Free Republic

Iranian teacher uses hi-tech robot to encourage prayers An Iranian schoolteacher has come up with a novel way of encouraging young children to learn their daily prayers. 27-year-old Akbar Rezaie, who teaches the Quran at the Alborz elementary school in Varamin, near Tehran, took a robotics course and applied his knowledge to help modify an educational robot kit. He says the aim is to provide pupils with a stimulating visual example of a variety of Shi’ite worship. “I used to pray hastily but now I want to pray more slowly like this robot,” said one student. Now, pupils in this...

At least the bride was definitely going to show up. In November 2009, a Japanese man stood before a congregation to marry the woman he loved, Nene Anegasaki. In doing so, he became the first man to marry a computer game character – Nene is one of three "virtual girlfriends" in the Nintendo DS game Love Plus. The marriage might not be recognised by the state, but to the groom, who goes by his on-screen name Sal9000, the relationship is very real. In the months leading up to the wedding the couple went everywhere together, they chatted intimately, held hands...

Bots are being used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Well, I guess we can file this story under the “Didn’t see that coming” category: Two new robot cops have been put in place along the intersection of Boulevard Triomphal and Huileries Avenue in Kinshasa, part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for the sole purpose of easing traffic congestion. The two gigantic bots are solar-powered, and were designed by engineers from the Kinshasa Higher Institute of Applied Technique. A bit funny looking in the sense that they look like they’re from a long-lost science fiction flick, the...

Gecko-Footed Robot Fit for Outer Space by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Abigaille the robot can climb up smooth walls, but she leaves behind no residue, much like living geckos. Engineers at Simon Fraser University copied gecko design when they developed the robot’s tiny treads to navigate tight turns even while treading on vertical walls. How close did the inventors come to matching the precision capabilities of real gecko feet, which utilize a dry adhesive capability? Dry adhesives could be very useful. In a 2011 technical report appearing in the journal Smart Materials and Structures, the design team described the locomotive...

<p>The Roboplow was invented by Rob Kinkey and isn't some frail little 'maybe' like early robotic vacuum cleaners.: if anything, it's overkill with 6-wheel-drive, 50" plow-blade, and serious power from it's electric motors that have it tearing down the driveway (can do 'donuts', see video below).</p>

SAN FRANCISCO: Google may be gearing up to build robots that resemble props in science-fiction movies as the ambitious internet company expands into yet another technological frontier. To gather the expertise and research it needs, Google has purchased eight companies that specialize in robotics this year. The acquisitions are being assembled into a new robotics division headed by Andy Rubin, who oversaw Google's development of Android, now the world's leading mobile operating system. Google added more pieces to its growing toolbox of robotics late last week with the purchase of Boston Dynamics, a military contractor that has raised intrigue by...

Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She’s A Robot

Has the world just witnessed its first ever robot suicide? Tedious housework was seemingly too much for one cleaning robot to take, when it apparently rebelled and decided to end it all. The android was given the tiresome task of cleaning up some spilt cereal before it climbed on to a kitchen hotplate where it was destroyed, according to reports in Austria. It had reportedly grown weary of being forced to clean the same house every day and decided to become a martyr to the robot cause. ‘Somehow it seems to have reactivated itself and made its way along the...

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, after all. We have the technology. The term “bionic man” was the stuff of science fiction in the 1970s, when a popular TV show called “The Six Million Dollar Man” chronicled the adventures of Steve Austin, a former astronaut whose body was rebuilt using artificial parts after he nearly died. Now, a team of engineers has assembled a robot using artificial organs, limbs and other body parts that comes tantalizingly close to a true “bionic man.” For real, this time. The artificial “man” is the subject of a Smithsonian Channel documentary that airs Sunday, Oct....

WildCat is a four-legged robot being developed to run fast on all types of terrain.

A robot that picks ripe strawberries while farmers sleep has been unveiled with claims it could cut workloads by two-thirds. The device, unveiled Wednesday, can pick a piece of fruit every eight seconds by using three cameras to determine which strawberries are ready to pick. A mechanized arm then darts out to snip each one free and place it into its basket. The 2-meter robot moves on rails between rows of strawberries, which in Japan are usually grown in elevated greenhouse planters. It “calculates the degree of ripeness from the color of the strawberry, which it observes with two digital...

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson wonders on the House floor if Republicans are robots who do not bleed or feel.

The latest innovation from the U.S. Defense Department’s research agency, DARPA, is a humanoid robot called Atlas that looks as if it could’ve walked straight off the set of the latest Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster. In fact, Atlas is designed to eventually take on some of the most dangerous and high-stakes jobs imaginable, such as tending to a nuclear reactor during a meltdown, shutting off a deep-water oil spill, or helping to put out a raging wildfire. And if Atlas proves itself at such daredevil tasks, then one of its descendants might one day be allowed to do something just as...

In a robot lab at TEDGlobal, Raffaello D'Andrea demos his flying quadcopters: robots that think like athletes, solving physical problems with algorithms that help them learn. In a series of nifty demos, D'Andrea show drones that play catch, balance and make decisions together -- and watch out for an I-want-this-now demo of Kinect-controlled quads.

When it comes to hunting down humans running speeds, MIT's cheetah might come second to Boston Dynamics' own high-velocity quadruped, but by substituting pneumatics with motors, MIT's version apparently runs far more efficiently. At the recent International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the Institute of Technology showed of its newest version, which reached a top speed of 13.7 mph. To accomplish this, the runner still needs parallel support bars to constrain movement in one dimension, reducing any roll, yaw -- and the chances of a pretty expensive fall. The team says the new version's cost of transport (COT is...

Mars in particular is a key target for future human planetary adventures even though on the face of it, it seems so hostile to human life. In fact Mars actually has the most clement environment of any planet in the Solar System outside of Earth and is known to have all of the resources necessary in some accessible form, to sustain life on the surface. So how might we survive on Mars? The crucial things for humans on Mars are the availability of oxygen, shelter, food and water, and not just endless consumables delivered to the planet from Earth. For...

Scientists in the US have created a robot the size of a fly that is able to perform the agile manoeuvres of the ubiquitous insects. This "robo-fly", built from carbon fibre, weighs a fraction of a gram and has super-fast electronic "muscles" to power its wings. Its Harvard University developers say tiny robots like theirs may eventually be used in rescue operations. The current model of robo-fly is tethered to a small, off-board power source but Dr Ma says the next step will be to miniaturise the other bits of technology that will be needed to create a "fully wireless...

A guy goes into a bar in Cleveland where there's a robot bartender... The robot says, "What will you have"? The guy replies, " I'll have a whisky".  The robot brings back his whisky and says to the man, " what is your IQ"? The guy.says, "168". The robot proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.  The guy leaves but he is curious- so he goes back into the bar. The robot bartender asks," what will you have"? The man says "I will have a whisky".  The robot returns with the drink and asks , "what is...

Panetta: Obama Absent Night of Benghazi Daniel Halper February 7, 2013 12:05 PM Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified this morning on Capitol Hill that President Barack Obama was absent the night four Americans were murdered in Benghazi on September 11, 2012: Panetta said that Obama left operational details, including knowledge of what resources were available to help the Americans under siege, "up to us." In fact, Panetta says that the night of 9/11, he did not communicate with a single person at the White House. The attack resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Panetta said...

Robocop c. 1924