Berryboot is a simple boot selection screen, allowing you to put multiple Linux distribution on a single SD card. In addition it allows you to put the operating system files on an external USB hard drive instead of on the SD card itself.
From Gizmodo
We can’t get enough of these tiny but impressive robot gymnasts who flip through the air and stick their landings. We’re probably only seeing the one time it lands upright in about 100 attempts, but who cares? They’re only going to get better and better. And one day the summer Olympics might actually be worth watching. Give that robot the wood medal. (Because it’s not programmed to recognize the value of gold.)
From: Gizmag
By Ben Coxworth
March 12, 2013
Robots either have legs, or they run on something like treads or wheels … right? Well, not in the case of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s new CHIMP robot. The humanoid ‘bot does have arms and legs, allowing it to stand and carry out tasks on a human scale. When it’s time to move, however, it can hunker down on all fours and roll along on rubberized treads built into its feet and forearms – not unlike a slower, all-terrain form of buggy rollin’.
CHIMP (CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform) is Carnegie Mellon’s entry in the upcoming DARPA Robotics Challenge, in which the various teams’ robots will ultimately have to successfully complete a sort of obstacle course that requires them to do things like driving a car, traveling through rubble, opening doors, climbing ladders, and manipulating tools. The competition begins later this year, and will proceed through to the end of 2014.
While CHIMP’s design does keep it naturally balanced in a standing position, why not just have it walk like C-3PO? For one thing, bipedal walking (or even dynamically-balanced standing) requires a lot of mechanical complexity, computational requirements, and energy consumption. It’s also not a particularly stable a way of traversing uneven terrain, as compared to CHIMP’s approach of lowering its center of gravity then rolling along like a tank.
That said, CHIMP can also move while standing, using only the treads on its feet. Among other things, this will allow it to move while grasping objects with its three-fingered manipulators (aka “hands”).
During the competition, CHIMP will operate via supervised autonomy. This means that a human operator will remotely-control the big things, such as the path taken by the robot, but CHIMP’s own onboard systems will handle functions such as collision avoidance and maintaining stability. Those latter functions will be made possible using a variety of onboard sensors that create a texture-mapped 3D model of the robot’s surroundings.
That same model is used by the operator to visualize CHIMP’s location and orientation. Using an interface consisting of a big-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse, the operator can then decide how to proceed within the various challenges. Making things considerably easier for them, tasks such as tool-grasping and steering-wheel-turning will also be pre-programmed into the robot. This will also allow CHIMP to perform such activities considerably faster.
“Humans provide high-level control, while the robot provides low-level reflexes and self-protective behaviors,” said team leader Tony Stentz. “This enables CHIMP to be highly capable without the complexity associated with a fully autonomous robot.”
From: Digital Trends
By Mariella Moon
March 8, 2013
In the future, robots might be a bit more affordable thanks to Rapyuta – a cloud-based robotic “brain” that our metallic friends can access via the Internet. Rapyuta is part of the Robo Earth project thought up by European scientists from five different research labs in 2011. They recently got one step closer to their goal as they activated the first parts of the online database.
Think of Rapyuta as a place where the robots can get information on the things, situations, places, and everything else they encounter. It provides them a standardized view of our world, and if robots do end up being common, they can consult Rapyuta whenever they come across something new. The database can also instruct them on the appropriate way to deal with new situations and can even do complicated computations for them. Do you have a robot that needs to understand human speech or perform chores around the house such as folding laundry or serving food? No problem. Rapyuta can crunch data for them and instruct them on what to do.
According to Robo Earth program manager Dr. Heico Sandee: “On-board computation reduces mobility and increases cost.” Those two issues are addressed by using a cloud-based database. Considering internet speeds are getting faster and faster, the method does sound like a viable solution. Robots will presumably be able to upload their own data, too – let’s just hope Rapyuta doesn’t gain sentience and turn into a real-life version of Skynet. Rapyuta’s first users will probably be technologies we already have today, including drones and self-driving cars.
The database was (very aptly) named after the Hayao Miyazaki animated film Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta (or Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which is in turn named after the flying island in Gulliver’s Travels), in which a floating castles serves as home to robots.
DT
Shakey was a robot develop at Stanford back in 1966! It was a ground-breaking robot that could navigate in a “changing” environment autonomously. When I saw this video about Shakey, I couldn’t resist putting it here:
