Tomotaka Takahashi is a crazy man. I don’t mean that in a bad way, he’s one of those “brilliant crazies” if you know what I mean. He created Chroino, a small humanoid robot that made hearts melt every time he moved. It was then Takahashi noticed the absence of female-like robots so he went back to the drawing board to create Chroino’s companion. The result is a beautiful white robot simply named FT which stands for female type.

FT does everything Chroino does except with a little extra hitch in her step. Takahashi consulted with real fashion models to nail her walk down. Her lean body contains 23 motors and 2 gyroscopes and after weeks of programming, she made her debut down the catwalk to an adoring audience. Only two were made one is being auctioned one off on his site but be warned, bidding starts at $300,000!

Hit the jump for the video.

[Via Sci-Fi] (more…)

When the original Manoi came out, people everywhere fell in love with it but all asked the same question; what does it do? Other than walking and striking a pose, the next Manoi can add dancing to its repertoire. Custom built software will give Manoi the ability to act spontaneously in movement when you hook up an iPod to it. None of the dancing is pre-programmed unlike the ill-fated Sony QRIO.

It goes on sale later this year but will set you back $1,640. For that kind of money I demand videos. I wanna see Manoi krump!

Researchers from Osaka University graduate school of engineering wanted to better understand the child development process, so they built a robot that simulated one. The problem is it looks totally freaky. That is the largest baby I have ever seen and the “OMG” expression is giving me the creeps.

To give credit where it’s due, it does have a lot of tech packed in; 56 actuators, cameras, microphones, 197 sensors and skin-like silicon based skin.

Their next step is to give it vocal chords and updated software so it can learn. Here’s a tip, OBSERVE REAL BABIES!

[Via Pink Tentacle]

This ladies and gentlemen is your new robot overload. Nothing even comes close, well except maybe robot Destructoid but as for the rest of us - live in fear. The 11 foot tall Nissan (yes the auto company) built DUALIS designed by Shoji Kawamori (Macross) has been spotted in Tokyo and will be a prominent display piece at the Nissan Gallery from May 23 to June 13. After that, it’ll be on display at the Sony Building where it’ll scare people there from June 25 to July 1.

Hit the jump to see this thing in action.

[Via Pink Tentacle]
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Nearly a year after French robotics company Alderbaran laid out plains for a bipedal robot called Nau, they’ve succeeded in doing something we all take for granted - walking. Not only that, but we get to revel in Nau’s first steps.

The company hopes to further refine Nau’s walking prowess since it looks a bit unbalanced but I’m sure they still feel like proud mommies and daddies nonetheless. The question now is how long will it take before before Nau walks as well as Asimo or Qrio?

Researchers at the Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College are some very busy bees. When they’re not occupied with inventing solar powered scalable robotic platforms for arctic research, they’re outside measuring snow. The journey on foot is tiresome and slow when one day they had a sudden “DUH” moment. Why not attach a sled to the robots and let them do all the hard work? Before they knew it, they were snow surfing.

Hopefully this will be the start of a new collegiate competition.

Yes it’s cute and cuddly looking and yes it vaguely resembles some video game character free from its sphereonic prison, but don’t be fooled by its exterior. This robot can literally control your life.

Designed by Japanese robotics company Raytron, Chapit aims to make future home automation easy and sugary sweet. He understands and verbally responds to you in a bizarre baby voice, clearly a baby born of Scientology. His face lights up and his legs wiggle as he nods to your every demand. Anything with an IR, bluetooth or wireless connection is fair game. He even recognizes you and senses your mood. Had a long day at work? No problem, Chapit will turn down the lights and put on your favorite movie. He exists only to make you happy.

He also exists for a hefty 200,000 YEN ($1950) in stores sometime next year. Check out video of Chapit in action after the jump.

[via Electro^Plankton]

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The geniuses at Anybots have created a robot that can learn how to walk without specifically being programmed to do so. His name is Dexter. Dexter is a robot giant, standing at 5′10″ and weighing in at 135lbs. Anybots also created Dexter’s less-interesting brother Monty, who’s primary objective seems to be poking Dexter in the chest. You can see him making a nuisance of himself in this YouTube video. He is shorter and fatter than Dexter standing 5′7″ and weighing 160lbs.

Dexter dynamically balances himself so he can stand upright and even walk around a little bit. Of course, Dexter isn’t the first robot to have been created who could walk around. Honda’s ASIMO robot and others like it can walk too, but they use a different system called Zero Moment Point (ZMP) which Dexter cannot use. This means that those robots need to have stiff joints for their walking to work. Dexter on the other hand is supernaturally supple; his joints are springy and are moved using air cylinders.

Dexter can be in almost any position and still won’t fall over as each movement is constantly calculated and each joint constantly adjusted. As you can see from the picture above, he also enjoys wearing attractive black slip-ons. Anybots hope that in the future Dexter will learn to run, just as he has learned to walk. Dexter was never programmed with a walking motion by Anybots, they made him learn how to do it. The masochists.

To read a fictional conversation between Monty and Dexter, and to see a a picture of the robotic brothers together, hit the jump.

[Via Geekologie]

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Technology is growing at a rapidly-increasing rate, allowing computations to be finished quicker, helping family and friends to stay better connected, and making daily chores less of a hassle. While most consumers are thrilled by the leaps in technology that seem to be changing exponentially, most people fail to realize how many semi-sentient devices get lost in the past.
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