Anybots‘ telepresence business robots have now begun shipping, offering remote control of a balancing robot with two-way audio and video. Billed as a challenge to business travel, Anybots went up for pre-order back in July 2010; those customers will start to get their ‘bots this week, while new orders will ship in March.
There’s also a new high definition zoom for the 5-megapixel onboard camera, and support for WiFi b/g/n. Anybots reckons battery life is up to eight hours, and they can shuttle around at up to 3.5mph.
Collision avoidance and a collapsable design make for easier transportation, and the whole thing is controlled by a regular Mac (with PC support due in March). Yours for $15,000.
Press Release:
Anybots Starts Shipping Business Robots
Anybots Ship with a Slew of New Features, Business Travel Changes Forever
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., February 1, 2011 – 8:00 a.m. PT
News Facts:
· Anybots, maker of telepresence business robots, today announced that it has begun shipping product.
· Customers who pre-ordered an Anybot will begin receiving their orders this week. Customers who order today will begin receiving their units in March. To order an Anybot, go to www.anybots.com/#buy.
· The Anybot is the first professional-quality telepresence robot to allow you to work remotely through a simple web interface.
· Here’s how it works:
o You are sitting on your sofa, enjoying your morning coffee.
o At the same time, you can be the eyes and ears on the ground at a remote office or factory via an Anybot.
o You control the Anybot from anywhere in the world via the web, letting you work effectively and personally without ever having to step on an airplane.
o You can leap into an Anybot in just one-click of the mouse and immediately be interacting with your team.
o And, when you are done, you can jump out and be back on the couch enjoying your coffee in no time. Meanwhile, another colleague located somewhere else around the globe, can leap into the Anybot for a meeting at the office.
· The Anybots telepresence business robot will ship with new features:
o High definition zoom
o Seamless roaming on wireless
o Two-way streaming video
o Touch screen enabled Wi-Fi configuration
· Anybots also feature:
o High quality audio and clear, stabilized-video (five megapixel high-resolution video camera) for a great interactive experience
o Two wheels so it can run at 3.5 mph to keep up with groups of people and provide a safe way to get around that prevents damage to walls and other objects
o Collision avoidance technology that guides the Anybot around obstacles, such as doors
o A lightweight design (35 pounds) to be easily pushed, carried or adjusted to fit in a car seat
o A professional and friendly appearance so people pay attention and take you seriously
o Easy and inexpensive installation, all you need is Wi-Fi and a computer (currently available on the Mac and PC-compatible by March)
o The ability to sit in a corner when idle and charge
o Sharing capabilities so it can be used by company users at a time
o Eight hours of battery life and support for 802.11n Wi-Fi
Quotes:
Attributable to Trevor Blackwell, Founder & CEO, Anybots
After years of work and months of beta testing, we’re looking forward to seeing the various uses the market comes up with for Anybots. Beyond just letting you be in two places at once – which changes the world of the business traveler – we’re seeing a lot of use with industry verticals. Everyone from a cookie manufacturer looking to manage remote factories to a CEO who simply can’t make it to every meeting in person – teleporting via an Anybot has already given these people a new perspective on work.
Attributable to Phil Libin, Founder & CEO, Evernote
After a few months of beta testing for Anybots, I’m completely in love with it. At first I thought the bot would pay for itself if it could just replace one international trip, but now I realize that the real value is letting me preserve spontaneous interactions at the office even when I’m thousands of miles away. I can jump into the bot at any time and work casually with my team. There’s no need to schedule formal meetings or herd everyone around a speaker phone. It’s easy to use and it keeps me connected. And it’s got a laser beam attached to its head – which, let’s be honest, is just good product design.
FujiSoft’s PALRO just keeps getting better, with the original educational robot getting an object-recognition upgrade late last year, and now learning English. Seemingly suggesting a launch outside of the current Japan-only market, the Atom-based ‘bot can now maintain a conversation with English users.
Video demo after the cut
As well as explaining what, exactly, it is, PALRO can read out weather forecasts, access the internet and take a picture with a head-mounted camera. The latter is particularly nifty, responding to a voice instruction to take a shot, spotting the most likely subject automatically, asking them if they consent to be photographed and then giving a choice of places to wireless send the result.
Still, it’s the plaintive “Please be good to me!” halfway through the video below that really strikes a chord. Right now, PALRO is on sale to educational establishments, priced at 298,000 yen ($3,596).
With all the Kinect hacks we’re seeing, it probably doesn’t matter whether gamers are leaving their motion-control sensors to gather dust or otherwise; there are enough DIY-addicts buying it to make the peripheral a success. Latest is Asura’s V-Sido remote app for the G-Robots GR-001 ‘bot, which can follow your movements for some aerobics-style mimicry.
Video demo after the cut
Usually the GR-001 is controlled via a PlayStation-style remote, but this new Kinect hack makes it a whole lot more direct than flailing your fingers around. No word on when – or if – they’ll be releasing the software publicly, but it’s just another sign of Kinect’s flexibility.
Having a personal robot tell you all of your pertinent, and need-to-know information every morning is probably a dream come true for some people, especially if it’s a small rabbit-like robot that kids would find adorable. That’s exactly what Karotz is. A small, rabbit-looking robot that’s meant to help you throughout your day, from waking you up, to telling you how the weather is outside before you step out the door.
The device made its presence known at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where the company behind the small robot showed the device off. Karotz is your “smart little bunny,” and it’s filled with features. It has voice recognition and voice control, an integrated web cam, and even an RFID chip inside so that if you lose it somewhere in your home, you’ll be able to find it again.
