Mar 10 2010

Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don’t have to (video)

This one has been quite a long time in coming, but Robosoft’s service drone has finally made it off the drawing board, collected a catchy name, and headed off to the big world to seek its fortune as an R&D platform. Kompai is a personal assistance bot built around speech — it understands basic instructions and requests and offers appropriate responses with its own monotonic style. It’ll serve as a note and shopping list recorder, a calendar, a music player, or a video conferencing tool for when old grandpappy needs to call his doctor. If you think having a programmable hunk of mobile metal that’s permanently connected to the net in your house is a good idea, look out for OEMs picking up the design during the Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference taking place next week. And if you just wanna see a bug-eyed bot talk to an old dude, click past the break for the video.

[Thanks, Erico]

Continue reading Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don’t have to (video)

Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don’t have to (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 19 2010

MIT’s Flyfire paints images in the sky using micro helicopters, is apparently top-secret

MIT's Flyfire paints images in the sky using micro helicopters, is apparently top-secret

Micro helicopters, the kind that fit in the palm of your hand (and sometimes spread holiday cheer) are huge fun — and hugely frustrating. Have you ever tried to get one to hover in place next to another? Impossible! MIT thinks it can do that, not with just two but thousands of the little beggars all hovering in harmony as part of a project called Flyfire. By using LED-equipped drones the project pledges to build free-floating 3D displays, endowing them with enough smarts and positional awareness to organize themselves into an airborne canvas. It sounds deliciously exciting and challenging, yet for some reason the school has decided you aren’t to know about it, pulling its concept video and website offline. We can only imagine there’s a government agency involved here, possibly trying to stem the virulent spread of robo-socialism, but we invite you to leave your own conspiracy theories in comments.

Update: You can take your tinfoil hats off, the site and the video are both back online! We have the goods embedded after the break.

Continue reading MIT’s Flyfire paints images in the sky using micro helicopters, is apparently top-secret

MIT’s Flyfire paints images in the sky using micro helicopters, is apparently top-secret originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 16 2010

UK police drone grounded for flying without a license

As you know, the Merseyside (UK) police department finally nabbed a suspect with its £40,000 (roughly $63,000) drone recently — an announcement that was accompanied by backslapping and hearty cheers all around. But what happens when the police run afoul of the law? According to the BBC, the vehicle has been grounded by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) under guidelines enacted in January stating that UAVs weighing over fifteen pounds need permission to fly within 164 feet of people and 492 feet of buildings. A spokesman for the coppers said “all Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) flights have been suspended and will remain so until the appropriate license has been granted,” but don’t worry Britons: you should still be able to rest easily at night knowing that you’re still the most surveillance-happy nation in the history of the world. Cheerio!

[Thanks, Gringomoses and Ben]

UK police drone grounded for flying without a license originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15 2010

UK police nab teen using $30,500 drone

Wired recently reported that the UK Home Office is preparing a national fleet of unmanned aircraft, but the surveillance-loving island nation has had a keen interest in drones for quite a while. Now, Merseyside police (who’ve had a drone of their own for about six months) are bragging about their first ever catch with the new toy. When coppers heard that a suspected car thief was hiding in the bushes, they wasted no time launching their Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with on-board thermal imaging — which led them to the sixteen year old. In addition to the (alleged) perp, a twenty year old man was arrested in connection with the crime — but his apprehension was done without aid of the UAV and, as such, not nearly as bad-ass. Both have been released on bail pending further inquiries, and both are believed to be looking into purchasing Parrot AR.Drones for themselves. You gotta fight fire with fire, right?

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UK police nab teen using $30,500 drone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 22 2010

Caption contest: Optimus Prime moonlights as clothes dryer

What does a superpowered Transformer do in his spare time — you know, when he’s not too busy starring in some of the worst written pieces of escapist cinema? Well, for one Taiwanese fella, there’s nothing Optimus Prime likes doing more than supporting a bamboo stick used for hanging washed clothes. Seriously, the dude spent $1,600 on scrap metal, built a 14-foot model of his son’s favorite mech superhero, and now has it serving as a spectacularly ornamental pivot for his washing. Classy. Oh, and video after the break.

