Author Archives: Ogen

Next-generation Lego robots

Updated Invention System makes programming easier

By Brian Bergstein

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LEGO II

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So the chance to make my own robot at home with the new version 2.0 of the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System sounded awfully appealing.

Mindstorms, recommended for ages 12 and up, uses the familiar Lego interlocking plastic blocks that have entertained generations of children (and budding architects).

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Boston Globe Online / Business / Robots to wear

By Scott Kisner, 8/27/2001

`We put people in robots.”

That isn’t the official slogan of Yobotics, a South Boston company spun off from one of MIT’s best-known robotics labs, but it might as well be. It’s a phrase that captures the most promising new direction in robotics. Forget about C-3PO and Rosie the Robot Maid. Some of your best friends will be part-robot, surviving thanks to devices like the Abiomed artificial heart – essentially an implantable robotic pump – or wearing robotic braces like those being developed by Yobotics to assist them in walking and climbing stairs.

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The Globe and Mail: Breaking Business News :: Sony’s breeders rear Aibo 2

By JACK KAPICA

Globe and Mail Update

The new version, which Sony unveiled Tuesday in Toronto, is also lighter than its predecessor, has more sophisticated software to demonstrate a wider range of emotions, more motors (13 of them running 20 joints) for more tricks and it can now understand spoken commands instead of musical ones. Its brushed-titanium coat also comes in three colours — blue, champagne and black.[…] And it talks. Endlessly.

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NATIONAL POST ONLINE | Columnists | Columnist Story :: Robot dog requires nurturing. Too bad

$2,300 virtual pet simulates the real thing’s neediness

Rebecca Eckler

National Post

TORONTO – I haven’t seen the movie A.I., so I had no idea what to expect yesterday when I headed out to pick up “AIBO,” my very own robotic companion, and bring him home with me for the afternoon.

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I decided to try to make AIBO mad, just for fun. So I said, “Bad AIBO!” with a sharp tap to his head. And he started flashing red.

And then I felt bad. I started petting him on the head, and said, “Good boy!” AIBO started flashing green and making happy, beeping noises. And I felt better about myself.

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Like a Child, `Smart’ Robot Learns Gradually

August 17, 2001 07:40 CDT

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According to Knight Ridder Newspaper, that’s the way John Weng, a robotics expert at Michigan State University, is teaching a robot to learn like a child, to obey spoken commands, trundle down a hall, find and pick up toys with its mechanical hand.

Weng is breeding a new kind of “intelligent” robot that learns in a novel way: by experience, the way animals and people do.

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