The easiest way to make a robot as dexterous and capable as a human being is to simply let a human control it. That’s how Disney Research’s new telepresence robot works, but with improved hydraulics on board, it’s now capable of duplicating a human’s motions with remarkable precision—to the point where it can even be…
Games and interactive movies are fun, but modern virtual reality systems like the Oculus Rift also have the ability to let people travel and experience the world without ever leaving their couch. And the DORA telepresence robot, which can perfectly match the movements of someone wearing a headset, will help make that…
A robotics company recently made one of its telepresence units accessible over the Internet for a public demonstration. But to keep it from going astray, the device was confined to an office — an unacceptable constraint that one crafty user interpreted as a challenge.
As you may already know, this past week, Gizmodo's Home of the Future has been giving everyone a sneak peek at our imminent urban lives. And what sorts of things should you be looking forward to in your days to come? Why, ramming into people with a telepresence robot, of course.
It's a beautiful day outside! You should go and get little sunlight. But you just can't bring yourself to move; the couch is just too comfortable. Luckily at Gizmodo's Home of the Future you can have it both ways, and it is glorious.
Haptic Turk is a prototype game that uses your friends as virtual robots to do immersive motion simulation at home. The research project from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany demoed a flight simulator variant at CHI2014 last week: the player wears 3D goggles and lies in two slings held by four friends—the…
Email, the internet, and a host of other advancements in office technology have finally made the dream of working from home a reality. But sometimes you just need to be in the office, and thanks to a collaboration between iRobot and Cisco, you still don't need to change out of your pajamas to get chewed out by your…
A wise man once said, "In order for us to understand the rat, we must become the rat." Now, it's quite possible that no one has ever actually said this, but that doesn't matter. But what does matter is that it's the driving sentiment behind a project that's seeking to bridge the gap that's separating us humans from…
Anyone who plays video games knows that game bots, artificially intelligent virtual gamers, can be spotted a mile away on account of their mindless predictability and utter lack of behavioral realism. Looking to change this, 2K Games recently launched the BotPrize competition, a kind of Turing Test for nonplayer…
It's been the new millennium for over a decade now and not only do we not have personal jetpacks, but there's also a distinct lack of robo-maids and robo-butlers. You might not be able buy a robotic house-slave tommorrow, but Toyota's newly announced Human Support Robot is a step in that direction.
Cutting-edge devices that allow you to be ‘telepresent' are slowly starting to make an appearance in our lives, but a new kissing device that looks like the cross between Mr. Potato Head and and an ostrich egg may make us wish they will never catch on.
Video conferencing can be a cold and impersonal way to conduct business, but researchers at Osaka University in Japan think they can change that by having the participants first perform a tele-handshake using a robot hand that matches the other person's grip.
Meet Osaka University's remote handshaking telepresence device. Combine it with the Telenoid R1 sperm monster and the remote kissing machine for an erotic fiesta of disembodied horror.
Projection people aren't an entirely new phenomenon, but this Mask-bot — a new yammering robo-visage from German and Japanese researchers — was built to give robots emotive faces and to replace conference calls with talking heads.
We've seen some fairly convincing power loader facsimiles before, but this refurbished Ditch Witch by Raytheon-Sarcos — who are also experimenting with robotic exoskeletons — isn't that far off from James Cameron's original vision.
Ever wished your phone was a little more... intimate? Fabian Hemmert, a design researcher at the Berlin University of the Arts, Germany, certainly does. "Mobile phones use so little of our sensory abilities," he says. "They are great for information exchange - text, video, and speech - but they provide no feeling of…
Researchers at Japan's Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications are developing a device that allows the user to engage in some telepresence smooching by furiously tonguing an apparatus that resembles an electric toothbrush or talk box. Sexy futurism?
This is TEROOS, a shoulder-mounted telepresence robot that allows you to hang out with your friends while you're at home, lounging in your Underoos.
Remember the Telenoid R1 telepresence robot we featured several months back? Now researchers from Osaka University have collaborated with NTT Docomo and Qualcomm to build the Elfoid, a telephone shaped like a pallid amphibious man.
South Korean inventor Mok Young Bak took his apparent obsessive compulsive disorder—an intangible thing—and put it into Caduceus, a very real thing. It serves one, mad purpose: Simultaneous cellphone usage from a remote location.
