robot

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Japanese People Aren't Having Babies, So Toyota Built This Creepy Thing

Kirobo Mini robot is designed to emulate the behaviors of a human child

(Newser) - Toyota has introduced an odd new product, and no, it's not a car. The Japan-based automotive manufacturer just unveiled the Kirobo Mini, a small, humanoid robot designed to "invoke an emotional connection," according to chief design engineer Fuminori Kataoka. Toyota's robot is one of a "...

Bomb-Detonating Robot Killed Dallas Suspect: PD

And other updates from Thursday's shooting

(Newser) - Details continue to emerge regarding Thursday night's police shooting in Dallas , with Mayor Mike Rawlings calling it a "heartbreaking morning," per the Dallas Morning News . Of note:
  • At least 14 people in total were shot at the police brutality protest, Rawlings confirmed, per WFAA : The death toll
...

Robot Makes a Run for It From Russian Lab

Bad Promobot

(Newser) - Robots are on the loose in Russia—or one was on Wednesday, causing mayhem and a traffic jam. Officials say a robot trained to move around on its own made an escape from a science lab in the city of Perm. The robot, or Promobot—created to market products to...

Man's Homemade Robot Looks Suspiciously Like Scarlett Johansson

It took him 18 months and $50,000 to build

(Newser) - A 42-year-old man in Hong Kong spent $50,000 to realize a childhood dream: making a robot modeled on a Hollywood star, Reuters reports. Ricky Ma wouldn't say which Hollywood star his fembot was modeled on, but—as Engadget puts it—"that's obviously Scarlett Johansson." Jezebel...

Domino's Now Has a Pizza- Delivery Droid

Meet DRU

(Newser) - Self-driving cars seem nice, but an Australian tech startup that usually builds robotic targets for live-fire military training has just announced what we've really been waiting for: a pizza-delivery robot, courtesy of Domino's, reports Engadget . Meet DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit) , an autonomous 3-foot-tall delivery vehicle (currently in...

Weary of Swiping on Tinder? Bot Will Flirt for You

Casanova claims to bring more confidence to pickup lines than real men do

(Newser) - Apparently Tinder's requirement that users swipe left to reject a profile and right to make a connection is just too demanding, prompting two 24-year-olds fresh out of the University of Southern Florida to unleash a new bot, called Casanova, to do the heavy lifting for you. Users let Casanova...

IKEA Furniture Is Tricky for Robots, Too
 IKEA Furniture Is 
 Tricky for Robots, Too 
study says

IKEA Furniture Is Tricky for Robots, Too

But researchers are determined to get a robot to put together an entire chair

(Newser) - Most humans find IKEA furniture assembly infuriatingly difficult ... and it turns out robots aren't much better at the task. In a new study out of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, researchers find that "fine robotic assembly, in which the parts to be assembled are small and fragile...

Drunk Guy Arrested for Assaulting Robot

Because he was angry at store clerk, apparently

(Newser) - A drunk guy in a SoftBank cellphone store in Japan was unhappy with a clerk's attitude ... so he kicked a robot, he admitted to cops. Not just any robot, but a four-foot-high Pepper "humanoid" robot, whose development SoftBank funded, Gizmodo reports. The robot is designed to detect human...

Google Robot Stumbles Through Woods Like It's Wasted

Atlas struggled.

(Newser) - Atlas, the "agile, anthropomorphic robot" created by Google's Boston Dynamics , is a "high mobility, humanoid robot designed to negotiate outdoor, rough terrain." Someone should have told Atlas that before creators let it take its recent foray into the forest, an expedition captured on video and shown...

Vandals Destroy Hitchhiking Robot

Thanks, City of Brotherly Love

(Newser) - A hitchhiking robot that captured the hearts of fans worldwide met its demise in the US. The Canadian researchers who created hitchBOT as a social experiment told the AP that someone in Philadelphia damaged the robot beyond repair yesterday, ending its first American tour after about two weeks. The kid-size...

This Robot Is Hitchhiking Across US

hitchBOT is going from Massachusetts to San Francisco, by thumb

(Newser) - With its thumb raised skyward and a grin on its digital face, the robotic creation of two researchers in Canada is about to start hitchhiking across the US. The humanoid robot named hitchBOT has already caught rides across Canada and in Europe, relying on the kindness and curiosity of strangers....

Robot Kills Worker in VW Plant

While it was being assembled, the machine struck man in chest

(Newser) - A story out of Germany is sure to spur lots of lines about our future overlords: A robot killed a worker inside a Volkswagen plant, reports the Financial Times . It seems to have happened as technicians were assembling the machine. "When the robot started up, it grabbed the man...

Microsoft's Robot Overlord Can Guess How Old You Are

Run your photos through the addictive 'How Old Do I Look?' site if you dare

(Newser) - Because Microsoft doesn't want us to get any work done, the company has launched a new website that uses facial recognition technology to scan a photo and guess a person's age and gender, Mashable reports. How-Old.net makes use of Microsoft's new Face API, which debuted at...

Why Astronomers Hate Roomba's Lawnmower Plans

'It's telescopes vs. robots'

(Newser) - The next big thing in lawn-mowing technology could come from the makers of the Roomba—but first, they're facing a fight with astronomers. That's because iRobot's proposed device would use radio signals to keep the mowers from going rogue and moving off a user's property. Robot...

Robot Travels as Airline Passenger

LAX says Athena's journey is a first

(Newser) - No danger of this passenger experiencing an episode of nut rage : In what Los Angeles International Airport says is an aviation first, a robot traveled as a paying passenger on Monday, sitting in an economy-class seat of its own on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany, Reuters reports. "Athena,...

Underwater Bot Finds Surprisingly Thick Antarctic Ice

SeaBED uses sonar to map the hard-to-reach ice, which is as thick as 65 feet

(Newser) - Until now, scientists have measured ice thickness using satellite images, visual estimates, and by drilling holes in the ice itself. But in Antarctica, much of the floating ice is actually underwater, with ice so thick that drilling and satellite images just don't work. For the past four years, a...

Scientists Make a Robot With a Worm's 'Mind'

Lego invention moves without being programmed

(Newser) - They're not quite at the point where they can implant a human brain into a robot—but scientists have taken a step closer. They've simulated the simple and well-studied nervous system of the Caenorhabditis elegans roundworm and stuck it in a robot, the Smithsonian reports. First, they mapped...

How a Paralyzed Groom Walked Down the Aisle

Matt Ficarra relied on a bionic exoskeleton

(Newser) - There weren't many dry eyes when Matt Ficarra walked down the aisle with his new wife, Jordan Basile—and not just because the occasion was his wedding. The Syracuse, NY, man has been paralyzed from his chest down since he broke his neck in a boating accident in 2011....

Scientists Create Biggest-Ever Robot Swarm

Harvard researchers get 1K little ones to work together

(Newser) - At about the size of a quarter, these little guys aren't the robot overlords of sci-fi lore, but they're pretty impressive all the same. Harvard researchers programmed 1,024 of the "kilobots" to work in tandem with each other to form complex shapes, a feat being hailed...

Korea Baseball Team So Bad Its 'Fans' Are Actual Robots

South Korea's Hanwha Eagles let humans watch from home

(Newser) - If you're a fan of the Hanwha Eagles, you can be a part of the crowd without even going to the game. That's thanks to the team's army of robots, who sit in the stadium and broadcast the game to viewers at home—all while cheering for...

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