As an alternative to receiving brain implants for robotic arm dominance assistance, check out this surprisingly cheap eye-tracking solution developed by six electrical engineering students at Northeastern University. Labeled iCRAFT, for eye Con­trolled Robotic Arm Feeding Tech­nology, the award-winning senior project drew its inspiration from one team member’s difficulty syncing spoonfuls with the eating pace of elderly and disabled patients. Simply gaze at the on-screen box that corresponds to your food or beverage choice and the robotic arm will swing your way with grub in its grip. Ambitious DIY-ers can chase down the open-sourced software behind iCRAFT, and construct a contraption of their own for about $900 — considerably less than self-​​feeding rigs living in the neighborhood of $3,500. You can catch a video of the robot arm serving up some fine Wendy’s cuisine after the break.

Robotics controlled by thought could pave the way to a new era of freedom for those with an injury that means the loss of limbs or those who suffer from paralysis. A stunning achievement has been reported by Brown University, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, and Massachusetts General Hospital in the May 17 issue of the scientific journal Nature, in which a paralyzed woman was able to drink via her own control power.

A microchip implanted in the brain of the 58-year old patient decoded brain signals and translated them into movement commands of a robotic arm. Using thought, she was able to direct the arm to a bottle, grab the bottle, and bring it close enough to her mouth so she could reach the straw. The small 4mm by 4mm chip was implanted in the cerebral cortex, a layer of neurons on the exterior of the brain that delivers motor commands, back in 2007, while trials of the project called “BrainGate” began in 2005. Since then, the scientists were able to develop software that converts neural signals into signals capable of moving the robotic arm provided by the German space agency DLR. In 2010 they had first evidence that the project may result in patients being able to control the arm via signals in their brain.

What makes the current example so special is the fact that the patient was paralyzed 15 years ago from head to toe because of a brain stem stroke. She has not been able to move her limbs and has not been able to talk since then. The researchers said that their project has shown that even people who have been paralyzed for years have neural signals that are powerful enough to control robotics which could replace limbs at some point in the future. They now plan on to progress their research and help people with disabilities carry out “daily activities” using their technology.

SOURCE via DLR

It seems that ever since humankind grew legs and climbed out of the ocean, we’ve been trying to figure out ways to avoid using said appendages. While many of these efforts have been wildly successful – think Roman chariots, Pony Express, and the Ford Model T – the recent spate of personal mobility devices hasn’t quite taken off.

The poster child for this failure is, of course, the Segway. Though completely awesome, its greatest success has come in comedic appearances on television (Arrested Development) and in the movies (Paul Blart: Mall Cop). But manufacturers have forged ahead, undaunted in their desire to bring human-like mobility to humans. The latest: The Honda Uni-Cub.

An evolution of Honda’s U3-X motorized unicycle, the Uni-Cub marries a saddle and sturdy base with an omni-directional drive wheel. A rider controls the Uni-Cub by simply shifting their weight. Honda says it is “designed for harmony with people,” as the device positions the rider at relatively the same height as pedestrians, rather than towering over them like a Segway rider.

The Uni-Cub is designed for use indoors, and is powered by a lithium-ion battery and electric drive. It can reach a top speed of 3.7 miles per hour and has a range of 3.7 miles, meaning that any reasonably fit individual should be able to both outrun and outlast the Uni-Cub.

Honda will begin demonstration testing of the device in June.

Michael Bay’s Transformers were true enough (for a Bay production, at least) to the original articles in their car and robot states, but their transforming sequences were epilepsy-inducing explosions of cranks and gears that made no sense at all. Admittedly, it didn’t stop us from enjoying the first movie.

But the work of a Japanese modeler is what we’ve been looking for: his Transformer takes us all the way back to the original eightes series when Bumblebee was a Volkswagen Beetle. This is version eight, fitted with 22 servo motors – it even throws punches and does a jig – and we’re told that version nine is on the way. We’d like to humbly request that all research on flying cars stops, and every resource be poured into a production version of this right now. Scroll down to check out the video.

Your nitro-fueled R/C racer may look all badass and be really fast, but it’s got its limitations. Namely, walls. The Sand Flea robot shown above, developed by Boston Dynamics, won’t win any races or beauty contests, but it laughs at walls. More precisely, it just leaps over them.

The little bot, which scoots around like a regular all-terrain R/C car, is equipped with a CO2-powered piston that gives it the ability to leap 30 feet in the air. When presented with a challenge, the Sand Flea stops, tilts, and launches up and over the obstacle in front of it. The video showing it in action, posted after the jump, is simultaneously astonishing and hilarious (especially when you mentally add this sound effect to each leap). On a full charge, the Flea can make 25 jumps. A gyroscope keeps it stabilized while airborne, and its wheels act as the cushion upon landing.

Funding for the project comes from DARPA, the Joint IED Defeat Organization, and the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, and it’s meant to bolster the military’s ever-expanding arsenal of reconnaissance tools. As such, PopSci reports that the Sand Flea is headed to the Army Test and Evaluation Command for safety certification, after which several examples will head to Afghanistan for some real field testing.

