Tag: robotics
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China’s humanoid robot with lifelike expressions
China’s humanoid robotics industry is entering a new phase, not just focused on mobility and industrial automation, but increasingly on something more human – the face. Recent developments in hyperrealistic humanoid robot faces have gone viral online, sparking debate over whether lifelike appearance will become the key to commercial success in humanoid robotics. The…
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Titanic robots make farming more sustainable
There’s a lot riding on farmers’ ability to fight weeds, which can strangle crops and destroy yields. To protect crops, farmers have two options: They can spray herbicides that pollute the environment and harm human health, or they can hire more workers. Unfortunately, both choices are becoming less tenable. Herbicide resistance is a growing problem…
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Tiny electromagnetic robot runs fast and re-forms after being squished
A squishy robot smaller than a postage stamp can run 70 of its body lengths every second – more than three times faster than a cheetah, relative to its body size. “It is really, really fast and, to be honest, that was a little bit of a surprise,” says Martin Kaltenbrunner at Johannes Kepler University…
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Brain-machine interface set to improve life for amputees
A newly designed brain-machine interface dramatically improves performance and reduces mental and physical stress for people with a leg amputated above the knee.
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Toyota untethers its T-HR3 humanoid robot thanks to 5G
Toyota just brought your dreams of an Avatar-like proxy one step closer to reality. Teaming with NTT Docomo, it remotely controlled its T-HR3 humanoid robot over a 5G network from a distance of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). So far the bot, first unveiled a year ago, has only been controlled over a direct wired connection.…
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The first tendril-like soft robot able to climb
Researchers at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia created the first soft robot mimicking plant tendrils. It is able to curl and climb using the same physical principles determining water transport in plants. In the future, this tendril-like soft robot could inspire the development of wearable devices such as soft braces that actively morph their shape.
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Biohybrid robots built from living tissue start to take shape
Researchers are increasingly looking for solutions to make robots softer or more compliant – less like rigid machines, more like animals. With traditional actuators – such as motors – this can mean using air muscles or adding springs in parallel with motors.
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Robot waiters controlled by people with paralysis
Whether it’s autonomous delivery bots dropping off pizza, robo-bartenders, or automated waiters, it’s clear that robots have a growing place in the food industry. But a new Japanese pop-up cafe located in Tokyo offers a far more uncommon — and potentially transformative — spin on this premise. Called Dawn ver.β, the temporary eatery is staffed…
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New autonomous farm wants to produce food without human workers
Today Iron Ox is opening its first production facility in San Carlos, near San Francisco. The 8,000-square-foot indoor hydroponic facility—which is attached to the startup’s offices—will be producing leafy greens at a rate of roughly 26,000 heads a year. That’s the production level of a typical outdoor farm that might be five times bigger. The…
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Ford thinks exoskeletons are ready for prime time in its factories
People still build cars. While videos of giant robots welding vehicles are exciting to watch (sparks!), humans are an important part of the assembly of vehicles. However, as you would expect, doing the same thing over and over often leads to injuries. For workers reaching up all day, that motion can be especially hard on…
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Interview with Bill Seaman
Seaman’s work often employs an expanded media-oriented poetics through various technological means— Recombinant Poetics. Such works often explore the combination and recombination of media elements and processes in interactive and generative works of art. Seaman enfolds image/music/text relations in these works, often creating all of the media elements and articulating the operative media-processes involved.…
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The Robotic Kitchen
Moley has created the world’s first robotic kitchen. Featuring an advanced, fully functional robot integrated into a beautifully designed, professional kitchen, it cooks with the skill and flair of a master chef. The prototype was premiered to widespread acclaim at Hanover Messe, the international robotics show. The consumer version set for launch in 2018 will…
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fivewordsforthefuture è media partner di / fivewordsforthefuture is a media partner of LuminousBees
“[ITA] Dal 20 al 22 Febbraio all’Università di Genova c’è “Interactive Micro Aerial Robots Swarm I-MARS 2017”, conferenze e workshop transdisciplinari con artisti, designer, scienziati, tecnologi. fivewordsforthefuture è partner dell’evento. [ENG] From February 20 to22 will take place at the University of Genoa “Interactive Micro Aerial Robots Swarm I-MARS 2017”, transdisciplinary lectures and workshops involving artists, designers, scientists, technologists.…
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Interview with Leonel Moura
Leonel Moura (1948) is a European artist born in Lisbon, Portugal, that works with AI and robotics. He created in 2003 his first swarm of ‘Painting Robots’, able to produce original artworks based on emergent behavior. Since then he has produced several artbots, each time more autonomous and sophisticated. RAP (Robotic Action Painter), 2006, created…
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Re-Walk
ReWalk is a wearable robotic exoskeleton that provides powered hip and knee motion to enable individuals with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) to stand upright and walk. ReWalk provides user-initiated mobility through the integration of a wearable brace support, a computer-based control system and motion sensors. The system allows independent, controlled walking while mimicking the natural…
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Interview with Laura Beloff
Laura Beloff is an internationally acclaimed artist who has been actively producing works and exhibiting worldwide in museums, galleries and art events since the 1990’s. During recent years: 2013 in Finland, Norway, and Brussels, Hamburg and in Helsinki in 2012, in Vienna 2011, in Brazil 2008 and at the Venice Biennale 2007. Beloff has…
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Bionic hand lets wearer feel what they’re holding
The latest bionic hand can do a lot more than just let its wearer hold things: it can actually let them feel. By hooking into nerves in an amputee’s arm, the new prosthetic can let a person tell how hard or soft an object is and even distinguish its basic shape. “The sensory feedback was…
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MIT Produces Synthetic Bone With 3-D Printing
What if next time you broke a bone, instead of going to the doctor for a cast, you just printed out a new one? It sounds certifiably insane, but it’s actually not. MIT announced this week that its researchers have found a way to produce synthetic bone using 3-D printers, which work by converting digitized…
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The future of the human machine interface
Four converging technologies are going to transform our interaction with the world radically: genetics, robotics, information and nanotechnology. With a few exceptions, such as pacemakers and artificial hips, technology has always been at one distance removed from our bodies and brains. Not for much longer. The interface between the made world and us is going to become…
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Face of the future rears its head
A virtual “talking head” which can express a full range of human emotions and could be used as a digital personal assistant, or to replace texting with “face messaging”, has been developed by researchers. The lifelike face can display emotions such as happiness, anger, and fear, and changes its voice to suit any feeling the…
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Robot car that can drive itself
The Japanese tech conglomerate Hitachi unveiled a small one-man electric car that can drive itself. The car takes the passengers from one place and leaves them to another without them having to do a thing. The one-man car, called Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System (Ropits), was unveiled in the city of Tsukuba in the Ibaraki Prefecture. The…
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Video-interview with Alan N. Shapiro
We were in Linz, attending the Ars Electronica Festival 2012, when we met the Technologist and Futurist Alan N. Shapiro. It was months ago, but we were already thinking about (five-words-for-) the-future. Shapiro is an interdisciplinary thinker, software developer, computer scientist, author and translator in the field of contemporary cultural phenomena. He studied science-technology at…