Listening to: Throw Away Your Television - Red Hot Chili Peppers

So much robo-news, so little time:

• PaPeRo robot gets avatar,
  resides in your devices
  
  On May 9, NEC announced the development of new technology that enables its PaPeRo
  household robot to connect with a variety of personal devices. The technology provides
  PaPeRo with a digital avatar that “follows” you to the device of your
  choice, where it appears on the screen and interacts with you.
• Crawling
  and Jumping Soft Robots
  
  Rough terrain locomotion has mainly relied on rigid body systems, such as crawlers
  and leg mechanisms. The guys at the Department of Robotics, Ritsumeikan University,
  Japan are looking at alternative approachs that uses deformation.
• Booming Robot Stores of Osaka
  
  Specialty robot shops in Osaka are growing. Strong customer demand has forced the
  Robo Cafe in Nishi Ward to remove dining tables and increase the number of robots
  on display from 450 to 650. They’ve also increased robot-assembling events to twice
  a week from once or twice a month. The Robot Factory in Naniwa Ward, which opened
  in December 2004, recently moved to better location to lure more customers. The showroom
  displays 10 types of robots, including house-sitting robots.
• Personal Robots Made in China
  
  Shenyang-based Xinsong Automation Company affiliated with the Chinese Academy of
  Sciences, has demonstrated an 80cm walking robot that “navigates through obstacles
  at ease”. The machine responds to voice commands and is geared for helping with education,
  security, and entertainment. A demo included a command sent by cell-phone asking for
  a status check of the home.

Listening to: Slav To The Rythm - Luke Buda

From Interactive
Architecture dot Org:

Micro.Spheres by Julius Popp takes place in a room, containing around
16 autonomously acting robots, which visitors are allowed to enter and experience.
The robots act according to a dogmatic command that drives them to perpetually place
themselves in the spatial centre of their immediate environment.

Listening to: Winds - Rhombus

From MAKE.
A programmable egg painting robot:

Listening to: Ordinary World - Duran Duran

Tempusmaster has posted a Flickr
album of a recent Robo-Fight tournament in Osaka.

060503RoboFight
149

>
   

It is the robotic equivalent of the Homebrew Computer clubs of the late 70’s - so
worth paying attention to.

Listening to: Tunnel Of Love - Dire Straits

Found this over at Interactive
Architecture dot Org (*):

…a hypothetical fleet of small robots they call “edge monkeys.”
Their function would be to patrol building facades, regulating energy usage and indoor
conditions. Basic duties include closing unattended windows, checking thermostats,
and adjusting blinds. But the machines would also “gesture meaningfully to internal
occupants” when building users “are clearly wasting energy.” They
are described as “intrinsically delightful and funny.”

(*) This site is actually really cool if physical computing is your thing. Their tutorials
section is a treasure trove.

Listening to: Heaven - The Psychedelic Furs

Robot Dreams have a piece on
the upcoming Kondo RCB-3 Robot controller:

In addition to 24 output ports to control servos and other similar
devices, the controller features digital inputs as well as three analog input ports.
Analog signal inputs can be scaled and mixed to trigger conditional program branching
within the controller. This opens up a wealth of interface and autonomous behavior
possibilities.

Listening to: Boy Strange - Pet Shop Boys

From Gizmodo:

Jon Lund took some time out from liveblogging the CustomerMade conference
in Copenhagen to email in and tell us that according to Soren Lund of Lego, the software
behind the upcoming highly anticipated Mindstorms NXT will be published as open source;

Listening to: Maria’s Bed - Bruce Springsteen

Oh yes… insanely
cool!

Introduction
to Programming LEGO MINDSTORMS

MINDSTORMS are products from LEGO that include everything a developer
needs to physically build and program real robots. The typical MINDSTORMS product
includes an array of building blocks, motors, sensors, and a central controller, known
as the LEGO RCX.

To get started, you’ll need to download
and install the free LEGO MINDSTORMS SDK 2.5. This will install the drivers required
to send commands to the LEGO MINDSTORM via infrared tower. You’ll also need to install
a Visual Studio 2005 product, such as Visual Basic Express Edition 2005.

Listening to: Change Clothes - Jay-Z

From Pink
Tentacle:

On April 7, Robo
Garage, a venture company of Kyoto University, unveiled a slender and agile biped
female robot.

Listening to: not too sure… this was computer generated.

DSC06612

Originally uploaded by pt.>