We’ve heard of gadgets being powered by some pretty crazy stuff, but how about paper? Sony recently showed off a new bio-cell battery that breaks down paper in order to create power. A paper battery sounds a little bit far-fetched, but the technology works, and could potentially change how we power devices in the future.
Fans of the sci-fi film Minority Report will no doubt recall the autonomous insect-like searcher robots deployed to find Tom Cruise’s character mid-way through the flick. While not as elegant (or sinister) as its film counterparts, the Asterisk robot being developed by the Arai Robotics Lab at Osaka University in Japan does an excellent job of resembling a big, mechanical bug with some interesting skills. After over six years of development, this unusual “limb-mechanism” robot now boasts an impressive array of functions that may soon find it performing vital tasks in numerous areas of society, including search and rescue and building maintenance.
The Japanese electronics giant Sony has announced the development of a new technology that produces energy from shredded paper.
At a fair about environmental products, opened in Tokyo, Sony invited children to make a little experiment. They introduced a paper into a mixture of enzymes and water. After a few minutes, the liquid has become a source of energy, being able to power a small fan.
Open the pod bay doors, Kinect 2. The next version of Kinect — Microsoft’s hands-free, gesture-controlled gaming peripheral for Xbox 360 — is rumored to have such high processing power that it can read lips and even detect the emotions of its user.
If that sounds scary, well, yeah, it’s a little scary. If it’s true, it also means the next generation of consoles are going to be super fun. Eurogamer spoke with an anonymous source who spilled the beans on the new Kinect and potential plans for the next generation of Xboxes.
Engineered Arts Ltd.’s Robothespian is probably one of the first professional robotic actors who made it into the real world (sorry, T-1000). Its elegant movements, extraordinary body language and emotion-conveying skills make it a great communicator. It may not be capable of helping the elderly, it’s not nearly as agile and athletic as Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN, and it’s unlikely to be of any use during eye surgery. But that’s OK. Robothespian is an artist. A robot burdened with the task of exploring the ephemeral territory of the arts and claiming it for his robotic brethren. And it seems it is extremely well equipped to get the job done.
Thanks to LCD eyes that convey emotions and feelings to match what is being said, along with emotive LED lighting in its body shell, Robothespian has become proficient at the art of mesmerizing its audience. If you need a captivating story-teller, just hire a professional voice-over artist once and then leave Robothespian to deliver the same powerful act over and over again.
Robot creator Masahiko Yamaguchi has demonstrated a robot which can balance, steer and correct itself while riding a fixed-gear bike.
“A feature of this robot is, it pedals the bike with its own feet, and keeps its balance just by using the handlebars. I think this is probably a world first.”
It might be some time before one of these is bounding through the local park but a new ‘robo-dog’ could make life easier for blind people.
The robot was created by Japanese developer NSK, along with the University of Electro-Communications, and uses a Microsoft Kinect image and distance sensor to create a 3-D visualisation of obstacles ahead.
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