Robots4U covers toys, helpers, workers and other robots of interest to personal robot users.
April 9, 2008

HPI's G-Dog Robot Kit Coming This Summer

HPI has plans to release a new DIY robot kit this summer. The robot, with the street-wise name of G-Dog, will be the robot's best friend to the company's humanoid kit, which goes by the much nerdier name of G-Robot or GR-001.

G-Dog stands at a height of about 5.3 inches, and features the same control unit and sensors as GR-001.

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April 7, 2008

Architecture Professor and Student Create Set of Robot Building Blocks for Children

PITTSBURGH - Mark Gross, a professor in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Architecture, and Eric Schweikardt, a Ph.D. candidate, are putting a high-tech spin on building blocks for children. Gross and Schweikardt have designed "roBlocks," small, magnetic robot-blocks that children can plug together to form complex robots. The robots' behavior changes based on how the children assemble the roBlocks.

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April 7, 2008

Pleo 1.1 Update is Here

Pleo's software update 1.1 will continue Pleo's personality evolution, making him more animated, interactive, and expressive through a wider range of responses, motions, and sounds.

Here are some of the new features you can expect to see with this update:

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March 28, 2008

Robot wants to be in charge of the remote

At a weight of 5 pounds and a height of 11 inches, ApriPoko is about the size of a small lapdog. And, like a dog, it can be trained - not to fetch the paper, but to change the TV channel for you.

Toshiba researchers are designing ApriPoko as a voice-operated remote control robot that can operate multiple home appliances. If you want to pre-heat the oven, for example, but you're in the living room, you could simply ask ApriPoko to do it.

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March 4, 2008

Kitchen Cleaning Robot Debuts - Readybot Challenge

PLEASANTON, Calif. - The Readybot Robot Challenge has released a preview video of their kitchen-cleaning robot prototype. (See below.)

Started by a group of veteran Silicon Valley engineers, the Readybot Challenge is a non-profit effort similar to the DARPA Grand Challenge robot car race. The goal of the Readybot Challenge is very simple. "People ask what will be the breakthrough application for consumer robotics," comments Tom Benson, team leader, "we think people want a robot that can clean the kitchen."

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February 23, 2008

Playskool Announces Life-Size Baby Dino

If the wooden rocking horse is getting a little old-fashioned, KOTA the triceratops will have your kids riding and rocking again in no time.

Playskool has recently announced five new toys to celebrate its 80th anniversary, with KOTA featuring the latest in animatronics for pre-schoolers.

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February 19, 2008

Innovation First Debuts Robotic Inchworm and Crab

Robotics toys are taking over the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City during the 2008 New York International Toy Fair, February 17 - 20, as Innovation First, Inc. debuts a new line-up of innovative toys sure to wow and amaze children of all ages. The Company will showcase its existing robotics line-up and new consumer robotic toys during Toy Fair at booth #5913.

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January 25, 2008

godsbot Currently Free For All: Meet the Christian Artificial Intelligence for Peace

Today, a free version of a Christian artificial intelligence (AI) software program known as godsbot was made available to the public for a period of time. Designed to be an entertaining and educational online companion, inventor Ron Ingram says he believes that this program has the potential to be a very effective instrument for communicating Christian views. Ingram has chosen to provide free temporary access to a public version of godsbot for three reasons.

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January 23, 2008

Robot Pencil Sharpener First Winds, then Walks

ThinkGeek.com has a unique toy for sale: a robot pencil sharpener - or, more technically, a "Semi-Automatic Graphite Enhancement Automaton." That's verbatim from the product page.

The robot pencil sharpener won't sharpen your pencil for you like an electric pencil sharpener, but it does look like a robot, and it does walk. After you hand-sharpen a pencil in the hole in its chest, the robot's 4" power core gets wound up. When you're done, the pencil sharpener will start walking forward on its two mechanical legs.

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January 11, 2007

Mr. Clock Radio Starts Your Day the Robot Way

Mr. Clock Radio is the first alarm clock with a robotic head that takes its job to issue wake-up calls very seriously.

The robotic radio has 30 different ways to wake sleepers up in the morning, including everything from a gentle, motherly voice to shouting like a drill sergeant. If you hit the snooze button too many times, Mr. Clock Radio can even become downright nasty with its scolding.

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January 10, 2007

Will 'Mr. Personality' be Tomorrow's 'Mr. Potato Head'?

The new robot called "Mr. Personality" is one of the latest consumer robots unveiled by WowWee at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Openly trying to throw off the stereotype of unemotional robots, Mr. Personality aims to be the first party animal robot.

The robot features a full-color LCD screen on its face that displays his changing personality with animated facial features. Owners of Mr. Personality can even download new personalities from their PCs and transfer these personalities to their robot via USB or media card. While doing so, perhaps some owners will be wishing they could simply download new personalities for some of their human acquaintances . . . however, the technology is not there quite yet.

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December 11, 2007

Pleo: The Robot that Isn't

The baby Camarasaurus created by engineers at Ugobe is cute, sensitive, and emotionally responsive. In other words, baby Pleo is not your typical robot.

But its makers didn't want to make Pleo just another robot. In fact, they would prefer that people not think of Pleo as a robot at all, but rather as a baby dinosaur that's life-like if not truly alive.

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December 10, 2007

RoboPhilo hopes to attract new enthusiasts

RoboPhilo (whose name means, literally, "Robo Love") has recently gone on sale at RoboBrothers.com for $499.

