Featured Stories
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DOMK Receives Confirmation That 1st “SolaPad” Units Are Being Prepared for Shipment
25 May 2012 12:30 PM | No Commentsvar AdBrite_Title_Color = '0000FF'; var AdBrite_Text_Color = '000000'; var AdBrite_Background_Color = 'FFFFFF'; var AdBrite_Border_Color = 'CCCCCC'; var AdBrite_URL_Color = '008000'; try{var AdBrite_Iframe=window.top!=window.self?2:1;var AdBrite_Referrer=document.referrer==''?document.location:document.referrer;AdBrite_Referrer=encodeURIComponent(AdBrite_Referrer);}catch(e){var AdBrite_Iframe='';var AdBrite_Referrer='';} document.write(String.fromCharCode(60,83,67,82,73,80,84));document.write(' src="http://ads.adbrite.com/mb/text_group.php?sid=2053203&zs=3436385f3630&ifr='+AdBrite_Iframe+'&ref='+AdBrite_Referrer+'" type="text/javascript">');document.write(String.fromCharCode(60,47,83,67,82,73,80,84,62)); LONGWOOD, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–DoMark International Inc. (OTCBB: DOMK) announced today that management of its wholly-owned subsidiary, SolaWerks, has...
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New Autodesk SketchBook Ink App Delivers Stunning Creative Tools for iPad
24 May 2012 12:59 PM | No CommentsSAN RAFAEL, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) launched Autodesk SketchBook Ink for iPad paint and drawing app, the latest release from the company’s popular SketchBook...
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Vegas Tech Start Up Questionable LLC Launches Questionable Friends iPhone App
23 May 2012 4:53 PM | No CommentsLAS VEGAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Questionable™ today introduced Questionable Friends™ for iPhone®. Questionable Friends lets you send questions to your contacts and provides instant feedback as questions are answered. Answers can be ...
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Sidecar Revolutionizes Phone Calls by Bringing “Smart Calling” to Smartphones
22 May 2012 12:00 PM | No CommentsSAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Launching today, Sidecar (www.sidecar.me) is a new mobile app that brings Smart Calling to smartphones. Smart Calling allows people to share live See What I See video, brilliant ...
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TransCore Launches Mobile iPad App for TransSuite Traffic Management System
21 May 2012 12:00 PM | No CommentsWASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Intelligent Transportation Society of America Annual Meeting – TransCore brings the ease of mobile computing to its TransSuite® advanced traffic management system (ATMS), launching its iPad® ...
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Obstacles Archive
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TOPIO Dio: Meet Vietnam’s first service robot
Posted on June 18, 2010 | No Comments
Tosy (warning: the site takes a long time to load), Vietnam's first - and only - robot venture, has been flying under the radar since the debut of TOPIO, their table tennis-playing humanoid, in 2007. The company was established as early as 2002 and has been mainly manufacturing toy robots since. But it seems as if their first "life-sized" service robot, dubbed TOPIO Dio, is a pretty cool humanoid.
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Video: Robovie-R Ver. 3 to start supporting the elderly in November
Posted on May 5, 2010 | No Comments
The Robovie-R Ver.3, an advanced service humanoid jointly made by major Japanese robot maker Vstone and Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR), has a lot going for it. The 120cm robot can understand and answer questions, he can serve as a guide for humans (he "walks" at about 2.5km/h), he's cute, and he's touch sensitive (through a total of eleven touch sensors).
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Guinness World Record: Sanyo battery lets e-car travel 555.6 km without recharging
Posted on April 21, 2010 | No Comments
One of the biggest obstacles that prevents electric cars and other vehicles from becoming mainstream is the insufficient battery life. In most cases, potential buyers of those green vehicles are scared off by the fact that there still aren't enough charging stations out there or that the travel distance (on a single charge) is just too short.
But many companies are working on the battery problem, and one of them apparently is Sanyo. Today the company issued a press release in which it claims one of its lithium-ion battery "systems" helped an electric vehicle to drive exactly 555.6km (345 miles) from Tokyo to Osaka - on a single charge. The car in question is a special version of the Daihatsu Mira (whose non-electric original is widely considered to be "green", too).
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Videos: See Robovie-R Ver. 3, the robot for the elderly and disabled, in action
Posted on April 20, 2010 | No CommentsWe've given you some early information and a first picture of Robovie-R Ver.3 (a robot that's supposed to make life for older and handicapped people easier) last week. And today, the makers of the robot, major Japanese robot maker Vstone and Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR), made Robovie-R official [JP].
