Sunday, February 24, 2008

Crucial technology 2GB USB Drive

The high-performance Crucial Gizmo! overdrive writes data at speeds up to 13MB/s. Portable, rewritable, and compatible - the Gizmo! overdrive is a convenient data transport and storage device that fits in the palm of your hand!hand!
Via

Monday, February 18, 2008

Black & Decker GC200 Gizmo Can Opener


Simply bring the can opener to the can, clamp it on and let go of the soft-grip top. All by itself this "walks" around the can, opening as it goes. When the Gizmo can is open, auto shut off kicks in, then the swing out magnet lifts the lid free.
Via

Sunday, February 17, 2008

WowWee Robosapien Version 2 Humanoid Robot


RobosapienV2 can be programmed to move in many different ways. You simply enter moves into the program using controller commands, and RobosapienV2 will remember them in order. You can enter walking steps, arm and upper body movements, demos and animations, and even program subroutines. Once he's in guard mode, RobosapienV2 will execute the program if he hears a sharp noise or senses movement in front of him. The little guy faithfully remembers his program, even after being shut off, until he's reprogrammed or reset.
Via : Amazon.com

Learning Resources Gearbotics Robot Motorized Set


Gear up for robotic creations with the Sonic Robot Construction Set. With 118 color-coded gears, cogs, and connectors working with a motorized unit, kids design and build robots that roll forward or backward and make sounds at the touch of a button. It comes with controller, gears, connectors, robot head, grabber, wheels, and instructions for building models.
Via : Amazon.com

WowWee Robotics Roboquad


The robotic arthropod offers more than just movement, however, with multicolored flashing lights and techno sound effects. The Roboquad also boasts four usage modes: Direct Control, Autonomous, Guard, and Sleep. Direct Control mode invites you to control the robot's direction, style of walking (such as crab walk, stomp walk, or rotation walking), and head movements, while in Autonomous mode, the robot interacts with his environment as he moves through it. Guard and Sleep modes, meanwhile, are designed for downtime. In the former, the Roboquad visually scans the environment and stays alert for noises, then scares off intruders with a series of crazy sound effects. In the latter, the robot automatically falls asleep after five minutes of inactivity and then powers down after 24 hours.
Via : Amazon.com

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Robot to live dreams in the real world of illusions

We frequently enter in a state of trance as sleeping and most of our imaginations straight off slip out of our memory. any you do, recollect all the settings or even scan your brain, but sadly those faded dreams never revisit our psyche. Need not to be deserted over your lost dreams anymore, for a revolutionary association of Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns has popped up with a pioneering robot (rather artwork) that will not only help reading human psyche but plays back all your vanished dreams as well. Just incredible! How it works? The brainwave activity and eye movements during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep of a person is recorded to be emulated by the robot through its behaviors and head positions. Robots are already an integral part of human life but the hot innovation has purely revitalized the human-robot relationships. Coleridge created ‘Kubla Khan’ (a poetic masterpiece based on a dream) even after some part of his dream went missing. Had he the luxury of brain mapping at that time, he would have surely loved to resolve and pen down the mysteries of the lyrical epic.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

NASA robo goes skinny dipping


Not that NASA likes to throw million-dollar robotic probes in ice-cold water just for kicks, but their latest newborn Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer (ENDURANCE) probe has to take quite a few underwater sessions, including skinny dipping in Lake Mendota in Wisconsin, under a frozen Antarctic lake and under the frozen seas of the Jovian moon Europa. Why you ask? Well, the probe was designed to make 3D maps of underwater environments and collecting microbial samples from the impregnable depths. And to think the practice session include a four-day underwater sojourn under icy water for the little robo ‘cause the big guys just wanna make sure it will perform as intended when they ship it off to permanently ice-covered West Lake Bonney, in the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys. Gosh, what a bad day to be a robotic submarine I say! But hey, the soldier’s next mission, if he succeeds, will be to explore the hidden mysteries of Europa’s oceans trapped under the moon’s icy surface! That should be a real out of the world experience, what say you?
Via: Gizmo Watch