Nexi robot displays facial emotions

This latest achievement in the field of Robotics is named NEXI as it is framed as the next generation robots which is aimed for a range of applications for personal robots and human-robot teamwork.


DESIGNING

The head and face of NEXI were designed by Xitome Design which is a innovative designing and development company that specializes in robotic design and development. The expressive robotics started with a neck mechanism sporting 4 degrees of freedom (DoF) at the base, plus pan-tilt-yaw of the head itself. The mechanism has been constructed to time the movements so they mimic human speed. The face of NEXI has been specially designed to use gaze, eyebrows, eyelids and an articulate mandible which helps in expressing a wide range of different emotions.

The chassis of NEXI is also advanced. It has been developed by the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics UMASS (University of Massachusetts), Amherst. This chassis is based on the uBot5 mobile manipulator. The mobile base can balance dynamically on two wheels. The arms of NEXI can pick up a weight of up to 10 pounds and the plastic covering of the chassis can detect any kind of human touch.
















CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: HEAD OF THE PROJECT:

This project was headed by Media Lab's Cynthia Breazeal, a well known robotics expert famous for earlier expressive robots such as Kismet. She is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT. She named her new product as an MDS (mobile, dextrous, social) robot.

FEATURES OF NEXI

Except a wide range of facial expressions, Nexi has many other features. It has self-balancing wheels like the Segway transporter, to ultimately ride on. Currently it uses an additional set of supportive wheels to operate as a statically stable platform in its early stage of development. It has hands which can be used to manipulate objects, eyes (video cameras), ears (an array of microphones), and a 3-D infrared camera and laser rangefinder which support real-time tracking of objects, people and voices as well as indoor navigation

More about → Nexi robot displays facial emotions

Vulture Unmanned aerial vehicle

Vulture - Unmanned Aircraft



Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of United States is working to develop an unmanned aircraft that is able to stay in air for a period of 5 years at a time. It is one of the most recent inventions of world.

Officials of DARPA has revealed that this aircraft will be known as VULTURE due to its Persistent Pseudo-Satellite Capability . It means that this aircraft will be able to fly over a single area, communicating or performing analysis for years at a time.

Major Obstacles in Project:

Even this project looks appealing to many of you, but there are some serious problems or you can say obstacles in achieving this project.

1) First challenge in front of designers is to figure out some Way to Supply Power to this aircraft during long missions.

2) Another problem is that this aircraft will carry a 1000 pound (450 kg) payload in winds at an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

3) Designers have also to sort out the problems regarding Deterioration of Materials during their long-time exposure to stratospheric flight.
In addition to this there may be many challenges during designing of this aircraft.

Daniel Newman: The Man Behind VULTURE

Daniel Newman is the Project Manger of this ambitious project of NASA. In his words: "We want to completely change the paradigm of how we think of aircraft. Aviation has a perfect record - we've never left one up there. We will attempt to break that record". It looks that its time to get out of the traditional "launch - recover - maintain - launch cycle of aircrafts."

Concept Behind Vulture:

Basically Aircrafts operates just like satellites, but the major difference is that these are not regulated by orbital mechanics. You can understand Vulture as a Pseudo-Satellite, which operates in the stratosphere and not in the low Earth orbit. This would provide a 65 dB upgrading in communications capability and will increase onboard sensor resolution.

More about → Vulture Unmanned aerial vehicle

BLACKBERRY LATEST MOBILE PHONE:
BLACKBERRY LATEST MOBILE PHONE:

Blackberry Curve (8300) is one of the most popular latest phones since its launch. But since its launch, mobile industry has experienced many advances in technology. So to keep them update wit latest technology Blackberry family has launched its latest edition called BLACKBERRY BOLD.

WHAT'S NEW ?

Blackberry Bold is a blend of greatest features of Windows Mobile and the quality and reliability specific to Blackberry brand.

With the help of new Blackberry Bold now it is possible to edit your Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents. These updates can be moved over onto main PC or Mac. So now you can update and improve speeches and presentations during practice runs or when still on the road.

SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING:

Blackberry Bold is one of the most media-friendly release yet with the inclusion of Wifi which allows you to access the Internet from virtually millions of locations worldwide (the GPS and mapping functions can help you locate a site). And even outside of hot-spot areas, the Blackberry Bold utilizes HSDPA technology to access nearly 3G download speeds.

In new Blackberry Bold streaming videos are also available, complementing the mp3 player. And with the Media Sync application, you can easily transfer media files from itunes to your handset very easily.

More about →