The rabbit robot will be able to read your friends’ Facebook status messages out loud, give you traffic conditions, horoscopes, and more, all based on your verbal requests. It’s able to do this thanks to the integrated WiFi. The Karotz robot is a media player, too, able to play your music when you request it to. For the $199 price tag, the small robot rabbit isn’t a bad deal, especially if you’re looking for a small robot to spruce up your life. It’s up for pre-order now.
Even though games like Infinity Blade can be great fun on the iPhone, there’s no getting around the fact that touchscreen-centric, buttonless devices don’t offer the best gaming ergonomics. A modding project gone horribly right, however, might just fix that right up for all of us. Shane Wighton set out to build a robot to try and beat his favorite iPhone game, replete with a webcam and an Arduino setup, but in the process of doing so he “just realized that [he'd] made a mechanism to play tilt based phone games with a joystick.” Yes indeedy, one of the most awesome DIY gaming accessories was built by fluke as much as design. See it revolutionizing mobile gaming just after the break.
Depending on the day, sometimes you just don’t want to have to get up to get something, even when it’s a drink out of the refrigerator. Completely understandable, and that’s why humanoid “helper” robots are still the one thing that many people want in their homes. In Japan, home robots aren’t in every home, but there’s plenty of them in development. The one big difference between them and this ‘bot, designated THKR-4, is that this one was designed with just off-the-shelf parts.
While it may not be the best, or most advanced humanoid robot out there, considering its origins, along with the fact that it’s still capable of doing some pretty complicated tasks, the THKR-4 is still impressive. During an event in Yokohama, Japan, recently, the THKR-4 was filmed doing some of its more gratuitous tasks. For example, the robot is able to open the refrigerator, pull out a bottle, and pour a drink. There’s even a party favor being shown off. But, the best part is the shoulder massage that the robot’s owner receives. Check out the video below to see THKR-4 in action.
It looks like South Korea’s aspirations of having robots in classrooms, teaching their youth, which were aiming for 2012, may be seeing adoption at a quicker rate. But, that’s not stopping a school in Daegu, South Korea, from planting a few 3-foot tall robots, oddly shaped like huge eggs, right in front of students, and teaching them English. The students reportedly love the Engkey, though, and that’s kept the little bots around.
In total, the Engkey robots stand 3.3-feet tall, and feature a small display where a female woman’s face is displayed. The robots don’t control themselves, though. The English teachers are in another room, controlling Engkey in its content, as well as the reactions to the students. The image of the woman’s face will actually copy the reaction of the teacher’s, thanks to cameras watching his or her face.
Other than the fact that the students love the little ‘bots, the schools are adopting the robots at a faster rate due to the cheaper cost of hiring Filipino teachers. According to a school official, Kim Mi-Young, “The kids seemed to love it since the robots look, well, cute and interesting. But some adults also expressed interest, saying they may feel less nervous talking to robots than a real person.” She went on to add that having a robot in the classroom makes the students more active, and that their participation has climbed steadily since the robot’s introduction.
We first wrote about the Cellbots project back in March, when Android tinkerers were first looking at the potential to use a Googlephone as the brain for simple Arduino-based robots. Now that project has spawned a full – and comprehensive – Android app, allowing you to use your handset as a remote control for a robot (with various platforms supported), as a brain directly mounted on the robot itself, or even pairing two handsets to delivery both roles.
Video demo after the cut
The free app – available in the Android Market for 2.2+ devices – works with iRobot Create, LEGO MINDSTORMS, VEX Pro, and custom Arduino Cellbots. At its most basic, it functions as a simple directional pad for the ‘bot; however, it can also respond to voice commands, stream video directly from the robot platform over the net, and send compass headings back to a remote operator.
In brain-mode, the app basically creates a web-accessible control page with streamed content, from which you can log in remotely and direct the robot. Impressive stuff; how long before someone straps their Android phone onto a Parrot AR.Drone?
It may not be possible to be in two different places at once, yet, but that’s exactly why we need telepresence robots like the two Jazz ‘bots created by Gostai in France. There are two different robots for people to choose. The first, which is the Jazz Connect is the cheaper of the two, and will help you connect with your business partners even if your’e not in the room with them. The second model, the Jazz Security, is meant to watch over your home while you’re out and about, giving you an inside look as to what’s going on, making it as if you’re there without really being there.
The Jazz Connect costs $10,400, and it’s meant specifically to help with business people who can’t always be in every meeting they need to be in. The Jazz Security hikes up the price tag, $11,000, and uses different software to make sure that your home (or office) always has a pair of eyes on. As for the software that Gostai chose to put on the inside? Their very own open source Urbi software. You can see the Jazz ‘bots in action in the video below.
Robots. Most engineers and designers bring robots to life to do a certain set of tasks, or interact with humans in a whole new way. The technology therein is usually the main focus of the robot as a whole, but when you’ve got a robot that looks like the TalkTorque 2, even the fact that it doesn’t talk is creepy. The robot’s inability to talk is a design choice from those at Japan’s Tsukuba University, who believe that the TalkTorque 2 will be able to become a master at human communication without words, and just gestures.
The point behind TalkTorque 2, is to be able to interact with humans without any words being exchanged. The designers behind the robot believe that TalkTorque 2 would be a perfect guide within places like museums. Letting the human attendees follow the robot around, while it gestures with its head, hands, and hips towards important pieces.
There are three cameras installed in the TalkTorque 2, along with a laser rangefinder. Thanks to the cameras, the robot will be able to recognize returning visitors. In the video below, you can watch the original TalkTorque as it is put through a few tests, all focusing on its gestures.
