Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label robot

You can now buy Star Wars' lovely BB-8 droid and leave that patrol the house at the time

of this writing, holed up in a small office, I can hear a quiet hum coming and going in the ground. In reality, it is a quiet humming sound followed by a thunk less quiet plastic meets plaster wall, followed by a short break where my phonetics focuses on the emotional various sounds that emanate from my phone's speaker. This may be the most curious way to "enjoy" a toy is without doubt one of the more passive, but Sphero the BB-8 is not a toy, but that is a very simple robot interpreter of Pixar of aspirations. The droid $149.99 , will go on sale this Friday in Apple's retail stores, Best Buy, and Sphero the own website (don't worry, it's compatible with Android, also).  That's a pretty hefty price, but the BB-8 Sphero offers something few Star Wars toys have been able to remove: captures the personality of the Android, and it says everything to where Sphero wants to push robotics in the future. If the trailers are designed to create hype of a film

Is there a 'dark side' to Amazon drones, Google robots?

I've got Amazon.com drones in my future. I use Amazon's Prime delivery service for everything from rechargable batteries to art books to beef jerky, and so I was quite taken aback when CEO Jeff Bezos showcased a drone delivery system called Prime Air on 60 Minutes this past weekend. The idea is that packages below five pounds could be delivered straight from Amazon distribution centers to customers within 30 minutes using drones. For now, it seems like half pipe dream, half pseudo-marketing: As many have observed, it probably wasn't a coincidence that the 60 Minutes segment aired on Sunday ahead of Cyber Monday, the busiest online shopping day of the year -- a good time for Amazon to be in the news. Since Sunday's show, media coverage of Bezo's plan has overwhelmingly focused on the technical and logistical aspects of Prime Air. For example, will the FAA be okay with all these drones flying around? Are they safe enough to fly around crowded