RoboPhilo is not just a toy, though. It's a programmable robot, with 20 servo motors controlling the head, legs, arms and other joints that enable the humanoid to perform a variety of actions.

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December 9, 2007

Clocky is your interactive wake-up call

No more rolling over and hitting the snooze button. Clocky the robot alarm clock doesn't just go off, it literally goes off - rolling off your night stand onto the floor while making all sorts of noises that don't sound nice in the morning.

The little robot has the traditional clock design with a digital clock screen that looks like a mouth and two buttons above it that resemble eyes. But then it starts looking a bit different, with two giant wheels on the side of its head that enable it to roll around at the desired time.

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December 6, 2007

Ping-Pong Robot's Skills Stun Tokyo Crowd

TOPIO is Vietnam's first successfully manufactured human-shaped robot, and it plays a wicked game of ping-pong.

TOPIO was one of the stand-out robots at the International Robot Exhibition (REX) held in Tokyo from November 28 to December 1.

Designed and produced by Vietnamese company Tosy, TOPIO plays ping-pong against human competitors, and regularly wins. The two-armed, six-legged robot has a hexapod for its legs, giving it 20 degrees of freedom to move quickly about. It uses four high-speed cameras to identify the orbit of the ball and accurately return shots. Tosy claims that the robot knows how to hit an incoming shot just 20 cm after it has left the opponent's paddle.

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December 6, 2007

i-Sobot toy is aimed at grown-up kids

Tomy's i-Sobot has recently appeared on shelves in the US for $300. While that price may seem high for a toy, i-Sobot is considered a very advanced type of toy. Compared to other robots of its ilk, i-Sobot either far surpasses their abilities (e.g. WowWee's $150 Robopanda) or their affordability (e.g. Kyosho Corp.'s $2,000 Manoi or ZMP's $5,500 Nuvo, both of which require assembly).

I-Sobot may combine the best of both worlds in terms of fun and affordability. It comes fully assembled and programmed, but owners can choose from 200 pre-programmed patterns of movements by typing in a code to make the robot perform a desired move.

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November 13, 2007

Gibson's Robot Guitar Tunes Itself

True to the spirit of innovation that inspired Gibson to invent the legendary Tune-o-matic bridge, the powerful humbucker, and the revolutionary Digital Les Paul, Gibson proudly presents the Gibson Robot Guitar-the world's first guitar with robotic technology.

Since the dawn of the instrument, musicians have come to accept the guitar's imperfections and lack of tonal precision as necessary evils. Onstage and off, guitarists have fought to stay in tune. Every music lover and performer has had to suffer through the show-halting, mood-killing atonal droning of a loudly amped guitar being brought into tune. And in the studio, or at home, imprecise intonation throws the guitar in and out of tune, up and down the neck, as the instrument requires tweaking with each season and at times with each string change.

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November 10, 2007

Robot Tractor an Earth-Friendly Gardening Alternative

A software developer in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, has recently designed a robot tractor, an earth-friendly, electric-powered, remote-controlled vehicle aimed at medium- to large-land owners.

The robot tractor, called "Earth Tractor," can perform a variety of garden and lawn care tasks, including mowing, raking leaves, and pulling a wagon full of materials. Other attachments include an aerator and a spreader. The robot tractor works best on flat terrain, but inventor Jeff Nummelin hopes to improve its ruggedness in future models.

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November 9, 2007

Korea unveils first emotional robot

Researchers from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Korea have recently announced the nation's first emotional robot. Actually, there are two of them: Kobie and Rabie. The fluffy Koala and bug-eyed rabbit show emotional reactions, play English word games and respond to touching.

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November 9, 2007

Robo-rabbit wants to be your closest companion

Nabaztag, the rabbit robot that wants to be your closest companion, is a smart consumer interface that has integrated a number of activities into its toy-like rabbit frame.

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November 7, 2007

World's 1st Robotic Servants for the High-Tech Home

Christmas gifts for the affluent have reached a new level with MobileRobots Inc's introduction of three personal servants: Jeeves, the robot butler; BrewskiBot, the robot fridge; and Agent 007, the robotic security guard. The company -- which has been selling robots to companies and the research community for 12 years and has thousands of installations around the world -- announced its first high-end consumer robots, or "Automated Help," today.

These robots are no toys; they come with a 1,000 mile warranty.

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October 3, 2007

Japan's Tomy develops tiny pitch-sensitive dancing turtle robot

TOKYO, Oct 03, 2007 - Tomy Co. has created a miniature robot turtle that dances to music by wagging its tail and moving forward and backward in response to high and low-pitched sounds.

The Rhythmbits robot is small enough to fit in a child's hand and is manipulated by infrared light from a nearby controller. This controller can differentiate high sounds from low sounds and sends signals for the turtle to move forward or backward depending on the pitch.

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September 29, 2007

Spykee makes US debut as spy, phone, toy, and more

Spykee, the WiFi spy robot, made its American debut earlier this week at the Digital Life event in New York City, hosted by Ziff Davis Media. The spy bot was one of the hottest robots during the four-day festival, which claims to be the ultimate consumer technology, gaming and entertainment event of the year.

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September 20, 2007

Robotic help for disabled kids

LONDON, Sept 13 (APP): Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire in Central England have started a project using child-like robots to help kids with learning difficulties.

The project known as KASPER (Kinesics and Synchronization in Personal Assistant Robotics) being developed at the University looks like a little boy, that has the ability to move its legs and arms, and can make different facial expressions.

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