The Robot Votes Are In!

17,000 members of the technosphere voted, and the best robots won. On Thursday night the Robot Hall of Fame inducted three new members: Aldebaran Robotics’ NAO humanoid, iRobot’s PackBot bomb disposal robot, Boston Dynamics’ four-legged BigDog and Pixar’s fictional WALL-E.

Special mention: NASA Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity; iRobot’s Roomba vacuum cleaner; the da Vinci Surgical System; Huey, Dewey and Louie from the film “Silent Running”; and T-800 from “The Terminator” series.

More:

“Meet the Hall of Fame’s robot rookies,” Alan Boyle, NBC News

“Robot Hall of Fame® Inducts NAO, Packbot, BigDog and WALL-E” (press release)

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Vote for the Robot of Your Choice!

It’s time to vote for the robot of your choice! No, not Democratic or Republican ones, we mean the metal kind. The Carnegie Science Center wants you to elect this year’s inductee for the Robot Hall of Fame.

 The digital polls close September 30, 2012, so Vote Now! (one robot per category, please). The election is powered by Carnegie Mellon University so absolutely nothing cangowrongcangowrongcangowrongcangowrongcangowrongcangowrongcangowrong

Results will be announced at The Robot Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Oct 23, 2012 at Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, held in conjunction with the galactic gathering of our mechanized masters, the RoboBusiness Leadership Summit. We’re hoping the banquet will be catered by Chinese robot chefs.

See previous RHoF inductees here.

Related: 

“Who should pay when your robot breaks the law?” George Dvorsky, io9

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Forget Rap Music’s ‘Robot Voice.’ Hire a Robot Singer.

Rapper and producer T-Pain popularized that “robot voice” now infesting the world’s Pop Music recordings. But why imitate a singing robot when you can have a robot vocalist? A Japanese tech company has produced a robot chick singer who is remarkably life-like, at least compared to most of Japan’s aidoru pop stars. Of course, the most animated members of J-Pop girl groups are really digital animations.

Mechanical Fats

“Born to be Viral: Pool-playing robot rivals humans,” MacGregor Campbell, New Scientist

“German Robot Plays Pool, Throws Down Robot Pool Gauntlet,” Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum

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Hardware Happy Hour

Robot bartenders give the term ”Structural Unemployment” a whole new meaning.

Given recent advances in CocktailRobotics, you probably should replace those old legacy robot bartenders from back in the 20th century:

 More:

“Drinking with droids at BarBot 2010,” James Martin, Cnet News.

“BarBot 2010 Celebrates Cocktail-Making Robots and Booze Lovers,” Caleb Johnson, Switched.com

Roboexotica

 

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