Richard Lai: [pumps up hydraulics] “Why hello there, cute little red car…”
Tim: “Autobots, spin cycle!”
Thomas: “Transformers: Revenge of the Snuggle Bear.”
Darren: “Man, it’s chilly out today. Wait — these aren’t my threads! RAWWRRRR!”
Paul: “Oh, sure, Shia said he’ll be ‘right back.’ I hate that kid.”
Josh F.: “Do these windows make me look fat?”
Laura: “Get Michael Bay on the phone. Immediately.”
Joanna: “Mommm, bathroom!”
Chris: “After nine years, Johnny 5 finally admits that he’d been juicing.”
Joe: “There’s not much more to this than meets the eye… sadly.”
Don: “You think this is impressive? Wait until you see Voltron mowing my lawn.”
Josh T.: “I need something to do until Transformers 3 rolls around. This cocaine isn’t going to buy itself.”

Continue reading Caption contest: Optimus Prime moonlights as clothes dryer

Caption contest: Optimus Prime moonlights as clothes dryer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 7 2010

Parrot AR.Drone hands-on: a quadricopter for the rest of us

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The Parrot AR.Drone was definitely one of the highlights of our day; how can you a top a quadricopter that can fight with another using augmented reality, is easy to fly, and only needs an iPhone to control it? You simply can’t — this is just pure joy and is exactly what a gadget should be: it’s an electronic aircraft, has multiple cameras (two to be exact), uses WiFi for control, and likely has more intelligence on board than a lunar lander. This early version can only be controlled via iPhone, or iPod touch, but Parrot’s Henri Seydoux mentioned that it could be (and we’re really hoping will be) controllable by BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and so on. The AR.Drone uses a pile of pretty sophisticated magic to enable it to fly — those aforementioned cameras are just the start (one forward facing, one facing down running at 60 fps that allows stability in light wind) beacuse you’ve also got two ultrasonic transmitters for vertical stability, a three-axis accelerometer, and a two-axis gyroscope paired with a single-axis yaw precision gyroscope for good measure. Needless to say, casual gamers and folks looking for a nice $30 gift need not apply. Read on for more impressions and video!

Gallery: Parrot AR.Drone hands-on: a quadricopter for the rest of us

Continue reading Parrot AR.Drone hands-on: a quadricopter for the rest of us

Parrot AR.Drone hands-on: a quadricopter for the rest of us originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 5 2010

Parrot’s AR.Drone helicopter brings military-style amusement to the iPhone

Sure, the iPhone does a commendable job with heavy-duty 3D acceleration for intense virtual reality gaming, but funk that noise — these guys want to bring you the real thing. Parrot — better known for its Bluetooth accessories — has introduced the AR.Drone, a WiFi-enabled remote control helicopter that takes its commands from the iPhone or iPod touch of your choice. The wacky toy has a pair of on-board cameras, one to help steady itself and the other to beam a live bird’s-eye view (almost literally, if you pretend for a moment that this is in fact a bird) from the captain’s seat onto your phone’s screen. Parrot’s mainly pushing the hardware here — it’s offering up a host of open source goodies to help developers learn about the product and figure out how to turn it into a must-have toy with replay value, and they’ll have plenty of time to do so since it won’t be available to consumers until “sometime in 2010.” Follow the break for a video of the AR.Drone mercilessly hunting down and destroying all who dare oppose it.

Gallery: Parrot’s AR.Drone helicopter brings military-style amusement to the iPhone

Continue reading Parrot’s AR.Drone helicopter brings military-style amusement to the iPhone

Parrot’s AR.Drone helicopter brings military-style amusement to the iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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