Here’s a video about MIT’s COG project. The videos a bit dated but interesting nonetheless.

More information about the COG project including: a FAQ, current research and the history of the project itself can be found in the COG section of MIT’s Humanoid Robotics Group website.

China recently introduced its first personal robot, whose main function is personal assistance in the home. The robot is capable of walking and avoiding obstacles as well as giving its owners the news and weather.

Liangliang stands about 3 feet tall and is the creation of Xinsong Automation Co based in Shenyang China. Liangliang is also able to accept and perform instructions given by humans.

In the presentation debut: “a staffer sent a mobile phone message to the robot inquiring about the situation at home and, in two minutes, Liangliang replied with a message: temperature 22 degrees Celsius and everything normal at home.”

The android world just got a new inhabitant, a team of South Korean scientists recently unveiled their answer to Japan’s Repliee Q1. The EveR-1 (Eve and robot) recognizes 400 words and makes eye contact while talking via her lips that are synchronized with the pronunciation of words.

EveR-1 is said to have several life-like facial expressions that include: joy, anger, sorrow and happiness. The android capable of moving its upper torso but isn’t quite ready to stand or walk.

EveR-1’s creators indicated: “We are working on upgrading the android with the aim of making it move its legs by the end of this year. It will be able to sit down and stand up by then.”

This time we’re talking about robots on celluloid. Mike Myers is set to play the lead in ‘How to Survive a Robot Uprising’ a comedy based on a real life manual of the same name, written by a doctoral candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University

Based on the title and inspiration, I can only assume the movie is about surviving a robot uprising.. I’m picturing Myers in his standard slapstick routine, running from robots while interjecting witty one liner’s.

Sony’s Aibo may be no-more but a South Korean company has introduced a robot dog of their own, that just may fill the gap left by Sony quite nicely. DasaTech’s Genibo named for “genius robot” stands 12” high, weighs 3.3 pounds, has a camera built into the end of his nose and understands 100 commands, including sit, roll over and wag tail.

DasaTech plans to put Genibo on the market next year, although no pricing was disclosed.

Video of Genibo in action.

Back last summer when I first posted about the Repliee Q1 android, wait I need to explain something real quick. I now realize that calling the Q1 a robot is a mistake, an android is a robot made to resemble a human, in both appearance and behavior. Anyway back to my point, back last summer when I first posted about the Repliee Q1 I had no idea the extent that it, she? was capable of mimicking a humans appearance, movements, speech and dare I say ‘persona’.

This video was just as startling to me as the pictures of Repliee but in a way it also put the android back into perspective. There are a few things about the Repliee Q1 that still giveaway her mechanical nature. There’s a slight jerk or roughness to her motion and of course her eyes are somewhat emotionless.

I can only imagine what this demo would have been like with fluid motion and dilating pupils. It’s kind of odd to see the science fiction of my youth become science fact before my very eyes. This is an exciting time to live in, I can only imagine how far the field of robotics will have advanced by the time I’m in my later years.

Keeping in theme with my last post, I wanted to point out another area of music that has showcased robots, Album covers. Jeff’s Robots has a neat page up that features robots on some famous album covers. I think the allure here is that music which is by its very nature often emotional, contrasts with the world of robotics and androids. Musicians therefore see an opportunity to tie the emotional and emotionless together. That or they just think robots are cool like I do.

I just had to share a music video from one of my favorite bands, Air. What does this have to do with robotics you ask? Well besides the monotonic robot voice used in the song the video has some interesting android like imagery and well it’s just a cool song!

Air – How does it make you feel? Windows Media Player

Air – How does it make you feel? Real Media Player

Air at Astralwerks

Perusing around the web for robot information earlier today, I ran across an article about the ‘Robot Hall of Fame’, hey that sounds cool I thought to myself. The RBH is sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University and its inductees span from useful industrial robots to the well known Hollywood variety.

Recently 5 new robots were inducted to the Robot Hall of Fame: Maria from ‘Metropolis’, Gort, from ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ and David, the android from ‘Artificial Intelligence: AI.’ represented this years cinematical robot inductees. Sony’s AIBO and Scara an industrial robot rounded out the commercial and industrial robot inductees.

Earlier this month we mentioned Korea’s new EveR-1 Android, well here she is in action. The video is in Korean but the images alone give us a pretty good idea of what EveR-1 is capable of.