In this video taken at Robo Business 2008, Jim Lynch gives us an overview of the latest iRobot robot called the Looj.
Resources:
Archive for the 'Gadget' Category
In this video taken at Robo Business 2008, Jim Lynch gives us an overview of the latest iRobot robot called the Looj.
Resources:
VI Shots talked with Maria Bualat from the NASA Ames Research Intelligent Robotics Group. Gigapan.org is a website where people can upload super high resolution panoramic photos. These photos were taken by a prototype motorized automated pan and tilt camera mount that figures out the exact positions of all the multiple snapshots required to make an awesome high resolution panorama. Gigapan (gigapixel panorama) was developed by Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, with support from Google. The price for this technology seems within reach of the consumer market at $279.
At the end of the video, Maria talks a little about here background and the K10 robotics platform which NASA used in the Canadian Arctic recently. The robots, K10 Black and K10 Red, carried 3-D laser scanners and ground-penetrating radar. The two NASA robots surveyed a rocky, isolated polar desert within a crater in the Arctic Circle. The study helped scientists learn how robots could evaluate potential outposts on the moon or Mars.
Resources mentioned in video:
- Intelligent Robotics group
- NASA Robots Practice Moon Survey in the Arctic Circle (Haughton Crater Site Survey Field Test)
- Gigapan Website
- Gigapan Hardware
- Quicktime Version of Video
Additional Video:
We’ve mentioned Bug Labs before. They’ve finally announced pricing. Keeping the peripherals under $100 is a smart move. Of course I wish they used the discounted price as the final price. The BUGbase is still a bit pricey even after discount. I would have preferred $249 myself.
From Bug Blogger:
The company has a lot to announce today, and I’ll start with the topic that gets the most questions: pricing. But, before I get there, I want to take a moment to introduce a new concept in pricing for consumer electronics devices: the Early Adopter Discount.
Just as it sounds, the BUG Early Adopter Discount is going take a shift away from tradition, and actually reward the first wave of customers with a 13% (or greater) discount on products for the first 60 days of sales. Retail pricing for the first run of products is as follows:
* BUGbase $349 ($299 w/discount)
* LCD module $119 ($99 w/discount)
* GPS module $99 ($79 w/discount)
* Camera module $79 ($69 w/discount)
* Motion detector / Accelerometer $59 ($49 w/discount)There will be an additional discount to customers who purchase the base plus all four modules, which we’ll announce on the 21st.
In addition to the Early Adopter Discount, we are announcing a second pricing program called BUG+EDU. BUG+EDU is actually a series of programs and promotions aimed at introducing BUG to the education market. Different programs will be established for primary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions, as well as for individual students. We believe the BUG is a great platform for aspiring engineering students as well as kids who just like to tinker. BUG+EDU will hopefully get more units into the hands of those who will really use their imagination to drive the next generation of cool gadgets.
Also important, the Bug Labs online store will be open for business starting Monday, January 21st. At this point we will begin taking pre-orders for the BUGbase and all four BUGmodules. We will begin fulfilling orders on or before March 17th, and will ship based on the dates the orders were originally received. Our initial rollout will only include domestic orders, but we aim to fulfill internationally later in the year.
They also announced a new module called the Von Hippel module. This “adds an interface of inputs and outputs”. I’m hoping they mean digital IO and DAQ.
Lastly, because we want to encourage users to make the most of their BUG, we are pleased to announce the Von Hippel module, a new addition to the collection of BUGmodules. Named after MIT professor and “Democratizing Innovation” author Eric Von Hippel, the Von Hippel BUGmodule adds an interface of inputs and outputs to the BUG, allowing users to “hack” their BUG even further. Professor Von Hippel’s book was a big inspiration for the foundation of Bug Labs, so having his name associated with our products is an exciting accomplishment. Final pricing and timing for the Von Hippel BUGmodule is not yet set, but we are targeting the first quarter as well.
Source: Bug Blogger
Related: Bug Labs - The long tail of gadgets?
There are several interviews on GIZMODO with Bug Labs CEO Peter Semmelhack. I encourage you to watch them all. I envisioned hackers running around hacking ATM machines with these things. I also liked the reference to home automation: “a central brain talking to a distributed network of sensors”. Of course stand-alone DAQ modules come to mind. It would be cool if NI made DAQ modules that plugged into this thing. Gee, this whole thing just might work…
Videos:
Bug Labs is betting on the fact that you want to build your own custom gadget instead of buying a slick polished device that just works out of the box. I understand the market for it but how big is it? The “styling” is kind of boxy. Of course it comes in Apple white, but once you start assembling your blocks, I’m sure you wouldn’t be caught dead in public with this thing. Ok, the geek in me agrees on one thing. It’s freakin’ cool. The only question I have is: when can you run LabVIEW on it!?
Quote from their site:
BUG is a collection of easy-to-use, open source hardware modules, each capable of producing one or more Web services. These modules snap together physically and the services connect together logically to enable users to easily build, program and share innovative devices and applications. With BUG, we don’t define the final products - you do.
From looking at the specs of the hardware it seems like they’ve thought of everything. The BUGbase is powered by an ARM microprocessor, (isn’t everything?) runs Linux, has built-in WiFi, USB, ethernet, LCD display and has four sockets that accept other accessories. The current announced list of accessories:
- GPS
- Digital Camera / Videocam
- Touch-sensitive, Color LCD Screen
- Accelerometer, Motion Sensor (eyebrows raising)
On the software side of things it appears that the company is counting on a large community cult-like following. It’s planning to roll out BUGnet which will allow collaboration and sharing of BUG applications.
Again, from their site:
BUG is built entirely with open source software. BMI, the BUG Module Interface, attaches devices to the BUG. Device-based services and applications are dynamically available based on which modules are connected to the BUG. Higher up the stack is Java, which hosts a service-oriented component runtime called OSGi. Java and OSGi make creating new BUG applications simple and intuitive, as BUG applications are essentially one or more bundles. In addition, each BUG module launches an OSGi bundle which in turn creates services for other components to consume. BUG applications are created using the BUG SDK (internally named Dragonfly), and are shared with other developers and users through BUGnet, our online community.
Some future accessories:
- Touch-sensitive, Color LCD - 2X
- Mini-QWERTY Keyboard
- Teleporter (WTF?)
- Audio Speaker, Input/Output Mini Jacks
As to what you can build with this thing? Bug labs offers an example:
You can easily assemble and program a GPS + digital camera device that automatically publishes geo-tagged photos as a web service. Integrating with an online photo-sharing service like Flickr is only a few more lines of code away, and now you have your own real-time, connected traffic-enabled mobile Webcam!
Well, it would be pretty cool to see someone hack this and manage to run LabVIEW embedded on it. But i’m not so sure this is possible. One thing that I need to get over though, is the fact that it’s called a BUGbase. Bug and software don’t go well together.
A pic of the internals (attrib: pt):
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