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CeBIT 2016: The Aerotain Skye Could Be Your Friendly Floating Camera Drone

IEEE Spectrum Robotics

Editors Note: This week IEEE Spectrum is covering CeBIT, the enormous information and communications technology show that takes place annually in Hanover, Germany. For up-to-the-second updates, you can follow our CeBIT Ninja, Stephen Cass, on Twitter (@stephencass), or catch daily highlights throughout the week here. Once upon a time there was a very odd British television show called The Prisoner, which featured a secret agent repeatedly attempting to escape from a mysterious village. One of the biggest threats the agent faced was a giant balloon called Rover, which would pursue and subdue rule-breaking villagers. Now Rover has been brought to reality, albeit in a much more adorable version, thanks to the engineers at Aerotain and their Skye inflatable drone.


Video Friday: Autonomous Pizza Delivery, Handwriting Robot, and ROS Master

IEEE Spectrum Robotics

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your starving Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Domino's in New Zealand (or Australia, we're not sure) has developed this pizza-delivery robot and I can't tell if they're serious or not: The New Zealand government at least, is taking them seriously, according to Stuff.co.nz: Transport Minister Simon Bridges said Domino's had made contact "a few weeks ago" to inform the Government about DRU and see if New Zealand was interested in hosting trials.


CeBIT 2016: Terabee's Range Sensor Helps Make Drones Fast, Cheap, and Under Control

IEEE Spectrum Robotics

Editors Note: This week IEEE Spectrum is covering CeBIT, the enormous information and communications technology show that takes place annually in Hanover, Germany. For up-to-the-second updates, you can follow our CeBIT Ninja, Stephen Cass, on Twitter (@stephencass), or catch daily highlights throughout the week here. The World Wide Web is the most famous technology to emerge from the needs of the international particle physics research center CERN, but it's not the only one. In the latest example, a lightweight, inexpensive (and maker-friendly) range sensor has come about because scientists want to use drones to survey tunnels and vaults without smashing into expensive and difficult to replace equipment. CERN's massive subterranean facility lies underneath farm fields between Geneva and the Jura mountains.


New startup aims to provide smarter robotics for hazardous environments

Huffington Post - Tech news and opinion

Recently I looked a project being undertaken by a British team from Lancaster and Manchester universities respectively. The team were looking at how robotics could be better deployed to help in the aftermath of a nuclear accident. It's part of a growing trend that is seeing robots deployed in extremely hazardous environments, such as this German project that is using robots in bomb detection and disposal situations. A common feature of most of these projects is that human beings remain in control of the robots, which can create issues regarding the agility of the robots and their responsiveness to circumstances on the ground. A British team are attempting to rectify this with a new system that uses telepresence to allow for a more adaptive means of controlling the robot.


Virtual instruments let you play music using only your eyes

New Scientist

Software that turns eye movement into musical notes lets you compose music or play a tune on a virtual instrument with just your eyes. Called Eye Conductor, it was developed by Andreas Refsgaard at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design in Denmark and his colleagues to provide a musical outlet for people with physical disabilities. Caring for a boy with muscular dystrophy, Refsgaard found that it was hard to help him express himself creatively. "I wanted to create a solution that still requires practice, like a traditional instrument," he says. The system uses an off-the-shelf eye tracker with a webcam to follow a person's gaze.


Why Neuroscientists Need to Study the Crow - Facts So Romantic

Nautilus

The animals of neuroscience research are an eclectic bunch, and for good reason. Different model organisms--like zebra fish larvae, C. elegans worms, fruit flies, and mice--give researchers the opportunity to answer specific questions. The first two, for example, have transparent bodies, which let scientists easily peer into their brains; the last two have eminently tweakable genomes, which allow scientists to isolate the effects of specific genes. For cognition studies, researchers have relied largely on primates and, more recently, rats, which I use in my own work. But the time is ripe for this exclusive club of research animals to accept a new, avian member: the corvid family.


How Do You Say "Life" in Physics? - Issue 34: Adaptation

Nautilus

"To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life." Jeremy England is concerned about words--about what they mean, about the universes they contain. He avoids ones like "consciousness" and "information"; too loaded, he says. When he's searching for the right thing to say, his voice breaks a little, scattering across an octave or two before resuming a fluid sonority. The 34-year-old assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the architect of a new theory called "dissipative adaption," which has helped to explain how complex, life-like function can self-organize and emerge from simpler things, including inanimate matter. This proposition has earned England a somewhat unwelcome nickname: the next Charles Darwin. But England's story is just as much about language as it is about biology. There are some 6,800 unique languages in use today.


Ghent University's Scorpion Hexapod robot can STAB victims with its tail

Daily Mail - Science & tech

It is one of the most terrifying robots ever made. Students have developed a 3D-printed scorpion to demonstrate the'intuitive and complex mechatronic functions' of the technology - and it can even stab people with its tail The Scorpion Hexapod is designed with six-legs that moves in all directions, responds to interactions and has a tail that leaves a'mark' when it attacks. Students have developed a 3D-printed scorpion to demonstrate the'intuitive and complex mechatronic functions' of the technology. The Scorpion Hexapod is designed with six-legs that moves in all directions, responds to interactions and has a tail that leaves a'mark' if it attacks The system was designed with different moves and a few auto responses to interaction, although it can be controlled through a computer. The system was designed with different moves and a few auto responses to interaction, although it can be controlled through a computer. It can walk in all directions, step over elevated surfaces and perform movements a real scorpion would such as, move its claws and strike its tail.


Toyota's Project Blaid unveils voice-activated wearable to help the blind navigate

Daily Mail - Science & tech

The white stick is getting a 21st century makeover - by becoming a wearable. Japanese car firm Toyota has designed a mobility device worn over a person's shoulders that can help blind and visually impaired people get around more easily. Called Project Blaid, the device is currently a prototype, but when it's ready, it'will fill the gaps left by canes, guide dogs and basic GPS devices by giving users more information about their surroundings,' the company explained. Toyota has designed a mobility device to help blind and visually impaired people get around more easily. Named Project Blaid, the gadget is worn over a person's shoulders (pictured) and can help navigate indoor spaces, like offices and shopping centres by pointing out features like toilets, doors, stairs and escalators The gadget is not expected to replace guide dogs or other ways blind people get assistance, but instead is designed to enhance the current methods.


Dennis Aabo Sørensen who lost left hand is able to feel surfaces with prosthetic digit

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Nine years ago a fireworks accident left Dennis Aabo Sørensen so severely wounded, doctors were forced to amputate his left hand. But now, for the first time since the accident, the 36-year-old has been able to experience what the world around him feels like through his missing limb. Scientists have developed a bionic finger that can be connected to the nerves left in his arm, allowing him to experience textures as they really feel. Dennis Aabo Sørensen (pictured) has become the first amputee to trial a new bionic fingertip that has allowed him to feel and distinguish different textures. The technology could lead to new prosthetic arms that can restore the sense of touch to amputees.