| Rumor: Dyson to Lanch Roomba Robot War
Game development Kremlinology is often accomplished by scouring job listings at the big houses. Blizzard looking for a designer or artist? That's Diablo III, buddy, right there! The same is true, it seems, of vacuum cleaners, with Dyson putting out a want ad for roboticists. What does it mean? Dyson prepares Roomba-killer! It seems pretty clear-cut that's what they're thinking, with the ad specifying computerized navigation systems and vision engineering. Roomba's weakness has always been its brute force cleaning patterns, simply rolling around until it runs out of juice, using physical barriers to determine the landscape. And while Electolux has a rival Roomba-like that offers a more intelligent and effective approach, it's $1,800. New Scientist writer Tom Simonite suspects Dyson will copy it and say they've "reinvented" it.
Androids to Lift Grandma
The population of Japan is aging quickly and soon there may not be enough young folk left to care to their needs. This sounds like a job for some good old fashioned Japanese ingenuity. In a public demonstration held in Tokyo on March 28, a human-sized android showed off its weightlifting skills by successfully picking up a 30-kilogram (66-pound) package from a desk and lifting a 66-kilogram (145-pound) humanoid doll out of bed. University of Tokyo professor Yasuo Kuniyoshi and his team of engineers developed the 155-centimeter (61-inch) tall, 70-kilogram (154-pound) robot last year. A recent software upgrade allows the robot to move more like a human by constantly adjusting the power of its arm movements based on data received from 1800 tactile sensors embedded in its artificial skin.
Ossur's Proprio Foot Walks Away With 2007 Medical Design ...
Ossur, a trusted and global developer of more scientifically advanced prosthetic innovations than any other company in the field, is pleased to announce that its PROPRIO FOOT(TM) is the winner of a 2007 Medical Design Excellence Award. The PROPRIO FOOT, the latest in Ossur's Bionic Technology platform, is the world's first motor-powered and intelligent prosthetic foot, a seamless fusion of electronics, mechanics, and human physiology that reduces the energy patients spend in reacting consciously to the environment. The foot replaces muscle function that was lost due to an amputation, enabling amputees to perform normal, functional activites by:
* Sensing. Knowing where their foot is in space is a huge safety issue for amputees. Sophisticated sensor technology mimics the body's own neural receptors that are sensitive to mechanical change, providing artificial proprioception (that sense of where the limb is in space).
World's first smart robotic micro-drill used in surgery
LONDON, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The world's first truly smart robotic micro-drill has been used in a surgical operation in Birmingham, the United Kingdom. The surgical drilling robot, developed by Peter Brett from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Aston University, does not have to be programmed or made to work from a computer operated by a human. It is smart, just knows where to go and what to do, science news website Alpha Galileo reported on Thursday. The drill has been tested on patients needing cochlear implants by David Proops, Ear, Nose and Throat Consultant Surgeon at University Hospital Birmingham NHS (National Health Service) Foundation Trust. The drill, applied to the cochlea, the inner ear hearing organ,is aligned to the correct place and then drills a hole less than amillimeter in diameter to enable the cochlear implant to be inserted.
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