If you thought a robot fighting championship just sounds like the plot for a Hugh Jackman vehicle, you’d be partly right. We’ll tell you who does have the real steel though, the plucky fellas you see above. They’re competing for this year’s ROBO-ONE championship, an annual competition where humanoid robots slug it out to the death (or power failure at least) held this weekend in Kawasaki, Japan. This is no toy fair either, with contestants bagging a $12,000 pot if their android-avatar wins the crown. This year, that title goes to GAROO, winning for the second time in a row by defeating Gargoyle Mini for the spoils. Rumors of LED gauging were unfounded, as you’ll see in the video after the break.

It can be hard to believe that just a few years ago all that our cell phones were good for were making calls and sending text messages. Nowadays we can control almost anything with our smartphones, like our washing and drying machines for example. Well since we can clean our clothes with our Android phones, it only makes sense that we can clean our floors with one as well. In addition to their WiFi-enabled washing and drying machines, Samsung also brought its WiFi-capable vacuum robot to CES. Check out Cnet’s video to see the NaviBot S in action:

With the latest update to Samsung’s NaviBot robotic vacuum cleaner line, users will be able to control the bot with the exact same app that lets them control the company’s other WiFi-compatible devices. Users will still be able to control the bot with a traditional remote control, but the new WiFi enabled NaviBot S lets you fire up the robot from just about anywhere. Its updated battery gives approximately 100 minutes of cleaning on a single three hour charge.

In addition to the added WiFi capability, the NaviBot received some updates in efficiency as well. NaviBot S now uses Visionary Mapping Plus, a technology that involves a top-mounted camera that analyzes cleaning data to find and remember the most efficient cleaning route to and from its charging dock. Samsung’s latest vacuum-bot is also the first to feature a self-cleaning dust bin. NaviBot S detects when its dust bin is full, automatically dumps it at the dock and jumps right back to cleaning. No official word on pricing or availability just yet, but we can expect to hear more from Samsung soon.

We’ve seen a lot of big things at CES, huge even, but sometimes it’s the small things that amaze us the most. It’s pretty much expected that we’d see a lot of new televisions, tablets and ultrabooks, so it’s always refreshing to see something a little new at CES. Created by Modular Robotics, the Cubelets showcased at CES were quite a treat.

One way to describe Cubelets would be to call them the evolved version of Legos, but even then these miniature robots are in a class of their own. They’re marketed as a children’s toy (ages 8+) but we can certainly imagine some creative adults having fun with these as well. Cubelets are a number of small multicolor cubes that each serve an individual purpose and can be snapped together to create an almost limitless combination of robots.

The blocks are classified into three major subcategories: action blocks, sense blocks and think/utility blocks. Some examples of action blocks are blocks with moving wheels, a flashlight, or a speaker. Sense blocks are cubes that respond to external factors such as brightness, temperature and touch. Think/utility blocks such as the battery or passive block are the ones that act according to connected cubes.

The Cubelets are in a constant state of development since enthusiastic adults are constantly throwing new suggestions their way. One of which that the company is working on involves the ability for innovative users to reprogram their own blocks. With the current number of blocks that are available, there are already so many different combinations so it’ll definitely be interesting to see where Cubelets are in a couple of years. For now, you can preorder your Cubelets in packages of 6 for $160, which will be shipped in a few months’ time.

The U.S. Marine Corps has begun deploying the first unmanned helicopters. The Kaman K-Max, developed by Kaman Aerospace and Lockheed, is used as a supply chopper and has reportedly successfully transported cargo in Afghanistan.

The unmanned K-Max is based on Kaman’s single-seat helicopter with the same name, weighs just 5000 pounds, but can carry up to 6000 pounds over a distance of up to 250 miles, but can stay in the air for up to 12 hours. The single-seat chopper has been in production since 1992, while the unmanned version was in development since 1998 and won a contract with the Department of Defense in 2007. The unmanned K-Max, which still offers room for a human pilot, was demonstrated first in 2010. “Deployment readiness” was confirmed back in September of this year.

According to the Marine Times, a fleet of 16 to 20 K-Max helicopters could “handle 100 percent of the resupply mission in Afghanistan, although that isn’t the plan for now.”

The U.S. military also considered Boeing’s smaller A160T Hummingbird design as an unmanned helicopter. The K-Max has won for now as the Boeing model hit “design snags”, but the Naval Air Systems Command says that the Hummingbird could still “undergo field testing and a possible deployment”.

SOURCE via Wired

Pancakes? No problem. Cookies? You got it! Sandwich? …is there a Subway nearby? Why robots have such a hard time slapping meat and cheese on bread is beyond us, but we’re glad the crack team at the Technical University of Munich has finally figured out how to teach them. The dynamic duo of James and Rosie don’t exactly blaze through their task of making a sandwich and some popcorn, but at least they’re nice enough to toast the bread for your salami- and cheese-based chow. As usual, the moves here are not preprogrammed, the two bots make decisions on the fly based on a complex “reasoning” mechanism and data it can cull from a Kinect. Check out the videos below to watch two carefully construct a simple, layered lunch.