Kelley needs a good toilet game. Chris wonders where to hold the sword-chucks. Josh discovers the Trails series gets more anime the further it goes. And Jason wonders if Dory has ADHD. What's his name again? Oh right, Wyl.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 689: “Enthusiasm Crushed” appeared first on RPGamer.

Chris warns about goblins and bugbears living together. Josh learns he's the most likely to be loaded into the soul cannon first. Kelley only watches the bottom half of Looney Tunes. And Robert has 99 problems but an EVA waifu ain't one.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 736: “Meowsable Pile of Secrets” appeared first on RPGamer.

Devlin takes us inside her new installation, which features as part of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb at 180 Studios.

The post Es Devlin: Screenshare appeared first on Fact Magazine.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is TV’s best soap opera, week after week offering twists more shocking than secret twins and characters returning from the dead. That’s because it’s all real, happening in the most haunted suburb in the continental United States.

Where else do two women connect over knowing the long-lost birth father of one’s child? Is there another city where women squabble over body positivity in a parking lot off the side of a snowy mountain? Surely, there’s no other place on Earth where Lisa Barlow could come across anywhere near a voice of reason.

But that all happens here in Salt Lake City. Five episodes in, Season 5 has continued to evolve into the most captivating season in modern Real Housewives history, carried by the ever-changing bonds between our OGs and a team of wonderfully bizarre newbies.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Movies can’t, by definition, be all things to all people, and yet Anora—winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or—manages to vacillate between assorted registers with stunning, and ultimately affecting, aplomb.

Another of The Florida Project and Red Rocket writer/director Sean Baker’s tales of marginalized individuals struggling to survive and find themselves in an often-unforgiving world, the film is a character study, romance, crime saga, screwball comedy, and vérité drama all wrapped into one unique and dexterous package. More impressive than its nimbleness, however, is its poise and empathy, the latter of which is chiefly bestowed upon its protagonist, whose life is thrown for a rollercoaster-grade loop-di-loop thanks to a chance introduction.

Ani (Mikey Madison, in a star-making turn) is a Brighton Beach 23-year-old who lives with her sister and earns a living stripping at a local club. Anora, which hits theaters Oct. 18, introduces her at the end of a long pan along a bench where men are receiving lap dances from erotic professionals. Fixating on Ani’s face as she flashes the fake smile that her customers crave and her superiors demand, Baker’s camera creates immediate, intimate engagement with the young woman, and that continues as it presents snapshots of her daily (or, rather, nightly) routine at her place of employment.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Today in "person you already like says something you already agree with, but it’s still good to hear them say it" news, Arkane founder and im-simmy RPG studio WolfEye head Raphael Colantonio has spoken on Microsoft’s decision to shutter Prey (2017) studio Arkane Austin - alongside a handful of others - back in May.

Colantonio, who founded Arkane in 1999 and departed in 2017 to form Weird West studio WolfEye, recently chatted to Jeremy Peel for PC Gamer about Arkane’s closure, saying:

I think if you look a little bit, it's obvious that Arkane Austin was a very special group of people that have made some cool things and that could pull it off again. I think it was a decision that just came down to, 'We need to cut something.' Was it to please the investors, the stock market? They're playing a different game.

Read more

Stationeers and Icarus developers RocketWerkz are making a spiritual successor to beloved space sim Kerbal Space Program, which is currently titled "Kitten Space Agency" in a flagrant display of adherence to wholesome internet trends. It's based on an actual Kerbal Space Program 2 pitch the studio threw at Take-Two subsidiary Private Division back in the day. RocketWerkz CEO and original DayZ creator Dean Hall has hired several former KSP and KSP2 developers to work on the game, and is describing it on social media as a "KSP killer".

Read more

Inflexion Games are closing their UK office, laying off staff and restructuring their main Canadian studio after failing to find commercial success with their Victorian fantasy survival game Nightingale. Reportedly, at least 22 people have been let go.

Read more

Some days, I wonder if every word written before a trailer is actually superfluous. It’s a visual medium, after all. What can a description achieve save to clumsily gesture at the true shape of something; a dog-eared tour brochure for a thrilling weekend spelunking in Plato’s cave? I can usually shake this feeling, but gory zombie action game Showa American Story is my breaking point. There is nothing I can impart about this thing that will not be conveyed better by allowing its new trailer to wash over you like a tide of sheer videogame. Here’s it:

Read more

The Elder Scrolls: Legends, the free-to-play card game set in Bethesda's fantasy world, has been removed from sale on Steam. Its servers will shut down for good on January 30th, 2025, after which it will no longer be playable. The closure comes five years after the game was last updated.

