GetRobo Blog

Cute penguin robot is your Facebook companion - Arimaz

 I got to sit down with Pierre Bureau, the founder and CEO of Arimaz in Switzerland, while he was visiting Silicon Valley. He showed me a demo of a prototype of a cute penguin robot that his company is planning to start selling in September for $99. The product is called MyDeskFriend. As the name proclaims, it is meant to be a small companion living on your desk. It comes with a docking station which is hooked up to the PC.

 

 Here is the video of a quick demonstration. You can interact with the robot in multiple ways. It can follow your finger and will detect the edges of the your desk so that it doesn't fall over, thanks to 5 infrared sensors. There is also an accelerometer inside so it knows when it's being touched or shaken. The eyes will change color depending on the mood of the robot. If you shake it too much, it's eyes will turn red - meaning it's in a bad mood.

 

What's new about this robot is that you can connect it with your Facebook profile. There you can see that the robot is hungry or tired or needs exercise. You have to look after it like an artifcial pet. (You can feed a cookie when it's hungry.) The robot will read the messages from your friends as well as the weather forecast and news. Your friends can feed and interact with your robot remotely too through Facebook.

 

 The robot follows voice commands and can memorize 10-15 different short key words of your choice.

 

 The product is targeted at young adults that spend a lot of time in front of the computer, according to Pierre, who founded Arimaz after working over 6 years at another company in Switzerland developing research and educational robots.

 

 Arimaz is willing to license it's technologies to other companies that want to develop a networked entertainment robot (and other electronic devices). They have developed software that manages the personality of the robot which is meant to evolve overtime. There is also a small "operating system" inside the robot that controls the motor and sensors. The client server architecture that connects the device to the web services sounded similar to what Speecys has. Both companies think that the key to entertainment robots is going to be the connection to the web.

 

 

(Photo:Pierre Bureau with prototype of MyDeskFriend)

 

 

(Photo: Yellow eyes mean it is happy.)

Cucumber slicing robot

 There's already been some reports about the cool robots at FOOMA JAPAN 2009, but here's another really cute food-handling robot that showed off it's skills there. And guess what? It's actually the ROBO-ONE robot Dynamizer made by the Sugiura Family! And the robot next to it is the Arimoplena by the Sumii Family sorting products. Since when did the battling bots start appearing at food trade shows?? In any case, that's great!  

Humanoids on moon by 2020?

 The Japanese government just approved a master plan for the country's space development program. Here is the draft of the master plan. It talks about planning to send robots to the moon by 2020 for exploration, although it doesn't go into any details.

 BUT, insider Sakigawara-san of the Future Robotics Technology Center at  Chiba Institute of Technology says in his blog that the plan is to send biped humanoids up to the moon by 2020 so that they can build a base for exploration. Will humanoids be THAT capable by then?   

One scenario for future home robots - Magic Cards

 I just found out about this video through freelance journalist Moriyama-san's super informative blog. First half of the video is still imaginary but the second half describes what is currently possible.  

 You can read about the project here. I support research in this direction. And we don't necessarily need humanoids to do everything for us.

The New King Kizer - lighter and faster

 ROBO-ONE's MARU Family has developed a new humanoid robot - the New King Kizer.  Compared to the Great King Kizer, the new robot stands 6cm taller at 60cm but weighs about 30% lighter and is only 3kg. Although the two robots may look similar from the outside, the new robot "is a completely different machine developed from scratch," according to Naoki Maru (father of the MARU Family).

   

(Photo: The New King Kizer (left) with the Great King Kizer) 

The goal was to develop a lighter robot that maintains the size and striking power of the Great King Kizer. To accomplish this, Naoki used the newest servo motor from Kondo Kagaku - the KRS-6003HV - and modified it himself to boost it's speed. The New King Kizer uses only 17 servo motors whereas the Great King Kizer had 35.

 The basic frames are aluminum (so are the Great's) but thinner and Naoki also used PET (polyethylene terephthalate) where strength is not an issue. The blades are made of recycled PP (polypropylene).

 You can watch the New King Kizer in action on Robot Watch. The robot made it's debut at the 15th ROBO-ONE competition. Although it ended up as one of the Best 8 and not the grand champion at this competition, it was able to show off it's new skills. This link shows the throw technique.

 Also Naoki and some others recently brought their robots to Hong Kong for a demo. Below is a video from Hong Kong. Although the title of this video says "Great King Kizer," it is actually the New King Kizer.