Robot Living

Or this could be titled The Hawk That Stole Christmas. Fifth grader Danny received a Flytech Dragonfly robot for Christmas and took it outside to play with it. After flying it for a while a red tailed hawk swooped down and carried it away.

Danny ran inside to tell his parents what happened and amazingly the y were able to get this photo of the hawk in a nearby tree.

We feel bad for Danny, but what about the poor hawk who then had no dinner?

Also enter the video contest on the robocommunity forums here. If your Dragonfly robot is taken by a hawk, WowWee will replace it.

Check out this video of the Dragonfly vs 2 cats.

Flytech Dragonfly official site

Link via (Engadget)

Better watch out next time you are in Atlanta. Actually this security robot patrols the neighborhood outside of Rufus Terril’s bar, O’Terril’s, in Atlanta.

Rufus got fed up with all the petty crime in the neighborhood outside his bar and decided to employ this security robot. The robot sports a loudspeaker, spotlight and a water cannon.

Regulars at the bar have nicknamed it the bum-bot.
Update - Check out the video here.

Update again - Rufus appeared on Colbert on 4/24.
Link via (UPI) photo by Jenni Girtman

Lot’s of cool stuff going on at the toy fair in New York , including OWI robotic kits. Also, Bioloid is introducing robotic kits for humans, dinosaurs and spiders. Check out a video of the spider here.

Other exhibitors include Robot Village and Robotics and Things.

Our favorite thing though has to be this solar powered viking ship by OWI. Cool stuff.

See this picture and more at the Make roundup of the toy fair.

Today is the last day. Check out the Toy Fair official site here.

A new book called Robots in Space has just been published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The book by Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy jumps into the exciting debate of human space exploration versus robotic space exploration. See a full review of this book at The Space Review or buy it on Amazon.

Also, a symposium was recently held by AAAS to show off past, present and future Mars rovers. The newest rover, the Mars Science Lab Rover (MSL), hopes to be landing on Mars in 2010. MSL is powered by a nuclear engine and should last for 20 years. It will also be equipped with a laser nicknamed the Death Ray, for pulverizing rocks in order to examine them. See all the details with lots of photos at io9.

Round robots in Japan help people monitor pollen levels. The robots eyes turn white, blue, green, red or purple to indicate various pollen levels.

Over 200 people who suffer from allergies have offered to hang these robots outside where they live.

These robots are  connected to the internet to help create an interactive pollen map.  Click the link for the actual map (page is in Japanese).

Link via (i09)