Electrify America is working on autonomous charging
Volkswagen’s US subsidiary Electrify America is working with Stable Auto on charging robot solutions for self-driving electric cars. The first project in California is already planned.
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Dog-like robot tows 3.3-tonne plane (video)
It looks like a dog’s job as a human’s best friend may fall prey to automation. The HyQReal feeds on a 48-V battery and was initially conceived as a rescue dog.
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FedEx robot delivers live on television
The US logistics company FedEx has presented a battery-powered delivery robot named SameDay. They managed to get it on the Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, fit for a stairclimbing exercise but not quite advances enough to talk.
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Samsung’s robot charging unit EVAR (video)
Electric car enthusiast Bjørn Nyland has tracked down a robot that is a bit bizarre. The Electric Vehicle Automatic Recharging (EVAR) device serves at the Samsung C-lab in South Korea, and of course, there is a video.
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Segway that follows you
This robot you can ride and once you’re done rocking back and forth to drive around, it can follow your every step. This robot “butler” cannot cook, but has enough autonomy to make for an interesting toy.
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This robot is a cherry picker
The Burro is an autonomous robot, which will follow its user independently. Ir is not cute, but looks like a wheelbarrow and in fact works like one as it was designed to accompany farmers during harvest.
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Pre-emptive policing.
Security has become autonomous with Microsoft introducing its robot security guard. Five of these K5 machines monitored Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus last week. The 136-kilo robots sense danger but are not (yet) equipped with means to actually prevent humans from doing harm.
extremetech.com, technologyreview.com
Robot reception.
Meet Ms Aiko Shihara, Toshiba’s robot receptionist which (or is it “who”?) comes with 15 actuators inside its head to make it look more lively. Aiko speaks and signs Japanese. Toshiba plans to show it American sign language soon too. Maybe motels would be interested in the never-tiring android.
youtube.com, nextpowerup.com
From paper to power.
Harvard scientists have developed the first self-assembling robot. Similar to the Transformers we know from the big screen, this little guy disguises himself as a sheet of paper, which folds into a moving robot without human intervention. If – like in the movies – it can one day take the shape of a car (and why not an EV?) remains to be seen.
theguardian.com (with video)