Robots

Greetings and felicitations, Bubblenauts! This is Episode 3 of our new gadget show, set aboard a tiny bubbleship floating in geostationary orbit far above the planet. This week you can feast your tentacles on an exploration of whether robots deserve human rights, and witness everything there is to know about the socio-cultural evolution of the beat 'em-up videogame.

We'll also give you a bunch of good reasons to hate the Motorola Motofone F3--a mobile for the third world that's distinctly third-rate. Thrill as we blast it into a gabillion plastic shards. Subscibe to the podcast through iTunes, … Read more

Now this is our kind of robot. If you're going to go the droid route, we figure, don't mess around with the type of sissy-bots that are so prevalent these days--go for the brute factor instead.

That's why we like the "Ellos RescueBot," which Gearfuse describes as a "damage-resistant" machine designed to go where humans can't in emergencies. Its description makes it sound more like something from the Amazon (the river, not the store) than a piece of robotics: "Its main standout feature is 10 lifting arms on its bottom. When … Read more

Attendees of this past weekend's Coachella music festival in Southern California spotted a robot named Hotshot who apparently roamed the fairgrounds making colorful robotic commentary. Falling somewhere between Short Circuit and Triumph the insult-comic dog, Hotshot seems to be a remote-controlled bot with a head-mounted camera and an off-site operator who provides the robot with its witty banter.

Hotshot begs an interesting and possibly terrifying question. Is it possible to engineer a robot that has a better chance of getting lucky than you do? Not some kind of super-realistic sexbot like Cherry 2000, but a Johnny 5-style robot … Read more

We've all seen what happens when we give robots an inch--Terminator 2: Judgment Day--but perhaps we should consider passing laws to make robot murder, if not a crime, at least something we socially frown on. The delicate issue is put on trial in this week's Crave Podcast. If that subject doesn't slice your pie, then what about city-wide free Wi-Fi networks? Or does the iAxe 393 USB Guitar appeal to your rockstar daydreams? We review it in this episode.

Other treats include the Crave team's reaction to news that Bob Geldof plans to launch a "Dictionary Of Man" online… Read more

Nike seems to have joined GM on the Transformers bandwagon.

Manolo's Shoe Blog--yes, we even read shoe blogs here at Crave--noticed these Transformers that convert from a sneaker into a toy robot. The fake sneakers, which come as the characters Convoy or Megatron, are half-size replicas of actual Nike sneakers and even come in a shoebox. (Have fun explaining these to airport security.)

The sneakers, available this May for about $30 from Takara Tomy, are no doubt part of the marketing blitz for the July 4 release of the new Transformers action movie. A Japanese ad for Nike … Read more

iRobot pretty much has both ends of the robot spectrum covered: cute, household cleaning robots and industrial-strength military robots. Monday's announcement that iRobot and Boeing will team up on a military/civilian/commercial robot falls somewhere in the middle.

The Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, nicknamed SUGV Early, will weigh less than 30 pounds. That's smaller than iRobot's line of robots currently in use in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to search buildings, caves and tunnels and disarm Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

The SUGV Early will perform reconaissance and gather intelligence while operators stand out of harm's … Read more

LG isn't fooling anyone. In developing its first vacuum cleaner, the electronics maker predictably touted all kinds of techie features, such as "a RotaBlade that is in the rocket shaped drum, which is attached to an additional motor moving side-to-side compacting household dust into solid cubes," according to Pocket-lint.

But we know the real strategy: It wanted the "Compressor Vacuum Cleaner" to look like a Transformer. And it's done a splendid job, by the way--at first glance, we were sure it was a new version of "Optimus Prime" or some other mechanical … Read more

We're confident that those of you who've had to hump ammo cans or a mortar plate over hill and dusty dale will draw great consolation in the knowledge that those following in your footsteps may have it easier should this contraption find its way into the grunt inventory.

While still in the prototype stage, the BigDog robotic mule is supposed to be able to clamber up a 35-degree slope and carry a 120-pound load through rough terrain at more than 5 miles per hour. Billed as "the most advanced quadruped robot on earth" it's the … Read more

Everytime we see a new alarm system from Japan, the more curious we get about the mind of the Japanese criminal. In most societies, it helps to have the most menacing security and surveillance mechanisms available to deter thieves, burglars and other intruders. But the Japanese often take a different approach toward public safety, using technologies ranging from light shows to the "Ubiko" kitty-bot.

So it comes as little surprise that the latest security offering from the island nation--the "Roborior"--looks more like a kawaii toy than something that would scare off hardened perps. True, it … Read more