Read more

Put your hand up if you'd forgotten that every Assassin's Creed game is, strictly speaking, set in the present day. I know I had. That's not the actual distant past you're parkouring through. That isn't actual Renaissance architecture you're clambering on. It's a holographic Animus simulation, conjured from ancestral memories flash-frozen within your DNA - convenient, inasmuch as it means that any inconsistencies are your DNA's fault, not Ubisoft's. If the ledge-mantling animations are glitchy, that's simply because you have bad genes.

We can both be forgiven for losing sight of Assassin's Creed's modern day narrative frame. Ubisoft themselves have downplayed it since the era of Desmond Miles, the watery Peter Parker figure who served as puppetmaster protagonist for AC games up to Assassin's Creed 3. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, however, they're planning to bring back the modern day setting in a big way, though details are scanty.

Read more

I have zero archaeology experience or knowledge, but I bet archaeologists really love their jobs (for the most part). They get to analyse and discover cool artefacts and educate us on the histories of forgotten civilisations. That's dreamy stuff, that is. But I do wonder what it's like for archaeologists to discover and study something they shouldn't have; something with a disturbing secret - a curse, maybe. Bite-sized horror game The Children Of Clay explores this idea and I'd like more of it, please.

Read more

We’re still a week away from Blizzard’s Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct next Wednesday the 13th of November, but art from an apparent remaster of 1995 real time strategy game Warcraft II: Tides Of Darkness has leaked online, via Xibbly user Stiven. It’s a thin one, as far as leaks go, but does show what looks to be cover, logo art, and a Battle.net icon. Thanks for the spot, Percy Coswald Gamer.

Read more

Back in the misty reaches of time (March) popular farming sim Stardew Valley got a big update that added more pets to the game (it also let you drink mayonaise but let's not get sidetracked). Those new cats, dogs, and turtles had the cute distinction of being able to wear hats, should you choose to kit your wee friends out. Now, following many months of smaller updates to the game, it seems those hats are causing a problem. "[If] you are experiencing performance issues in Stardew Valley 1.6, remove all hats from pets," said creator Eric Barone in a xeet. When asked the lore-accurate cause of this problem, he blamed: "a strange rash".

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Back in the mists of 2021, No Man's Sky revealed its very own Normandy SR1 space frigate. "The Normandy in No Man's Sky?" you cry. "Why, that's a Mass Effect vessel. Some mistake here surely?" 1) My name's not Shirley, and 2) Indeed it is a Mass Effect ship, but HelloGames struck a time-limited deal with BioWare to create a version for their own space sim.

"Blast, if only I'd noticed this at the time and acquired one," you mourn. "Ah, so many years I have wasted." Be of good cheer, my friend, for No Man's Sky has a Normandy once again, just in time for the latest N7 Day of assorted Mass Effect celebrations. For the next two weeks, you'll be able to get a-hold of it by way of a revised version of 2021's Beachhead Expedition. Tray-tray, away!

Read more

Sega are delisting several bundles of 'classic' games from digital stores, along with "select individual" games. On Steam specifically, this adds up to over 60 games in total, including several actual classics including the original Streets Of Rage trilogy, Crazy Taxi, and Jet Set Radio.

The games will be removed on December 6th but will remain playable to those who already own them.

Read more

I first played Taiko no Tatsujin in an arcade (in Japan, because I am very cool), where it's controlled by hitting a recreation of an actual taiko drum. It was fun enough that I wish there was a taiko drum peripheral available for PC now the series is on our platform.

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is out now via Steam, where it offers over 70 songs to drum through, and a subscription service through which to unlock over 700 more. Maybe I should try to get my Donkey Konga drums working on PC, but I'll probably settle for playing it with a gamepad.

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Could tower defence be the ultimate "it's Friday and I am here in body only" genre? I haven't really thought about it before, but Rift Riff's effusively laidback crowd control has me pondering those optimal moments in any tower defender when the incoming horde hits the flamer-MG triangle just right, and you can settle back comfortably into the role of clockwatcher.