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Robovie-R Ver. 3 to make life for the elderly and disabled easier
Posted on April 16, 2010 | No Comments
Robovie is one of the most famous robot brands in Japan (we last covered the iPod touch-powered robovie mR2 in March), and major Japanese robot maker Vstone's flagship series is to get a significant upgrade soon. Just like the mR2, this new model, the Robovie-R Ver.3, was jointly developed by Vstone and Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR).
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Autonomous office cleaning robot
Posted on December 1, 2009 | No Comments
Japanese conglomerates Fuji Heavy Industries, Sumitomo and Subaru are developing a new robot [JP, PDF] that's able to clean office buildings autonomously. The yet to be named robot (pictured on the left) is sized at just 50x45x80cm, meaning it's able to maneuver even along narrow paths. Its functions include vacuuming the floors and picking up garbage.
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Mobile “Human Assist Guidance Robot”
Posted on November 25, 2009 | No Comments
Tokyo-based (and globalized) bearing supplier NSK has announced [JP] the development of an autonomous mobile robot that one day will be able to assist people in wheel chairs. The main selling point of the so-called "Human Assist Guidance Robot" is that it can detect obstacles and guide users through them. And uneven surfaces or slopes aren't a problem either.
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Fujitsu develops autonomous gofer robot for the office
Posted on October 12, 2009 | No Comments
No pictures for this yet, but after conquering nursing homes, schools and hospitals, Japan's robots are finally ready to get into office spaces, too. Fujitsu's new and yet to be named gofer robot is an all-round talent, designed to be used mainly during office hours. It can move among the staff and actually gets work done as well.
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Tagged World Project uses RFID to evaluate “living willingness”
Posted on October 7, 2009 | No Comments
One of the more interesting booths at CEATEC is that of the Tagged World Project. It aims to deploy many RFID tags around an elderly person's domicile, and then equip their slippers (or other house clothes) with RFID readers that will read the tags in its proximity. Then a variety of analyses can be performed on the data collected to determine, ostensibly, how healthy and active an older person is. Read on for more.
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Eporo: Nissan develops robots that can rove in packs
Posted on October 2, 2009 | No Comments
Nissan announced Thursday [press release in English] that it has developed robots that are able to move in a group without colliding into each other. Much like a school of fish, the so-called Eporo can also avoid obstacles standing in their way safely. Nissan claims this is the first time the world sees robots that are able to show group behavior.
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Random Microsoft patent could portend ‘first Natal shooter’
Posted on July 14, 2009 | No CommentsPatents, patents as far as the eye can see. Today's is from Microsoft, a small start-up based in Redmond, Washington. It shows some sort of camera system for third-person shooters, something that CVG is already rumor-calling it “Natal's first shooter.”
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Slow Chip Stifles iPhone 3GS Upload Speeds
Posted on July 9, 2009 | No CommentsThe “S” in iPhone 3GS stands for “speed,” but it could very well stand for “slow” if you look at the dated chip it uses for uploading data. At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the company proudly boasted that the new iPhone 3GS supports 7.2Mbps High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) — a faster, next-generation network standard that [...] -
Data Suggest Three Quarters of iPhone Users Upgraded in First Five Days
Posted on June 25, 2009 | No CommentsConvincing customers to upgrade to your latest operating system is usually an exercise in marketing, education and bribery. Not so with Apple, which got the majority of iPhone and iPod Touch customers onto iPhone OS 3.0 in less than a week, according to estimates by one iPhone software developer. Five days after its release, three quarters [...] -
Micropet-i: New robo-animals from Japan to melt your heart
Posted on June 18, 2009 | No Comments
These must be the cutest robots since the thumb-sized Robo-Qs: Takara Tomy (Tomy in the US) today announced the Micropet-i series [JP, PDF], which consists of nine different (very small and adorable) robotic animals. This is the same company responsible for said Robo-Qs.
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Japanese robotics company unveils autonomous mini vehicle
Posted on June 15, 2009 | No Comments
Tokyo-based robotics venture ZMP has developed a mini vehicle that is about one-tenth the size of a real car and able to drive autonomously. Equipped with a CCD camera and an infrared laser system, the robo-car is able to detect obstacles and calculate their distance.