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Full-size Transformer X2 based on Citreon Citroen C2: Made in China!

So, the Transformer fever still around the corner? Well, at least this happened in China.Three friends in Nanjing have spent three months to build a 4.5 meter tall Transformer, X2, which is based on the Citreon Citroen C2. Don’t get it wrong, the three Chinese folks didn’t sacrifice and dissemble their own cars for getting parts for building it. Everything on this 4.5m robot is all built from scratch, except the car lights and wheels.

The entire project costs them around $8,000.00. And this full-sized Transformer weighs 600kg. It seems like this Transformer doesn’t transform! More pictures and also video after the jump!

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Vocal Joystick uses voice to control your mouse, just shout “ah,” “ee,” “aw” and “oo” at it!

We’re getting lazier, we have been dreaming that we could only use our voice to control our computers. Just yell at it if you feel your laptop is too slow to respond to your instruction – “Move faster fatso, or else I’ll break you!”. Yeah, how you wish this could come true soon. But, I guess it’ shouldn’t be too far from now.

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed something what has been in your dream for so long. It’s a simple, intuitive piece of software, called Vocal Joystick, which allows you to control computer applications by using your voice only. Vocal Joystick detects sounds 100 times a second and instantaneously turns that sound into movement on the screen. Having it, you can move your mouse by your voice, and it’ll find its way to open your browser to let you surf the Internet and also interact with any other applications.

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Hand your destiny over to the Swami Conventional Robot

Hand your destiny over to the hands of a robot – a fortune telling Swami robot. Well, if you’re the kind overly superstitious and you’ve been visiting fortune tellers for guiding you of every step in your life, why not pay $75,000 for once and bring home the Swami Conventional Robot, and hand over your life to its hands.

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Cute TakaraTomy tortoises responsive to sound

It’s good for some cute stuff for this weekend. Here comes the upgraded version of the cute little tortoises by TakaraTomy that definitely give you a mood boost when you’re too bored with your work. The upgraded tiny tortoises here are called the Rhythmbits. The Rhythmbits have few enhanced features i.e giving you more fun, more lively and responsive to sound, which the ancestor Walkiebits don’t have.

Rhythmbits are sensitive with sound, which it responds well to music and can make turns along with the music. It also responds to voice, which it’ll blow a low whistle after you call it and their shells are interchangeable. Well, the Rhythmbit turtoise doesn’t do all these by itself alone. All it depends is a gramophone shaped remote control that comes with it to analyze the the sound and guide it through wirelessly via infrared.

Product Page, $14,TakaraTomy.jp

via [nEwLaUnCheS]

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World’s smallest robot useful for exploring human-unreachable spots

The little piece shown in the picture is an extremely tiny robot, a micro-bot, which could be the smallest autonomous untethered robot ever created. It weighs less than 1 ounce and measures only 1/4 cubic inch in total volume. In short, it “turns on a dime and parks on a nickel”.

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RoboFlush- a Lego NXT Mindstorms Robot that auto flushes your toilet!

Remember the Lego NXT Mindstorms Robot that we’ve seen before? The Lego robot that allows you to use your creativity to assemble it from Lego bricks into a fully functional robot. Now, here is something what I call an ingenious creativity. Someone has made use of his super creativity and turned the Lego robot into something that is absolutely useful, which is called RoboFlush.

If you’re damn tired of flushing your toilet, then RoboFlush definitely comes in handy. RoboFlush is to be attached to your toilet and it acts as an automated flusher for your toilet. The process of designing and building is well-documented. You can check out the website for an instructive manual if you’re interested to build your own one. Video available after the jump, showing you the RoboFlush in action.

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Robot clock watch inherits “Transformer” nature, can transform itself into a desk clock!

Transformer heat is still around? It’s just a robot watch here that carries multiple purposes which you could say there is some “Transformer” nature in it. It can be a watch, a desk clock, a keychain time piece and even a necklace pendant. The robot carries the clock on its chest, it wears a bendable headphone and the arms are bendable too.

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WD-2 – your robotic twin brother is on the way…

That is the latest development of the robotic technology, it’s the WD-2 robot, but still a piece of work in progress that is able to make all the facial expressions of a human face. In order to cope with the complexity, the robot head is backed by a huge machinery at the back. This makes its size is almost three times larger than the size of a normal head, which is currently can’t be built with a complete body.

WD-2 stands for “Waseda-Docomo face robot 2″, which is now under development by a team of researchers from Waseda University. The WD-2 robot once completed will eventually be carrying all the sophisticated expressions of a human face. It can do every single tiny movement of a human face, not like other robots that have basic expressions only, such as ‘happy,’ ‘sad,’ ‘excited,’ or ‘angry’. So, this is possible for you to own it as your twin brother once it’s become a complete product. The challenge faced by the developers is how to reduce the size of its head so it can fit onto a human-sized body without sacrificing the sophistication.

via [inVenTorSpoT]

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IvanAnywhere robot as your proxy at work, so you can relax at home

It’s definitely a great idea for me if I could stay at home lying in the sofa watching my favorite TV show and have my robot to wander around in the office to communicate and work with my colleagues. IvanAnywhere seems to be the kind of perfect robot that could do what I’ve been dreaming for.

IvanAnywhere is the robot created by the computer programmer, Ivan Bowman, to be his proxy in the office while he lounges at home. The idea of having this robot is not because of he is the kind of lazy butt like me. It’s simply for the sake for better interactiveness in communication between him and co-workers instead of using only text chatting online. The IvanAnywhere robot is equipped with a camera and touchscreen computer, which allows its creator to have real-time video chat with the coworkers.

The IvanAnywhere robot simply reminds me the Giraffe robot that we’ve seen before. Of course, IvanAnywhere is just a simple DIY creation. The little bit more complicated part could be its software interface. Besides the computer and the camera, it’s also equipped with speakers and it features a motorized wheelbase.

via [gIzMoDo]

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German restaurant replaces waitstaff with robots

The German restaurant in Nuremberg, Germany, seems to have fired all its waitstaff and replaced them all by robots. The robots are some kind of automated system that makes use of gravity-powered rail system to deliver the meals. So, we human are in the very high risk of losing our jobs. At least now for the waitresses and waiters have already lost their jobs in Germany. And this could be followed by some other restaurants from all over the world as it definitely involves much cheaper operational cost, which could only be a one-time investment and followed by some periodic maintenance costs. Furthermore, less or perhaps zero mistakes will be made by robots or computers. Of course, the kind of robot-operated restaurants definitely loses the kind of fun for customers, as robots won’t stay as highly interactive as human, such as I don’t think it’s fun to flirt with a robotic waitress. Opps, maybe I’m wrong, remember we’ve seen a robotic BF before that is even more romantic than a real guy. So, it seems like a robot-operated restaurant could stay as much fun as a human-operated one.

via [gIZmODo]

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