Remember the Neato Botvac Connected Robot? This vacuum cleaning robot is now compatible with Apple Watch and Android Wear. Botvac Connected users can now start, stop and receive notifications about cleaning sessions on their wrist. The robot has two cleaning modes and smart laser navigation.
Boston Dynamics is behind many awesome robots. We have covered its most recent robot just a few days ago. Sand Flea is still remains one of the coolest robots by these guys. It weighs 11-lb and can jump 30 feet in the air.
Meet Sweep: a LiDAR sensor that makes your drones and robots smarter. It offers 360-degree sensing, making it possible for your robots to avoid obstacles and map their surroundings. This is also a perfect solution for students exploring mapping and navigation problems.
Adelbaran Nao and Pepper robots are wonderful tools capable of learning and interacting with their owners. Thanks to the Zora software, they can be used to keep seniors engaged. This video from Sun Sentinel shows how Zora works:
Drone racing can be lots of fun. But we have not seen quadcopters race real cars. This video shows a race between a racing drone and a McLaren 650s:
Meet the DJI Phantom 4: a brand new drone with a sensor system that lets it avoid obstacles automatically. It can also follow subjects using ActiveTrack. You can fly with a tap of the finger. The drone has a max speed of 44 mph. It offers 28 minutes of flight time and a max range of 3.1 miles.
Have you ever wondered what you would do in case of a natural disaster or emergency? As Georgia Tech suggests, people are more likely to follow a robot when in trouble. A new study suggests that “in a mock building fire, test subjects followed instructions from an “Emergency Guide Robot” even after the machine had proven itself unreliable.”
I guess the best approach here is to build robots that don’t break down easily.
Meet the Little Ripper: an unmanned aerial vehicle designed for shark hunting and search/rescue operations. This military-grade, battery-powered drone has a front-mounted camera and can fly up to 100 km and 150 minutes on battery. It flies above beaches and the ocean to spot sharks.
Little Rippers cost $250k. They are ready to fly in minutes and can drop rescue packs. More information is available here.
[H/T: Gregg Porteous]
Boston Dynamics is behind many exciting robots. Spot is a 4 legged robot designed for indoor and outdoor operation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. The robot is capable of negotiating rough terrain. This video shows this robot moving around a dog:
[H/T]
Here is a cool technology that can be used to build sophisticated soft robots and smart wearable devices. EPFL researchers have developed conductive tracks that can quadruple in length, allowing manufacturers to produce circuits that can stretch, relax, and cover any surface. A hybrid material was used for this.
More information is available here.
