Forget Amazon drones; Google is working on robots that could one day deliver items to customers.
The New York Times reports that Google has acquired seven robotics companies in the United States and Japan to help build a "new generation" of robots that would potentially be able to automate the electronics assembly process or even help with Google's same-day delivery efforts.
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The man behind this initiative is Andy Rubin, the former head of Google's Android division, who stepped down from that role in March. At the time, Google's CEO and cofounder Larry Page suggested that Rubin would be working on another "moonshot" project — Google's word for a seemingly impossible idea.
“I feel with robotics it’s a green field,” Rubin told the Times in an interview. “We’re building hardware, we’re building software. We’re building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack.”
Rubin did not offer much in the way of details on the record about the project or the potential uses for these robots, but the Times cites multiple anonymous sources who suggest cutting-edge robots could be one way to compete with Amazon. In recent months, Google has taken steps to compete with Amazon to become more of a shopping destination with revisions to its Google Shopping portal and the test launch of a same-day delivery service, Google Shopping Express.
Which is more absurd: having a robot step out of a self-driving car to deliver your package or a bunch of tiny drones flying through your neighborhood to do the same?
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We met The Cubinator for the first time at the 2010 World Maker Faire. The robot currently holds the Guinness world record for fastest machine solve of a Rubik's cube. Pete Redmond, who developed the robot for the final project of his master's degree, says that its solve time averages about 25 seconds. Webcams in the robot's eyes detect the colors on the cube and the machine solves the puzzle by using an algorithm to find the fewest moves. It also has has a sense of humor, shouting "oh dear!" when it occasionally drops the cube.
Even though the environmental effects of the Gulf oil spill may not be as bad as we initially feared, we can probably all agree that the oil didn't do the environment any favors. A team from MIT developed a fleet of robots that could clean up more efficiently in the future. The robots are equipped with a nanomaterial that can absorb 20 times their weight in oil. Each machine communicates with the other machines via GPS and Wi-Fi "to create an organized system for collection that can work continuously without human support."
Maybe there are a few people out there who genuinely enjoy sweeping and mopping floors, but the rest of us want this robot. Mint determines its location using "indoor GPS" and creates a map of the space as it cleans. For $250 you can get rid of your housekeeper.
A team at Carnegie Mellon University developed Snackbot to "support research into robust autonomous operation in office environments." We're pretty sure that's code for, "We could build a robot that delivers snacks, so why wouldn't we?" Research will allow the robot to navigate through congested areas in a socially acceptable fashion, detect individual people moving near it, recognize when someone that the it knows approaches, and autonomously learn to recognize new objects.
Baywatch is about to become even more unrealistic. EMILY, the robot lifeguard, isn't much to look at, but PopSci reports that it made 77,192 rescues last year. The current model is remote controlled, but a fully autonomous EMILY that uses a sonar device to scan for underwater movements will be available next spring.
Created by Jason Van Anden in 1996, Neil and Iona are considered elderly among working robots, but they were still spry and relevant enough to tour this year with the San Jose Museum of Art. The robots remain intriguing because of their ability to change expression, use body language and create "strangely endearing sounds." Frankly, they're cute. This mini documentary explains their creation.
You've probably played chess against a computer before, but table soccer? This robot uses a camera to perceive the playing field and then decides how the rods under its control should be moved. Originally developed at the Institute for Computer Science of the University of Freiburg, the robot is now sold as a game called StarKick.
Another project at Carnegie Mellon University, the Snakebot uses its "many internal degrees of freedom to thread through tightly packed volumes." In other words, it moves like a snake. It can coordinate the movements of its parts to swim, crawl, and even climb a tree.
DepthX is a collaborative project designed to create an underwater robot that can map three-dimensional spaces like flooded caverns and mines. The machine will first explore the deepest flooded sink hole in the world, the Zacatón Cenote in central Mexico.
DOMO was the doctoral work of Aaron Edsinger at MIT. The ultimate cool robot, it can accomplish tasks like making a drink, helping with chores, tracking an object and interacting with people. Watch DOMO in action here.