Category: Entertainment

FIRST Robotics teams to open Macy’s Thanksgiving parade

Before Snoopy, SpongeBob, and, of course, Santa ride down 6th Avenue in New York as part of the the 87th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, some budding roboticists and their creations will actually kick things off. That’s because this year, teams from the FIRST Robotics Competition have the honor of leading the parade to its

Maker documentary hits goal, still growing on Kickstarter

A new documentary on the Maker Movement, appropriately titled “Maker,” is on track for completion thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. With seven days remaining, the project has nearly doubled its original $15,000 goal. Additional pledges will be accepted until Nov. 4. This is the second documentary for the team behind “Maker.” Their first effort,

Google+ Maker Camp teaches teens to build robots and more

Maker Camp, a free virtual summer camp for teens, is dedicating today’s lesson to building robots. The session will be hosted by robot creator and blogger RobotGrrl and kid webshow host Super Awesome Sylvia at 2 p.m. eastern at the MAKE+ Google Hangout. Maker Camp offers free daily do-it-yourself tutorials and virtual field trips for

Robotics enables dynamic new views of live sporting events

One of the many advantages of robots is that they can go places humans physically cannot. We often think of that in terms of search-and-rescue situations or hazardous locales like nuclear power plants (where snake-like robots have shown potential), but it has less serious applications as well — like getting the perfect view of an

Smart homes showcase health, sustainability, entertainment

Recently, researchers at Sweden’s Örebro University released a video showcasing GiraffPlus, a “smart home” system designed to allow the elderly to live independently longer. The system consists of a network of home sensors that monitor residents’ health paired with a mobile telepresence robot, called Giraff, that allows caregivers to check in. The system has been

Robotics start-up makes splash at Apple developer conference

At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday, a robotics and artificial intelligence start-up made a surprise appearance during the opening keynote. The San Francisco-based company, Anki, is backed by $50 million in venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures and Two Sigma. Like Bossa Nova Robotics, Seegrid and a host of hot robotics companies, it was

New Xbox Kinect means new sensor for roboticists

The new — somewhat confusingly named — Xbox One was announced today by Microsoft, but more importantly for the world of robotics, a new Kinect motion-sensing camera was also confirmed. The original Kinect made it affordable for both professional roboticists and enterprising hobbyists to endow their robots with powerful 3-D motion capture, depth sensing, facial recognition and voice

Welcome to The Business of Robotics

Hello and welcome to The Business of Robotics! If you have even a passing interest in robotics, you know the field is exploding, having reached a technological tipping point that is bringing self-driving cars and robot co-workers out of the realm of science fiction and into reality. Just last week, a new $100 million dollar