Robot Art – Personal Robots by Franz Steiner

I found a great collection of robot art to stimulate the mind put together by a 3D modeler named Franz Steiner.

roboart

Enjoy the slideshow, and feel free to click through to get the high resolution versions.

Concept: The Cargonaut

DVICE has an interesting concept bot up today:

We’re all for a future where robots deliver us packages quickly and efficiently, and that’s exactly what the Cargonaut is programmed to do. Thought up by German-based industrial designer Matthias Schmiedbauer, an army of the robo-copters would be able to buzz around an urban center, bypassing traffic and delivering a package straight to you. Or from you, as the designer describes:

Cargonaut, a humanoid flight robot, comes to your current position to relieve you of your loads. After placing your bags or luggage in one of the publicly available sky boxes, Cargonaut delivers within minutes to a chosen destination.

Check out the gallery below to see the Cargonaut make a successful flyby. Or, if you love robots, be sure to check out our ongoing conversation on the future of robotics.

It’s a slick looking design, but the truth is that this technology has existed for well over a decade.  I worked on a project as a youngster that came from some ex-General Dynamics skunkworks folks that proved this concept.  Due to lack of funding (and the world of UAVs somehow staying unsexy), the project never really progressed.

The patents have now progressed into public domain that existed last decade, so hopefully we’ll see more movement in this area. This is a project and a service we could have today. I want it.

CirculaFloor Brings Us One Step Closer to Holodecks

Have you seen this creation that has come out of the University of Tsukuba (in Japan)?  It’s potentially another step towards holodeck technology. The robotic floor system is called “CirculaFloor,” and it’s essentially a set of four that act as a floor (ostensibly for use with a virtual reality system), that can create the illusion of walking much greater distances than should be possible in a confined room.

There’s a long description required to describe the operation of this system, and it’s a lot easier if you simply watch the video, but the fact that it works, and seems to work perfectly bodes very well for the future of virtual reality as something usable somewhere other than in the pages of a Hollywood script.

[via BotJunkie]

Robotland to Open in 2014

As if the standard chicken-in-every-pot deal of 50 mbps Internet access to every doorstep wasn’t reason enough to envy South Korea, here’s one more…

That’s right – a robot theme park.

The South Korean government is ready to plunk down $1 billion on the project, too:

A theme park called Robot Land will be built in Incheon and Masan, the first of its kind. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Thursday it would set up the park in the two cities by 2014.

The park, designed to bolster the country’s robotics industry, will house play equipment, experience zones, exhibition halls, a stadium, research and education centers, and corporate facilities.

Great stuff. I’ve got my Korean to English reference book and I’m packing up my family.  We’re moving.

[Crunchgear via Chosunilbo]

Robo-Rochambeau

The UK Telegraph chronicles a robot capable of playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. Gizmodo thinks this is (like every robot they talk about) a first step towards the total domination by machines of the human race.

As long as the robot plays by the rules, and doesn’t play like my wife (she thinks making a fist with your thumb out means cannonball, and thus automatically a win), I think we’ll be fine.

Robotic Faces are Here! [Michael Jackson]

Now you too can own Michael Jackson’s robotic face! According to DVICE:

Michael Jackson’s auctioning off a bunch of movie props and expensive toys this April, including the robotic head, pictured above, that brought robo-Michael to life in his singer-turned-superhero movie, Moonwalker. Never saw it? It’s worth a rental (watched in fast forward), if only to see him turn into a car as he flees from Joe Pesci’s stormtroopers. The head opens up and flashes a bunch of lights at the press of a button and will start at $2,000 to $3,000.

Maybe you can combine it with that thing we were talking about yesterday.