The Tweenbots project already demonstrated that at least some folks are willing to help a lost robot find its way, but this new ACE bot developed by researchers at the Technical University of Munich has now ramped things up in a fairly big way, with it actually asking passers-by for directions and developing a map as it moves through the city. Apparently, the robot uses a series of cameras to detect people nearby, and it then asks them to simply point towards the destination indicated on its screen, which it is able to recognize, although it does also asks them to confirm the direction on the screen just to be safe. In initial tests, that appears to have been relatively successful, with ACE (or Autonomous City Explorer) able to reach its destination 1.5 kilometers away in five hours after relying on directions from 38 people. But don’t take our word for it. Head on past the break to check out its people skills for yourself.

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

Continue reading ACE robot asks for directions, purpose in life

Filed under: Robots

ACE robot asks for directions, purpose in life originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 May 2009 17:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Via [Engadget]

Share This

The Tweenbots project already demonstrated that at least some folks are willing to help a lost robot find its way, but this new ACE bot developed by researchers at the Technical University of Munich has now ramped things up in a fairly big way, with it actually asking passers-by for directions and developing a map as it moves through the city. Apparently, the robot uses a series of cameras to detect people nearby, and it then asks them to simply point towards the destination indicated on its screen, which it is able to recognize, although it does also asks them to confirm the direction on the screen just to be safe. In initial tests, that appears to have been relatively successful, with ACE (or Autonomous City Explorer) able to reach its destination 1.5 kilometers away in five hours after relying on directions from 38 people. But don’t take our word for it. Head on past the break to check out its people skills for yourself.

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

Continue reading ACE robot asks for directions, purpose in life

Filed under: Robots

ACE robot asks for directions, purpose in life originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 May 2009 17:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Via [Engadget]

Share This

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-M and 1005HA-H steal Seashell’s sublimity

Sheesh ASUS, are you being serious here? Not a day after your Eee PC Seashell really emerged on the scene in official fashion, here you go trying to rob it of its 15 minutes. Yes, friends — rather than letting the 1008HA be a diamond in the rough in the Eee arena, it seems as if the company has a whole mess of thin-and-light netbooks planned. Both the 1005HA-M and 1005HA-H have been revealed overseas, with the former taking a lower-end approach with a 1.6GHz Atom N270, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, no Bluetooth, WiFi, a 6-cell battery (supposedly good for 8 hours of use), a 1.3 megapixel webcam and a €299 ($405) price tag. The 1005HA-H — not to be confused with the already detailed 1005HA-M, naturally) — includes most of the same internal gear as the Seashell, though it does step things up with two extra USB 2.0 ports, a 6-cell battery (versus a 5-cell in the Seashell) and 0.3kg of extra heft for €349 ($473). Both machines should launch in France by July, and we’d say the real kicker is that both purportedly boast removable batteries, very much unlike the Seashell. See there, we knew they’d set themselves apart somehow! The full specs list is after the break.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-M and 1005HA-H steal Seashell’s sublimity

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-M and 1005HA-H steal Seashell’s sublimity originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 May 2009 08:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Doraemon Gadgets [Doraemon]

Boing Boing Gadgets has six of the hundreds of thousands of gadgets Doraemon—the Japanese anime gadget cat—pulled out of his magic pouch over the years. Above: the Polaroid-esque Voodoo Camera. [Boing Boing Gadgets]

Share This

New Zune Ad Obliterated Because, You Know, It’s Stupid [Cartoon]

Wes Moss. Certified financial planner. WSJ reader. Local host radio. Porcelain dog collector. Ultradouche. Jason nailed him. Now Penny Arcade has a take on the Zune Pass itself with the argument of the Zune ad.

They are kinda right, but they’re not taking into account the 10 free songs you get a month under the pass.

Even if you take out the argument that you may already (legally) own all your iPod music in CDs, and even if you take out the argument that most people fill their iPods with pirated music, at the end, no matter what you do, you are paying for a temporary service. Once you stop paying, most of your music will be gone forever (the songs you didn’t get for free every month that you get to keep). [Penny Arcade]

Share This

Microsoft’s Banning Memcpy() Functions in the Name of Security [Microsoft]

Microsoft’s officially banning the Memcpy(), CopyMemory() and RtlCopyMemory() functions, meaning that if apps want to align with Microsoft’s Secure Development Lifecycle, they need to strip these out.

Memcpy() and similar functions take a chunk of memory and copy it to another part of memory. This is fine when used correctly, but when used maliciously, form the basis of buffer overflow attacks that can screw up your computer.

The new solution is memcpy_s(), which requires you to specify how large the destination buffer is. This will hopefully cut down on these types of intrusions. [Register via Slashdot]

Share This

Doraemon Gadgets [Doraemon]

Boing Boing Gadgets has six of the hundreds of thousands of gadgets Doraemon—the Japanese anime gadget cat—pulled out of his magic pouch over the years. Above: the Polaroid-esque Voodoo Camera. [Boing Boing Gadgets]

Share This

Houston, We Got Porn On the Moon [Easter Eggs]

A pornish cartoon. That’s what a surprised Apollo 16’s Commander Fred Haise found while walking on the Moon. It was in his checklist—mounted on his forearm—but it wasn’t the first time that happened:

During the Apollo XII mission, Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr and Lunar Module pilot Alan L. Bean found naked pinups in one of the pages of their checklist. It reportedly made them laugh hysterically while command module pilot Richard F. Gordon, Jr. listened from his orbit around the Moon.

The reason for their surprise was in the fact that—while the main crew prepared them—these Extra-Vehicular Activity checklists were packed before the flight by the mission backup crew. They placed the easter eggs without them knowing it at all.

The drawing here is part of Haise’s checklist, whch can be yours if you get $200,000 to $300,000 by July 16. That’s when it’s going up for auction at Bonhams, in London, UK.

The clip here showing Apollo XII’s Conrad and Bean is from the hilarious part 7 of From The Earth to the Moon. If you have never watched the TV miniseries, do it. I can’t stress enough how incredibly good they are.

[Daylife—Thanks Genevieve]

Share This

ASUS K Series K40IN-A1 laptop hits the US

We got a chance to check out ASUS’ K Series laptops way back at CeBIT in March, but it looks like the understated line has just now finally made its way over here, and seen a few changes in the process. The biggest of those is that this particular model, the K40IN-A1, now packs some NVIDIA GeForce G102M graphics (with 512MB of RAM) in place of the previous ATI option, although we assume that’ll still be available on some models if and when they join this one. Otherwise, you can expect a 1366 x 768 resolution on that 14-inch LED-backlit screen, along with a Core 2 Duo T6400 processor, 4GB of RAM standard, a 320GB hard drive, and ASUS’ trademark Super Hybrid Engine technology, which promises to let you get the most out of the laptop’s six-cell battery. $850 and it’s yours.

[Via Laptoping]

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS K Series K40IN-A1 laptop hits the US originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 May 2009 01:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

A Call For Stories about Gadgets Gone Wrong/Painful/Deadly [Man Vs Machine]

Hey there. Have you ever had a gadget fail you at an inopportune time, leading to bodily or at least harm to your life? Ever hear a story like that?

For example, the GPSs that route people into flooded roads/lakes, phones that won’t call 911, people crashing into you texting while walking/driving to…well, whatever. A baby being used as a shield by an insane woman avoiding taser fire. Maybe a chair exploding while you sit on it?

If you do have a good personal story to tell—and by good I mean terrible—I’d like to hear it. Email me at blam @t gizmodo.

(Same goes for if you’ve seen some weird local news.)

THANK YOU GIZMODO READERS I OWE YOU ONE

Share This