Rift Riff encourages this behaviour by being nice to look at. Created by a trio of developers including Hidden Folks designer Adriaan de Jongh, it's a world of spacey, sun-carved mountains, forests and monoliths. The towers resemble the sacred architecture of Monument Valley, and the colour scheme and general ambience remind me of Cocoon. There's a demo, if you fancy it.

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In all honesty, Toads Of The Bayou could have been several notches less ribbet-ing than its Steam demo ended up being, because its stylised pixel fly-snatchers are just that good. There’s only one of the three characters available in the freebie (one of the others is a toad nun with a shotgun), but he’s got a little cutlass, a flintlock pistol, and a can-do attitude - at least when it comes to either stabbing or shooting things. The game itself is a little bit deckbuilder, a little bit Into The Breach: turn based strategy with perfect information and various tricks you can pull to make enemies hit each other instead of the thing you’re trying to protect. Indulge yourself on the gourmet tray-tray below.

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Let’s try and get you up to speed on the fascinating oddity that is simulation game Ecosystem, on the off chance that Nate's coverage of it hasn't stuck with you like an unwelcome brain parasite you’re nonetheless unwilling to get removed for fear of the lingering emptiness it might cause (he once described an eel as “a quaver with erectile dysfunction”). Broadly speaking, this game is Spore’s evolutionary-biology-degree-having cousin. It’s been in early access for about three years now, but with the latest "Crustacean" update, it’s just hit 1.0. Once again, carcinization has come for all things.

Read more

"Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed". As reported by Polygon, that's an argument put forth by a new lawsuit against Ubisoft, filed by two Californian players of The Crew. They're suing the company in a proposed class action lawsuit over shutting down the racing game's servers, rendering it unplayable.

Read more

As the International Space Station comes to the end of its life, we should recognise its biggest achievement – showing that a better world is possible

The International Space Station will burn up and splash down into the Pacific sometime around 2030. What could possibly go wrong? And will we ever see anything like the ISS again?

On 19 and 20 August, the JUICE mission will make the first ever attempt to get a gravitational boost from both Earth and the moon on its way to Jupiter

Mars rocks that were blasted off the surface of the Red Planet millions of years ago have been traced back to craters where they originated, which could transform our understanding of Mars’s volcanism and evolution

After a star explodes, the resulting supernova remnant collapses in on itself and could begin the cycle again, creating generations of stars enriched with heavy elements

Astronomers have identified patterns within the motion of stars stretching across the Milky Way, hinting at the presence of a vast wave

The failure of Boeing's Starliner capsule has left two astronauts stuck in space for months – but also proved how private spaceflight can go right

The Polaris Dawn mission will include the first ever civilian spacewalk, and with a new spacesuit and no airlock, it may also be the most dangerous spacewalk ever

A groundbreaking civilian spacewalk saw two astronauts partially exit a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule wearing a brand new design of spacesuit. Every previous spacewalk completed before this was performed by government-trained astronauts.

Electromagnetic radiation leaking from the cable between your computer and monitor can be intercepted and decoded by AI to reveal what you are looking at

AI tools could help eliminate human bias in forensic investigations, say UCL scientists, who are using eye-tracking technology to study decision-making in skeletal analysis and crime scene examinations

A neural network can recreate the classic computer game Doom despite using none of its code or graphics, hinting that generative AI could be used to create games from scratch in future

A new procedure turns an alloy of nickel and titanium into a material as strong as steel but 20 times stretchier – and one application could be building planes with shape-shifting wings

Information on faces recognised, voice commands and internet searches can be extracted from an Amazon Echo smart assistant without help from the user or manufacturer

Gears just a few micrometres wide can be carved from silicon using a beam of electrons, enabling tiny robots or machines that could interact with human cells

Treat yourself to a Becky Lynch book signing, games with the Dropout stars, Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and so much more!

Four decades after the first IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Atlanta, robotics is bigger than ever. Next week in Rotterdam is the IEEE ICRA@40 conference, “a celebration of 40 years of pioneering research and technological advancements in robotics and automation.” There’s an ICRA every year, of course. Arguably the largest robotics research conference in the world, the 2024 edition was held in Yokohama, Japan back in May.

