Archive for February, 2010

Robot babies

Researchers from the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego have teamed up with Japanese robotics firm Kokoro Co., Ltd. to create a sophisticated humanoid robot modeled after a 1-year-old child.

The baby robot was created to study how infants develop motor skills during the first year of life but no reason was give for the gigantic head design. In addition to providing clues about how infants interact with the physical world, researchers will also use the robot to explore how babies acquire and refine the ability to use nonverbal communication such as gestures and facial expressions. Maybe researcher can get more information from conducting survey on mother, nanny and child care teacher.

As for now the baby is still in the developing stage. I prefer them to come out with a more realistic robot to train inexperience mother. That will be more useful.

via botjunkie

Samurai sword handle umbrella

Nowadays youngster do not like to bring long umbrella out especially the girl. Hopefully this design of samurai sword handle umbrella can make these youngster feel cool when carry one of them even if it not raining. Maybe if carry by a girl can even scare off molester. You can slung this umbrella across your back This umbrella is not only for nice looking, it well design give you the right balance when holding the umbrella. Unlike other umbrella when is fully open it tend to wobbler quite easily.

Samurai Sword Handle Umbrella specification:

• A really sturdy umbrella with the handle of a samurai sword.
• Push button opening.
• Nylon “scabbard” included – with adjustable shoulder strap.
• Dimensions: 38.75″ long; 41″ opened diameter

via thinkgeek

Have you seen a 80 ports usb hub before?

Thanko just introduced an 80-port USB hub to charge all of your gadgets from a single location. The bad thing is this device only allow charging, you cannot use it to transfer file or perform synchronization.

So this 80 ports usb hub is it suppose to help you solve your problem (lack of usb ports) or to introduce you with another problem. (Messy cable). The board is sized at 200×200×19mm and obviously needs to be plugged into a wall socket to work (100V). The picture below shows it with just 40 of the 80 ports used and it is already so messy.

The 80 Port USB Hub is available for $165 in Japan. For those living outside Japan and wish to get one, can check at Geek Stuff 4 U website. It is offering for $208.68 plus shipping.