Akihabara News – FT, the Robot Woman
Here’s another robot from the Kyoto University… so after Neon, Chroino, T-28 and Vision from TeamOSAKA, here’s the FT or Female Type. It weighs 800g, it’s 35cm tall and has 23 degrees of freedom.
http://www.robo-garage.com/robo/ft.html

New Scientist Tech – Breaking News – Speedy robot legs it to break record

A two-legged robot that walks at record-breaking speed has been developed by researchers from Germany and Scotland.

“RunBot” is the fastest robot on two legs – for its size. At 30 centimetres high, it can walk at a speedy 3.5 leg-lengths per second. This beats the previous record holder – MIT’s “Spring Flamingo” – which is four times as tall but manages just 1.4 leg-lengths per second.

The robot is controlled by a simple program that mimics the way neurons control reflexes in humans and other animals. Unlike most other two-legged robots, RunBot has few sensors and can detect just two things – when a foot touches the ground, and when a leg swings forward.

“We wanted to show that a very simple system with a simple neuronal controller could walk in a natural manner – and fast,” says Florentin Wörgötter, from the University of Göttingen in Germany, who developed RunBot along with researchers at the University of Glasgow and the University of Stirling, both in Scotland.

Two mpeg videos show RunBot walking at a steady speed and gradually learning to walk more rapidly.
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Sony AIBO Europe – Official Website – AIBO News
[…]
Following the Sony Corporation FY05 3Q announcement, the production of AIBO Entertainment Robots will be discontinued as of end March 2006. As for the sales activity, we will discontinue the sales of AIBO once all remaining stock runs out.
[…]

IREX 2005 = 2005 INTERNATIONAL ROBOT EXHIBITION

Akihabara News – The ZMP Robot on video (IREX 2005)

Akihabara News – The Enon robot at the service of AEON customers