robosapien

Brainlink turns your toys into Android devices

How can you make your Roomba or Robosapien smarter? Try this hacker device that connects home electronics with your Android smartphone or laptop.

Brainlink is a controller that links robots and other IR devices to Android phones and laptops via Bluetooth.

The controller attaches to the robot and relays commands through its IR detector. It has a light sensor and accelerometer and ports for other sensors to add capabilities.

Roombas equipped with it could, for instance, avoid hitting walls if a proximity sensor is added. Or you could train Robosapien to find you a beer if you use an object-recognition app. There's a growing library of tools. … Read more

Roboscooper tidies up your room, whacks objects

What could be better than robots that promote laziness? Robosapien maker WowWee is introducing a household robot that can tidy up after you, autonomously locating and picking up socks and other objects on the floor and carting them away.

Roboscooper works in two modes--autonomous and remote-controlled. With four infrared sensors, the robot can avoid obstacles and detect objects on the floor that are up to a foot away.

It can grab lightweight stuff (around 1 ounce) with its large hands and then swivel to drop them in its cargo bay. If an object is too heavy or stuck, it will … Read more

Rovio now navigating to a store near you

Last week, we reported that Wrex the Dog was showing up at select U.S. e-tailers. On Monday, WowWee, maker of CNET editor Bonnie Cha's favorite work companion RoboSapien, announced that Rovio the roving robotic Web camera is now beginning to show up at some e-tailers.

While Wrex is cute and all, he doesn't really serve any functional purpose. Rovio, however, is cute and extremely functional. His three roving wheels let him move in pretty much any direction. Using an indoor GPS system, Rovio is able to, quite impressively, find his way around the house.

His Wi-Fi-enabled Webcam … Read more

'Tri-Bot' wheels in a new era

So long, Robosapien. It's been a good run, but face it: When McDonald's starts giving you away with Happy Meals, it's probably a sign that your 15 minute of fame are over.

Enter the "Tri-Bot." WowWee's successor to the groundbreaking Robosapien follows closely in its footsteps with exceptional mobility for a toy robot, except that it has no feet. Instead, it has a three-wheeled base that allows it to turn in any direction at the sharpest angles. The bot made an appearance earlier this year at CES, but RobotsRule has just posted the first … Read more

Robot report: i-Sobot, ElmoSapien, and robo-boredom

It's only Monday, but the robot news has been coming fast and furious of late. Fast like turbo robot.

Tomy launches U.S. version of i-Sobot site: The English version of the Web site for Tomy's $300 robot is now live, just in time for its late October launch. According to Waziwazi, i-Sobot will hit the shelves of Sharper Image and Toys R Us on Halloween day. Waziwazi also has a hands-on review of the robot, along with some good video footage. Tomy and the Guinness Book of World Records claim i-Sobot is the world's smallest commercial … Read more

Vote: Battle of the nonviolent robots (The Sweet Sixteen)

Voting is now closed for this round. See the results of these battles here and vote on the Elite Eight matchups here.

Get it now! Your full-size, printer-friendly tournament bracket.

And then there were 16.

These robots don't want to fight. That's why you have to pick the winners. After two weeks of "battling" it out, our field of nonviolent robots is down to 16 competitors.

Voting is open from now until Sept. 17. Check back then for the results of this round and vote on the Elite Eight matchups.

See last week's final scores … Read more

Vote: Battle of the non-violent robots

Voting is now closed for this round. See the results of the battles here and vote on eight more first round battles here.

Complex as they are, most robots solve dilemmas in a basic way: they fight each other. Then Michael Bay films it, charges $10 a ticket, and everyone enjoys the marvelous robots-kicking-the-crap-out-of-each-other show.

But there are plenty of robots that have no appetite for destruction. What about these robots, ones that have to rely on personality, artifical wits, social skills, and dance moves in order to survive?

Even if they banded together, these robots couldn't fight their … Read more

'Robosapien' is going Hollywood

Not that there was ever much doubt, but WowWee's career path for the "Robosapien" is now abundantly clear: They want to make it the Britney Spears of the robot world. (It already has the same hairdo.)

Only days after toy Robosapiens descended on McDonald's Happy Meals, RoboCommunity reports that the celebrity bot will star in its own movie, a collaboration with Arad Productions of Spiderman and X-Men fame. Touted as a combination of live action and CGI, the movie is scheduled for release in 2009.

But they'd better hurry. As the market gets flooded with … Read more

Robosapiens descend on McDonald's

You know that a toy has achieved official ubiquity when it gets stuffed into McDonald's Happy Meals. And the latest to win that dubious honor is the Robosapien.

But don't expect the giveaways to be anything close to the full-fledged, biomorphic original; remember, these kiddie meals are only a few bucks. From the looks of it on the Happy Meal site (yes, there's a site), we wouldn't anticipate more than some fancy wind-up gizmos, but we hope we're wrong.

At least we can count on variety, which is standard practice to lure kids back to … Read more

Robot in teddy bear's clothing

A couple of months ago for Halloween, we bestowed the completely made-up Demented Genius Award upon the Evil Mad Scientists Laboratory, in recognition of the modification of a Lego man by sticking an LED in it. This created a disturbing modern version of Ichabod Crane's nemesis, the Headless Horseman.

Today we present the second Demented Genius Award to Evosapien member Nocturnal and his alter ego, who prefers to go unnamed. We were able to confirm that it's Mr. Nocturnal, and not Ms. Nocturnal, who took WowWee's popular Robosapien toy, gutted a teddy bear, and merged the two in an unholy union. … Read more