Automaton

It’s no surprise that the home shared by an engineer and a tech journalist is filled with gadgets. We already own a robot, a Roomba, which vacuums our floors every day. So it wasn't a shock to me when my boyfriend showed up with another robotic helper for our home. It's called the Litter Robot II, an automatic self-cleaning litter box. The machine is a big black orb with a hole in the middle. It looks like the Death Star.

The ocean is a big place, and DARPA wants to fill it with robots. All of it. Because rather than having to send robots to whatever part of the ocean you want to have robots in, wouldn't it just be much easier of robots were there already? Sure it would! Yes, it's impractical, and maybe even borderline impossible, but hey, it's DARPA, and this is what they do.

This is the first post in our Startup Spotlight series featuring new robotics companies from around the world. We're inviting representatives from the companies to describe their technologies and how they see the marketplace. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

A week or so ago, the FDA (who I guess is somehow in charge of robots in hospitals) has decided that they're cool with robots like the RP-VITA telepresence platform wandering around on their own without having a nervous human in tow with one finger poised over an e-stop button. In other words, RP-VITA has been officially pronounced to be no more likely than anything else you'd find in a hospital hallway to somehow injure people. We'll share a few of iRobot's thoughts on the announcement, but first, we have a video of an iRobot 310 SUGV blowing up a bunch of stuff with a disruptor, because that's marginally more exciting.

Seeing a few cool new robots at CES was a great way to kick off 2013, but now we've got a bit of a lull until our next big events (like ICRA in Germany) start to hit in a few months. But that's okay: we'll have plenty of projects to keep us busy, one of which we should be able to tell you about next week! Until then, here's a swarm of robot vids to keep you entertained.

As much as this may look like a fighter jet or spaceship, the folks at Xiaobo Tan's lab at Michigan State University are calling it a robotic fish. A robotic fish with a giant pair of wings that allow it to glide through the water with an incredible level of efficiency, giving this little guy a range of about 200 kilometers without having to be recharged. And why do we need a robot fish? BECAUSE IT'S A ROBOT FISH. Geez. And also because it can sniff out pollution for us.

We're huge fans of the AR Drone, not just because it's dirt cheap and a huge amount of fun, and also not just because it's actually being used for serious research, but because we love how Parrot just keeps on making it better year after year. At CES last week, they showed us a bunch of upgrades along the path to autonomy, along with their newest toy: a camera equipped eBee UAV from SenseFly.

PrimeSense's 3D sensor, which is what's inside the Microsoft Kinect, has revolutionized vision for very cheap and very expensive robots. That's not what it was supposed to do: it was supposed to help lazy gamers get off their couches and jump around a little bit. PrimeSense is still very focused on marketable consumer applications with the next generation of the 3D sensor, called Capri, but we're more interested in what it'll do for our robots. At CES last week, we got some hands-on time with Capri, and we have some details for you.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) ends today in Las Vegas. As usual, there were lots of robots there, so today we bring you some videos from the show, in addition to our regular dose of robot footage, which this week includes a robotic band, FIRST's new game, and a real-life Power Loader. Happy Video Friday!

His name is Diego-san. He was born at UCSD. He's a baby robot. We had seen photos of him before, and we knew researchers were working hard to get it moving and doing other things that babies do. Now, for the first time, Diego-san shows off its face on video.