The world’s largest industrial robot manufacturer, Yaskawa Electric, wants to invade your grandmother’s home. Alright, maybe invade isn’t the word we’re looking for, but if your Grams is anything like ours she probably wouldn’t be happy about you dropping off a robot helper (she can take care of herself, don’t you know). The SmartPal VII is a telepresence bot that can be controlled remotely using a Kinect. (Seriously, what can’t Microsoft’s gaming controller do?) The head-mounted stereoscopic cameras and infrared sensor enable it to navigate a room autonomously, while the light-weight arms equipped with touch sensors make it safer for human interaction. The demo of the bot picking up toys and putting them in a bin isn’t the most exciting in the world, but it does show just how much control an operator has using simple hand gestures. Check out the video after the break.

Continue reading Yaskawa Electric’s SmartPal VII lets you clean up grandma’s house using Kinect (video)

Yaskawa Electric’s SmartPal VII lets you clean up grandma’s house using Kinect (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile unveiled a new 4G tablet on Tuesday with the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus arriving in T-Mobile stores on Nov. 16. The Plus designation helps differentiate this 7-inch Galaxy Tab from last year’s model as the newer version includes a faster processor and support for Google Android 3.2; a software platform meant for tablets, not smartphones. The slate’s 0 price tag with contract can be spread out over 20 months with customers paying 9.99 down and each month to purchase the hardware.

I bought the original Galaxy Tab on T-Mobile’s network last December and enjoy both the form factor and the mobility provided by the integrated 3G radio. The look of this new model is very similar to the 7-inch tablet I use, but here are some of the improvements and carry-over features:

• 1.2 GHz dual-core processor instead of a 1 GHz single core
• 21 Mbps HSPA+ / 4G support; my Tab only has a 7.2 Mbps radio for 3G speeds
• Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) instead of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
• 16 GB of internal storage with a microSD expansion slot
• 1024 x 600 resolution, capacitive touch 7-inch display
• 3 megapixel rear camera (with 720p video capture added) and 2 megapixel front camera
• An infrared sensor for use as a universal consumer electronics remote control

Aside from the faster mobile broadband radio and dual-core chip, much of the new Galaxy Tab mimics the old one. They’re welcome improvements, of course, and although there’s no guarantee of a software upgrade to Android 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich, the hardware appears capable of supporting one.

One other available “feature” that wasn’t available when I bought my Galaxy Tab is the payment plan. I paid 0 — a sale price — with contract for my Tab. T-Mobile is trying to lure potential buyers by reducing the up-front cost of the hardware; something it’s done before with smartphones and is now trying with higher priced tablets. For 9.99 at the point of sale — and a mail-in rebate — consumers can leave the store with a new Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. The remaining cost is made up over the life of the contract with added to each monthly bill for 20 months. This is in addition to the monthly data service, which starts at .99.

A payment plan may generate some sales, but it convinces me more than ever that tablets shouldn’t be sold on contract. While I opted to buy a Wi-Fi version of the iPad, Apple got this aspect right with its 3G models. The problem for competing tablets is that without contracts, the devices are simply priced too high from a consumer’s perspective. Apple doesn’t seem to have that problem given that a 3G iPad starts at 9, mainly because the perceived experience brought from the iPad.

That has little to do with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus since this isn’t what I’d call a direct competitor to the iPad for most people. But it illustrates the challenge that carriers face in the tablet market: consumers often choose a device first and a network second. Unless consumers plan to use their tablet as much as their primary computing device, a monthly data commitment and cost isn’t appealing.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
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Apple is always filing patents for strange and fantastic things that never seem to find their way into actual products. But an application published today details some interesting tech that we could actually see getting jammed into a future iPhone (for better or worse). By pairing an infrared sensor with the camera already on board, portable devices could receive data from transmitters placed, well, wherever. Beyond simply blasting out text and opening links like a glorified QR code, transmitters could disable certain features, such as the camera, to prevent recording at movie theaters and music venues. If completely shutting off the cam seems a bit heavy-handed, watermarks can also be applied to photos identifying businesses or copyrighted content. Some potential uses are a little less Big Brother, like museums beaming information about exhibits to a user’s or launching an audio tour. Obviously third parties would have to get behind the IR push and there’s no guarantee that Apple will put this in a future iProduct. Still, we’re a little worried that the days of blurry YouTube concert videos may be coming to an end.

Apple camera patent could stop smartphone bootleggers in their tracks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Evan Ackerman

It’s about bloody time somebody recognized the hundreds, nay, thousands of years of suffering that my people (that would be, left-handed people) have dealt with. Finally, Razer has designed a mouse specifically for us. This lefty version of their DeathAdder gaming mouse has the same slick and subtle curves that the right-handed version does, just reflected over to the sinister side. And that’s sinister as in left, not sinister as in ’sinister.’ Honestly, there’s no need to be afraid of left-handed people… Here are some left-handed facts to get you better acquainted with us:

-Somewhere between 8% and 15% of people are left-handed, and only half as many women are left-handed as men.

-The Incas thought that left-handed people had special spiritual powers. Pretty much everyone else thought that left-handed people were either just unfortunate, or pure evil.

-Left-handed people tend to be smarter than average. They also tend to be dumber than average. In other words, lefties are more likely to be at one end of the spectrum than in the middle.

-On average, left-handed men who graduate college are 26% richer than right-handed men who do. Nobody knows why, and this doesn’t apply to women.

-50% of left-handed people use a mouse right-handed (and I’m one of them).

You want to know why 50% of left-handed people use a mouse right-handed? It’s the man, man. The establishment. The right-handed industrial complex. So thank you, Razer, for helping us break free of the oppression and tyranny of the right-handed world… Who cares if nobody buys your mouse because we’re all used to right-handed ones? You’ve struck a mighty blow this day, a mighty blow for the forces of all that is just and good and right in this world!

Er, wait. Left, I meant left.

As far as specs go, the DeathAdder is more mouse than you’ll ever need (3500dpi Razer Precision 3.5G infrared sensor, five independently programmable “Hyperesponse” buttons, and it’s wired as all serious gaming mice are), and it’s yours for $60.

[ Razer ] VIA [ HotHardware ]

It’s another humanoid from Japan, it doesn’t have an official name yet, but it’s pretty cool: This new robot [JP] is the result of a collaboration between various Japanese companies and institutions, namely the Nippon Institute of Technology, Harada Vehicle Design [JP], ZMP and ZNUG Design. Based technically on ZMP’s Nuvo robot, it stands 1.26m tall and weighs 15kg.

He’s powered by a lithium ion battery and has 21 joints (three in his head, six in each leg and three in each arm). There’s also a camera, a gyro sensor, an accelerometer, a distance sensor, an infrared sensor and a pyroelectric sensor in his body. Pretty unusual even for such an advanced robot: He also has a fully functional video projector in his body. Needless to say, the Megaman-lookalike can “hear” and “speak”, too.

Software-wise, the humanoid is powered by Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio. It can be remote-controlled by users via Wi-Fi.

The main purpose of the humanoid is to send it to schools so that children can learn about robotics through a real, finished product. But the little guy isn’t a prototype that’s limited to educational institutions: You can actually buy him for $77,000.

This video shows him in action:

Via Robot Watch [JP]

The Abyssus hails back to a time when a mouse was just a mouse, with two buttons and a scroll. However, under the hood it’s all 2009 technology with a 3,500dpi infrared sensor, on-the-fly sensitivity adjustment, and 1ms response rate.