A team of Art and Design students at the University of Michigan have created a prototype electronic doodle pad called the Scribble that animates your drawings. The Scribble animation toy grew out of a December focus group in which student designers asked third-graders what they wanted from Santa Claus. You simply hand-draw a series of… »

How do robots bring people closer? Well, if you are a robot researcher you might bump into partners from the same niche. A robot we already wrote about, I-Fairy, conducted a wedding ceremony which took place in Sunday, May 16, 2010 at Tokyo, Japan. According to Kokoro, the robotics firm that manufactured I-Fairy, this was… »

A team of scientists from Columbia University, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have programmed an autonomous molecular “robot” made out of DNA to start, move, turn, and stop while following a DNA track. The molecular robot, nicknamed “spider”, shows the potential for the development of molecular-scale… »

In the Los Angeles basin, the challenge of finding suitable space for large wind farms has prevented further progress in the use of wind energy. However, researcher John Dabiri, associate professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and head of Caltech’s Biological Propulsion Laboratory, is using the bioinspiration from fish schooling… »

Set on a rock formation overlooking a spectacular lake, the Cliff House integrates building elements with the beautiful natural assets of the site and terrain. Located at Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, the cottage offers private areas with calming views of the surrounding nature. Designed by Altius Architecture Inc, it is completely off-grid and it has various… »

Comparable to some other animals on our planet, bats use other methods instead sight in order to navigate or hunt. They are able to “see” in the dark by sending out sound waves that bounce back to the bats’ ears from objects such as fruit on trees and flying insect prey. The echolocation or biosonar… »

Dr. Masaaki Kumagai, director of the Robot Development Engineering Laboratory at Tohoku Gakuin University, in Tagajo City, Japan, and his student Takaya Ochiai have built a robot named BallIP (Ball Inverted Pendulum) that is able to balance on a ball. Such a ball-balancing design is like an inverted pendulum, and thus naturally unstable, but it… »

We already wrote about a 3D camera from Fujifilm named the Real 3D W1, however, the folks from Sharp have added a new ingredient to the mix and claim they have achieved  an industry first in the process. The company has announced the development of a 3D camera unit compact enough to be used in… »