Colleague and labmate, Tiffany Chen, pointed out an interesting new robot named "MeBot" from MIT's Personal Robotics Group.  Later this week, MeBot will be presented at the conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2010) in Osaka, Japan.  The associated paper, "MeBot: A Robotic Platform for Socially Embodied Presence," has been nominated for best paper.  In a nutshell, MeBot is a semi-autonomous robotic avatar that provides rich, remote interaction by conveying non-verbal channels of social communication in addition to video, something that is not provided by existing phone and video conferencing.  The expressiveness of MeBot is impressive.  It reminds me of the (now well-known) CrabFu Swashbot, but ups the ante by including video capabilities.  Be sure to check out the videos and photos below to see what I mean.

With micro / pico projectors being sold for under $250, and robot toy maker Wowwee getting in the game, it was only a matter of time before projectors would be found on robots -- especially since the general concept dates back at least three decades to R2D2's holographic projections in the original Star Wars trilogy.  In fact, Hizook previously examined a number of robots with projectors used to communicate intention.   Following the development of a laser pointer interface by the Healthcare Robotics Lab (to which I belong), myself and numerous labmates ruminated about the marrying of these two technologies -- it seemed a natural extension of the "Clickable World", wherein the world is composed of virtual buttons or icons selected via a laser pointer analogous to a PC mouse, to include visual feedback via an on-robot projector.  It seems ideas rarely stand in isolation; I'm now aware of two robotic systems that use both video projectors and laser pointer interfaces.  The first is a very preliminary "late breaking results" submission to HRI 2009, while the other is a fully-realized system developed in JST's ERATO program.  The latter research happens to have a compelling video, embedded below.

Like almost all roboticists, I'm a huge fan of robot movies.  My common favorites include: I-Robot, Blade Runner, Iron Man, Short Circuit, AI, Wall-E, Hinokio, and so on.  Well, there is a new Sci-Fi movie called "District 9" coming out this weekend that (based on previews) sports some impressive robotic systems -- particularly exoskeletons.  The writer / director of this new movie is Neill Blomkamp, who has also produced numerous short films featuring robots (a few of which are shown below).  In a psuedo-tradition, we're having a lab outing to a matinee showing of "District 9" this weekend.  I'll be sure to let you know how it goes in the comments, but in the meantime check out the pictures and trailers below.

The iconic Pixar animated lamp, Luxo Jr., unofficially debuted in animatronic form at Disney's Hollywood Studios in late June (videos below).  Both the animated and animatronic Luxo Jrs. have remarkable anthropomorphic emotive capabilities in spite of their simple, non-human form.  This reminds me of conversations in Dr. Andrea Thomaz's human-robot interaction course about applying animation techniques to design more effective social robots -- clearly Disney's Imagineers have perfected this art.

I came upon this new commercial (video below) entitled "The Runner -- Exploit Yourself" created by Big Lazy Robot (a design / visual effects studio) for Nike.  The humanoid robot performs impressive feats of urban acrobatics, strongly resembling a more agile version of the movie-star robot, Hinokio.  It is always interesting to compare robot fact with fiction.  Hopefully the future lives up to (nay, exceeds) our expectations.

Describing science as "beautiful" makes perfect sense to me; I believe the physics experiments described in The Prism and the Pendulum are on par with the greatest paintings and sculptures ever conceived!   However, I'm having difficulties classifying the $30,000 robot, Keepon:  Is it a research robot, an art-robot, or both?  On one hand, there is evidence supporting its role in important robotics research.  On the other hand, there are the numerous (many more?) whimsical videos of Keepon dancing to music or traveling the world, such as the "Keepon Goes Seoul-Searching" video to be shown on Friday at the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) 2009 conference (we show this video below).  Having seen Keepon in person, I can attest to its "cuteness" factor and quality design... but my questions are: "Where is the line between art and research drawn?"  "Does such a line, necessarily, exist?" and "How can HRI researchers and peer-reviewers objectively evaluate important robotics research that also possesses strong artistic components?"  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Back in May 2008 it was announced that CMU professors Sara Kiesler and Jodi Forlizzi (from the HCI Institute) and Paul Rybski (from the Robotics Institute) were awarded $500k in Microsoft's Human-Robot Interaction funding to develop a social, snack-selling robot to traverse Newell-Simon and Wean halls (press release).  After seeing a prototype appear on Flickr in July, we've all been waiting patiently to see pictures of the final version.  Well, the wait is over -- photos of the new CMU snackbot, conceptual designs, and construction photos are contained below!  It appears that the CMU team is progressing nicely.

OK, I know what everyone is thinking... "What is this craziness? Inter-Galactic Love?" Well, let's just attribute it to a poor Japanese-English translation -- the title should have been left at just "Hinokio," which is a play on words from the old, classic film title "Pinocchio."  In my opinion, this is the second-best robot movie of all time in terms of robot realism and "cool" humanoid robots (second to I-Robot), though it does posses some of those cheesy Japanese memes.  The movie is about a Japanese boy who is unable to walk and thus uses a telepresence, humanoid robot to experience life; everything the robot sees, hears, and feels, so does the boy. The film has amazing graphics and cinematography, and the human-robot interaction techniques are very well thought-out. I'd recommend everyone grab a copy and watch it; it's definitely worth the time. Read further for more detailed information and some very cool images from the film.