Project TANGO

Project Tango by Google was announced officially, featuring a prototype mobile device with augmented sensing and processing capabilities allowing it to perceive the motion of the device and reconstruct the surrounding environment. The project' s launch video is disclosed here:

The technology that it seeks to integrate has already been showcased, scientifically, but this should be the first time where it could be part of commercial technology at the scale of the mobile phone market. However, together with the new range of cool applications that such a technology would offer, we should at the same time consider its implications to everyday life and in particular the aspect of privacy. 

It is probably not so far in the future where the ability to accurately track the motion of a mobile phone and reconstruct its surroundings in real-time within indoor environments, will be integral part of our mobile phones. This may probably bring the end in privacy as people tend to carry their cell-phones wherever they go.

Consider that you use this functionality while you are at home, when you are with your friends or family. Just as a single photo may capture a single moment of a single view in time, we can imagine how this would translate in the case of a reconstructed environment and your motion within it. And after you may consider what this would mean if this data were to be "accidentally" taken by various companies, agencies or individuals and be exploited for different reasons.

To conclude, Big brother might be knocking at your door very soon and you could be its new star.

Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter

by http://www.bitcraze.se/

First kick in WORLD CUP 2014, through mind-controlled exoskeleton?

As the titles suggests, this the provisioned plan for this year' s world cup in Brazil.  This is the goal of Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis and his team, in the context of a project called "Walk Again".

Generally speaking, this is probably where the future of robotics resides i.e. actively assisting people' s lives and surpassing their natural barriers, rather than developing completely autonomous machines that replace humans.

Here' s a promo video of the corresponding work:

And so if that is going to happen next summer by a person, i believe that it will not be long before the idea of Special Olympics will take on a whole new model, or we will even witness a new concept in sports competition as a result of robotics technology. Too ambitious... ? Place your bets!

TEK: Robotic Mobilization device

Google I/O 2011 talk: the emergence of Cloud Robotics

VERSABALL; dexterous manipulation revisited

This post comes as a follow-up to the earlier post A custom-made robotic gripper where we saw how ingenuity and simplicity in robotics can provide state-of-the-art solutions, in this case when it comes to robotic grasping.

Empire Robotics, a start-up company from Cornell University has recently announced the commercialization of this idea with the name VERSABALL and is probably about to revolutionalize the concept of dexterous manipulation. VERSABALL is a low-cost gripper (around 4000$) that can grasp objects with diverse shapes, will little care about computing grasping affordances of the object. 

As can be seen from the video, it is very effective and agile and seems to be very well suited for home robots allowing them to pick up and manipulate common house-hold objects, even at the scale of coins!

Super Ball Bot: next generation planetary explorer

NASA is considering an innovative design for planetary robots, in an effort to optimize the mobility when it comes to uneven terrain and reduce hardware payload that is required for safe landing. The next picture shows an illustration of the featured design which is inspired by the concept of Tensegrity, that is, by preserving integrity through tension.

The idea is to use rods that are connected with elastic wires and by regulating the tension among them, movement patterns arise that allow the structure to move at a desired direction. These patterns can emerge iteratively by optimizing certain criteria. At the same time, the elasticity of the cords allows the structure to sustain collisions upon landing on the surface or moving along it, by absorbing the energy of collision.

The following video illustrates the prototype in action and shows its full provisioned utility in simulation.

The project is lead by Vytas Sunspiral and Adrian Agogino from the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA' s Ames Research Center. Visit here for full article.