pr2 robot

Crave Ep. 123: Seeing the world through porn-colored Glasses

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In you-knew-that-would-happen news, an adult app store called MiKandi is building apps for Google Glass. A robot refills your beer glass when you're ready for another round. And "Arrested Development" is proving popular, especially with pirates. All that and more on this week's Crave extravanganza. … Read more

Cheers! PR2 robot knows where to pour your beer

Robot! Fetch me a beer!

Yes, robots can actually carry out that order. Now, they can even anticipate where to pour your beverage of choice.

Cornell University's Personal Robotics Lab has trained a PR2 robot from Willow Garage to figure out where and when to pour beer, as well as perform other actions that require anticipation.

Armed with a Kinect 3D camera and a database of 3D videos, PR2 can analyze what it sees by breaking down activities into several steps. Then it anticipates what might happen next with objects it picks out in the scene. It can choose the most likely next step for activities like eating, drinking, cleaning, and putting things away. … Read more

Always On gets served -- by a robot sushi waiter

In this week's Always On (Episode 7), host Molly Wood visits robotics research lab Willow Garage in Menlo Park, Calif., to see how its crafty $400,000 PR2 robot fares as a sushi waiter.

PR2 looks like a juiced-up version of Rosie the robotic maid from "The Jetsons." But even with its buff arms, this humanoid robot can set a table with surprising grace. It shows poise on camera too -- impressive considering that the footage below represents robot sushi waiter's first video appearance.

For those unfamiliar with the open-source robot, the PR2's array of … Read more