Tag: robot
You’ll never be as happy as this adorable wiggly-armed robot
Google’s New Robot Learned to Take Orders by Scraping the Web
Meet BRILLO: The robot bartender for when you’re tired of human interaction
Have you ever wanted all the benefits of going to a bar without having to talk to the actual human being serving your drinks? You’re in luck, because Italian scientists at the University of Naples Federico II have developed a machine that can do just that.
Using machine-learning algorithms, BRILLO (Bartending Robot for Interactive Long-Lasting Operations) can do everything you expect of an experienced, battle-hardened bartender. He can remember your favorite drinks, make small chit-chat, and even crack jokes if that’s the mood at the bar.
As seen in the video above, BRILLO sports an old-fashioned look complete with a bow tie and vest, alongside long mechanical arms and a human-like face to make him more personable.
According to CNBC Make It, BRILLO started development in 2020 through a partnership between university researchers at PRISCA Labs and Totaro Automazioni, an Italian manufacturer of food assembly line machines. Professor Silvia Rossi, a lead researcher at PRISCA, told CNBC Make It that instead of just making a machine that can make drinks, the team wanted to “mimic the important social aspects of a bartender’s job.”
Rossi and her team have gone to great lengths to train BRILLO’s AI algorithm to “study a customer’s face and speech patterns in order to learn, in real-time.” This will allow BRILLO to be aware of what mood a customer is in and start an interaction based on that.
Despite having spent two years teaching BRILLO complex dialogue-based interactions, CNBC Make It tells us not to expect robots to take jobs at your local dive bar anytime soon or in the near future. Rossi told CNBC Make It that “people are understandably more hesitant to engage in conversation with a robot.”
BRILLO the bartending robot currently exists “only for research purposes,” Rossi said. “There are very challenging issues also from the privacy and ethical point of view, so we want to take care of [that].”
Xiaomi’s shuffling humanoid robot is here to cheer you up
Developed by Xiaomi, CyberOne is a humanoid robot that can supposedly comfort you in times of sadness. The robot was revealed in a sort of self deprecating promo video in which CyberOne can be seen clumsily falling face first multiple times. According to Xiaomi, CyberOne can recognize 85 different environmental sounds and 45 types of human emotion.
CyberOne robot is Xiaomi’s answer to Tesla Bot
Anker’s Eufy robot vacuums are up to 47 percent off at Amazon
Some folks who are in the market for a robot vacuum might be looking beyond Roomba after it emerged Amazon is buying parent company iRobot. Anker’s budget brand Eufy has been around for a few years and is a solid option. Right now, many Eufy models are on sale for up to 47 percent off, including the RoboVac G30 Edge. That’s down from $340 to $180 on Amazon, the lowest price we’ve seen for it to date.
Buy Eufy RoboVac G30 Edge at Amazon — $180
Anker says the vacuum uses logical route planning to navigate your home. It supports Alexa voice commands and you can control it though an accompanying app. Other features include 2,000Pa suction levels and scheduled cleanings, while you can use the included boundary strip to set off-limits areas. On the down side, the G30 Edge does not support the 5GHz WiFi frequency band — you’ll need a 2.4GHz router or a dual-band router that’s compatible with that frequency.
The same connectivity limitation applies to the RoboVac G30 Hybrid, which is also on sale for an all-time low price. At $220, that model is currently 40 percent off. Along with a vacuum, the G30 Hybrid has a robot mop. It also has 2,000Pa of suction power. Anker claims the G30 Hybrid can operate without making too much of a racket, with noise levels as low as 55 dB.
Buy Eufy RoboVac G30 Hybrid at Amazon – $220
Several other Eufy models are available for a notable discount too. The higher-end RoboVac X8 Hybrid, which has dual turbines and uses LiDAR for navigation, is 15 percent off at $550. At the lower end of the scale, the BoostIQ RoboVac 11S is $136 at the moment, down by a third from the usual price of $200. It has 1,300Pa suction levels but no WiFi connectivity, and it uses a random cleaning path. In other words, the Eufy sale includes a wide range of robot vacuums for a variety of budgets.
Shop Anker’s Eufy sale at Amazon
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Xiaomi beats Tesla to building a working robot
Forget about that crazy-thin foldable phone from earlier. Xiaomi just beat Tesla to unveiling a working humanoid robot prototype at a live event earlier today, and yes, it looks awfully familiar. The Xiaomi CyberOne is 177cm (5.8 feet) tall, weighs 52kg (115 pounds), is nicknamed “Metal Bro” and is also somehow given a zodiac sign, Leo. After a short walk to the middle of the stage, the CyberOne gave CEO Lei Jun a flower (for some reason), before it politely accepted a selfie with the man responsible for its very own existence. The bot was able to walk off the stage without any drama.
The CyberOne is the second product coming out of the Xiaomi Robotics Lab, after the CyberDog from August 2021. The humanoid machine has a face in the form of a curved OLED panel, it can see the world in 3D, hear with two microphones and identify 45 types of emotions from human vocal expressions. Its body has a total of 21 degrees of freedom, which are enabled by 13 joints. Its upper limb actuators can operate with a precision of up to 1Nm for a gentle touch, and its legs are powered by actuators rated at up to 300Nm. But of course, the CyberOne is clearly nowhere near as nimble as Boston Dynamics’ Atlas.
I was both nervous and thrilled to interact with him on stage. What did you think of his performance tonight? #CyberOnepic.twitter.com/Je1eXDYEGR
— leijun (@leijun) August 11, 2022
Despite the surprising live demo, Lei said that for now, each CyberOne would cost somewhere in the range of 600,000 to 700,000 yuan (about $89,100 to $104,000), so it’ll be a while before his company deems it suitable for mass production, if ever. It’ll be interesting to see how Elon Musk responds to this lookalike of his own big boy, though he’s probably a little distracted these days.
Uh Oh, Amazon Bought Your Favorite Robot Company
Meet the robot learning to assemble IKEA furniture
Ambidex is a two-armed robot created by Naver Labs and it’s learning how to assemble an IKEA chair. A haptic feedback device controlled by a human acts as a medium between the robot and the human, teaching the robot how to perform tasks similar to how we do. Naver Labs hopes to expand the haptic device’s capabilities in the future and has even gotten it to play a game of table tennis.