Nitin Nain

Tag: Robotics

  • What’s inside Google Glass?

    What’s inside Google Glass?

    It’s impressive to see how much punch “Google Glass” packs in an elegant and light-weight construction.

    Google Glass breakdown

    (Image: iFixit)

    I’ve long believed that the ability to create new materials is a good indicator of a country’s production and economic ability. Just look at what Britain, US and Germany did with materials during the industrial revolution and Japan and China in the last century. Right now, US scientists are trying to use the power of Big Data to sequence ‘the materials genome’. 1000 years back it was probably the Middle East, China and India who were acing the material sciences and were indeed economically prosperous.

  • The new Nao is awesome!

    Dec 13, 2011

  • Humanoid Robots

    Dec 9, 2009

    I’ve always had a fascination for automation and robotics. The last few years have seen some very interesting developments in Humanoid robots. Honda Asimo, Sony Aibo and Sony Qrio displayed some nifty capabilities early 2000s. Unfortunately Sony stopped the research on the duo in Jan 2006 and Asimo hasn’t seen a new version for some time now. Guess the research cost was trumping the benefits in foreseeable future for these Japanese manufacturers.

    Anyway, there’s interesting work happening still. Aldebaran Robotics’ Nao caught my eye. Priced at €10,000, it’s still a research product and isn’t available to everybody. Here are some of my favourites in action.

    Nao (by Aldebaran Robotics)

    Aldebaran Nao - Movements and Joints

    Qrio (by Sony)

    Dancing – The steps are synchronized down to msecs!

    Toyota’s Humanoid showcasing impressive stability

    Motoman

    (There’re also the AI/Facial-expressions focused robots. I just covered the ‘motor’ ones.)