By Sharon Gaudin | 27 August, 2010 07:00

  MIT researchers have used nanotechnology to develop a robot that can autonomously navigate across the surface of the ocean to clean up an oil spill.

• New Zealand's Rex the robot helps wheelchair-bound to walk

  By AAP | 16 July, 2010 07:57

  Hayden Allen makes a couple of moves, whirring noises are heard, and the young New Zealander undergoes an astonishing transformation.

• Era of robots, tech-enhanced humans not here yet

  By Fred O'Connor | 10 July, 2010 01:33

  Advocates of the concept called singularity envision a future in which humans and technology fully converge, but a keynote speaker at the World Future Society conference voiced skepticism about the idea, citing the complexities of the human mind.

• NASA looking to six-legged robot to build human outpost on Mars

  By Sharon Gaudin | 13 May, 2010 07:21

  NASA is building a six-legged robot that can walk or roll on wheels, and, it hopes, ultimately help set up a habitat on Mars for the later arrivals of astronauts.

• Warning Will Robinson! Robotic girlfriends hit the market

  By Sharon Gaudin | 12 January, 2010 06:37

  The world's first robotic girlfriend has hit the market.