Free Republic

[no text, just the video at the link]

Kogoro Kurata grew up watching futuristic robots in movies and animation, wishing he could bring them to life. Now, his childhood dream has become a reality as he's built a massive robot that he can control. His 4-tonne, 4-metre tall Kuratas robot has a built-in pilot's seat and hand-held controller. It lets him move the robot's massive arms, and make it walk at speeds of up to six miles per hour.

A multinational engineering project aims to create an intelligent robotics platform that can identify and harvest specific types of crops to help foster sustainable agriculture. The Clever Robots for Crops (CROPS) project -- a collaboration between universities from a number of countries -- is working on technology for a modular intelligent sensing and manipulation platform to harvest so-called “high value” crops, such as vegetables grown in a greenhouse, greenhouse vegetables, orchard fruits, and grapes used in making premium wines, according to the project’s Website. The design goals of the project include creating a robotic platform intelligent enough to specifically spray...

Female Space Robot Learns to Move Like a Human by InnovationNewsDaily Staff Date: 24 July 2012 Time: 04:06 PM ET A space robot with a female form could someday join NASA's humanoid robot in helping human astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Germany's AILA robot has a female figure, a head molded into the shape of a modern female hairstyle, and large, dark eyes — a different look compared with the broad-shouldered torso and space helmet head of NASA's Robonaut 2. But both robots could have the right stuff to show how humans and robots can work together more efficiently...

Scientists are getting ever-closer to designing a robot which can pass for a human. While we are not quite there yet, roboticists from the University of Pisa have brought us even closer with FACE - a robot who is able to display very lifelike human emotions, ranging the whole gamut from happiness to sadness and fear.

Cats are being struck down by a mystery disease that turns them into 'living robots'. Their legs become rigid, giving them an odd, stiff gait, their personality changes and their tail stiffens and sticks out. There is no known treatment or cure. The symptoms become progressively worse and the animals are put down when their suffering becomes too much. The condition has baffled vets, as tests for numerous viruses have come back negative. Their best guess is that the pets caught the disease while out hunting.

Click here to watch DARPA and Boston Dynamic robot strut his stuff This video shows versions of DARPA and Boston Dynamics robots climbing stairs, walking on a treadmill and doing pushups. A modified platform resembling these robots is expected to be used as government-funded equipment (GFE) for performers in Tracks B and C of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2012/04/10.aspx). The GFE Platform is expected to have two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, and will be physically capable of performing all of the tasks required for the disaster...more at link..

Potential military applications for 'Robojelly'  nearly as infinite as it's hydrogen energy supply... Robojelly in the lab _________________________________________________________________________________ Although still in early stages of development, researchers from Virginia Tech and UT at Dallas have created an amazing hydrogen-powered underwater drone that looks and moves like a jellyfish, pumping itself along via artificial muscles...  Robojelly is the first successful underwater robot ever created that uses external hydrogen as it's only power source, while it appears the opaque, plastic blob would be all but undetectable by the enemy when deployed for recon. The unit also holds promise for various underwater rescue/salvage operations. The...

DARPA to the robotics community: the challenge is on. Today the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is announcing a bold new program aiming to advance robotics technology for disaster response. The DARPA Robotics Challenge is offering tens of million of dollars in funding to teams from anywhere in the world to build robots capable of performing complex mobility and manipulation tasks such as walking over rubble and operating power tools. It all will culminate with an audacious competition with robots driving trucks, breaking through walls, and attempting to perform repairs in a simulated industrial-disaster setting. The winner takes all:...

Developed by Boston Dynamic as a tool to obtain information for the U.S. military, the Sand Flea, aptly named because of its incredible jumping ability, will hopefully aid soldiers in war zones by revealing potential threats, CNET reported. The robot has four wheels and weighs 11 pounds. It can jump up to 30 feet high when not actually in a forward moving motion by using CO2 fired from a piston. And it can jump 25 times in a row before having to be recharged, IEEE Spectrum reported. The Sand Flea has such precision, that when properly controlled, it can...

In 1939, a robot dog was killed while chasing a car. Really. Sometimes you stumble across a piece of history that is too good not to follow up on. Sparko, the robot dog, is one such piece of history. Prepared for the World's Fair in 1939, he got out of his pen, chased a car, and was killed. No fooling. Androids may dream of electronic sheep, but people have dreamed, for decades, of electronic dogs. Robots, a threatening concept, became much less frightening when put in the form of man's best friend. This relationship turned out quite satisfying for people...

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has spoken out against US President Barack Obama, claiming that a "robot" would do a better job in the White House, AFP reported Monday. "Is it not obvious that the worst of all is the absence in the White House of a robot capable of governing the United States and preventing a war that would end the life of our species?" Castro wrote, according to AFP. {snip}

Today from the random-stuff file… Discovery News reminds us that in 2002, British social scientists set out to find the funniest joke in the world. Researchers from the University of Herfordshire started a “LaughLab” program to test jokes in a cross-cultural context across all demographics. They asked people around the world to submit jokes — and to rate how funny they found jokes submitted by peers. The winner worldwide? This little gem submitted by a psychiatrist in Manchester, England. It involves hunters in New Jersey — maybe British hunters just aren’t as funny.

Robots from around Europe are flocking to London this week - but, thankfully, we won't need to call Doctor Who to fend off this particular onslaught. More than 20 cutting-edge robots from around Europe will be on display at the Science Museum's Robotville exhibition this week - including a robot designed to help autistic children, and a robot that can (sometimes) catch a ball. Naturally, many of the robots look like slightly spooky human beings - but other fields of robotics will be represented instead, including 'swarm' robotics, where tiny robots work together, a relatively new idea being pioneered in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclbVTIYG8E

A Rishon Lezion academic institution is at the cutting edge of robotics technology that will prevent future IDF soldiers, experts say. .....

<p>VATICAN CITY — In an attempt to head off a tidal wave of lawsuits stemming from the sexual abuse of children by priests within the Roman Catholic Church, and Rome’s attempt to cover up the crimes, the Vatican is planning to replace all priests with robots.</p>

Friday, September 9, 2011 Palin clarifies Perry's Social Security comments Christian Heinze On Fox News today, Sarah Palin offered Rick Perry a more gentle way of talking about Social Security. "What Rick Perry was trying to say, I believe, is that there needs to be reform. Status quo is not acceptable, because these programs are insolvent. .... So he's saying reform is necessary." Perry has written that Social Security is a "failure" and "Ponzi Scheme", and returned to those themes in Wednesday night's debate. If Perry were really just saying "reform is necessary", then pretty much everyone, including Romney, would...

WEST CHESTER, Ohio (The Blaze/AP) — Briefcases with handwritten signs attached were left at the front door of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio office, bringing out a bomb squad. Investigators in the Cincinnati suburb of West Chester tell multiple media outlets that the bomb squad blew the cases apart on Sunday and found they contained only papers. No one was hurt. WCPO-TV captured the bomb squad robot removing the briefcases and exploding them:

Congressional leadership reacted on Friday after House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio., ended debt limit talks with the White House.House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.:"Tonight, months after we had begun negotiations with President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the Administration, Speaker Boehner and I are ending discussions with the White House and beginning conversations with Senate leaders in the hopes of finding a solution to the debt limit debate in order to avoid default. Throughout the months of discussions, we have worked to identify real spending cuts, binding budget reforms, structural changes to save our entitlement programs, and significant debt reduction....