Don't mind the fact that there's a fabulous resort and beach in the background of this picture: we're all business here at the 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, or IROS.
Last year, IROS was in San Francisco, and this year, we're in Vilamoura, on the southern coast of Portugal, which may or may not be one of the most popular resort regions in all of Europe. There are 11 presentation tracks all going on simultaneously, with new talks taking place every 15 minutes for the next three days, and we're going to be at every single one of them. Impossible, you say? Probably. But we're going to do it anyway, or (more likely) kill ourselves trying.
Check back all this week for exclusives from IROS, and we'll be bringing you awesome news from the forefront of robotics research for the next several weeks at least: there's a lot to see, and we're going to make sure you don't miss a thing.
[ IROS 2012 ]
Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.