ICRA@40 is not just a second ICRA conference in 2024. Next week’s conference is a single track that promises “a journey through the evolution of robotics and automation,” through four days of short keynotes from prominent roboticists from across the entire field. You can see for yourself, the speaker list is nuts. There are also debates and panels tackling big ideas, like: “What progress has been made in different areas of robotics and automation over the past decades, and what key challenges remain?” Personally, I’d say “lots” and “most of them,” but that’s probably why I’m not going to be up on stage.

There will also be interactive research presentations, live demos, an expo, and more—the conference schedule is online now, and the abstracts are online as well. I’ll be there to cover it all, but if you can make it in person, it’ll be worth it.

Forty years ago is a long time, but it’s not that long, so just for fun, I had a look at the proceedings of ICRA 1984 which are available on IEEE Xplore, if you’re curious. Here’s an excerpt of the forward from the organizers, which included folks from International Business Machines and Bell Labs:

The proceedings of the first IEEE Computer Society International Conference on Robotics contains papers covering practically all aspects of robotics. The response to our call for papers has been overwhelming, and the number of papers submitted by authors outside the United States indicates the strong international interest in robotics.
The Conference program includes papers on: computer vision; touch and other local sensing; manipulator kinematics, dynamics, control and simulation; robot programming languages, operating systems, representation, planning, man-machine interfaces; multiple and mobile robot systems.
The technical level of the Conference is high with papers being presented by leading researchers in robotics. We believe that this conference, the first of a series to be sponsored by the IEEE, will provide a forum for the dissemination of fundamental research results in this fast developing field.

Technically, this was “ICR,” not “ICRA,” and it was put on by the IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Robotics, since there was no IEEE Robotics and Automation Society at that time; RAS didn’t get off the ground until 1987.

This is a sponsored article brought to you by Khalifa University of Science and Technology.

A total of eight intense competitions to inspire creativity and innovation along with 13 forums dedicated to diverse segments of robotics and artificial intelligence will be part of the 36th edition of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2024) in Abu Dhabi.

These competitions at the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s first-ever global conference and exhibition from 14-18 October 2024 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC) will highlight some of the key aspects of robotics. These include physical or athletic intelligence of robots, remote robot navigation, robot manipulation, underwater robotics, perception and sensing as well as challenges for wildlife preservation.

This edition of IROS is one of the largest of its kind globally in this category because of active participation across all levels, with 5,740 authors, 16 keynote speakers, 46 workshops, 11 tutorials, as well as 28 exhibitors and 12 startups. The forums at IROS will explore the rapidly evolving role of robotics in many industry sectors as well as policy-making and regulatory areas. Several leading corporate majors, and industry professionals from across the globe are gathering for IROS 2024 which is themed “Robotics for Sustainable Development.”

“The intense robotics competitions will inspire creativity, while the products on display as well as keynotes will pave the way for more community-relevant solutions.” —Jorge Dias, IROS 2024 General Chair

Dr. Jorge Dias, IROS 2024 General Chair, said: “Such a large gathering of scientists, researchers, industry leaders and government stakeholders in Abu Dhabi for IROS 2024 also demonstrates the role of UAE in pioneering new technologies and in providing an international platform for knowledge exchange and sharing of expertise. The intense robotics competitions will inspire creativity, while the products on display as well as keynotes will pave the way for more community-relevant solutions.”

The competitions are:

• 2nd AI Olympics With RealAIGym: Is AI Ready for Athletic Intelligence in the Real World? focusing on the physical or athletic intelligence of robots

• The Earth Rovers Challenge on remote robot navigation

• Robotic Construction Challenge and the euROBIN Manipulation Skill Versatility Challenge (MSVC) on robot manipulation

• Underwater Robotics Challenges on innovation and problem-solving in underwater robotics and artificial intelligence

• ROAD-IROS: Automatic Data Annotation Challenge for ROAD Dataset on perception and sensing

• 21st F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Competition

• IEEE RAS Quadruped Robot Challenge (QRC), focusing on navigation

In addition to these competitions, the Falcon Monitoring Challenge (FMC) will focus on advancing the field of wildlife tracking and conservation through the development of sophisticated, noninvasive monitoring systems.

Khalifa University

IROS 2024 will also include three keynote talks on ‘Robotic Competitions’ that will be moderated by Professor Lakmal Seneviratne, Director, Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KU-CARS), Khalifa University. The keynotes will be delivered by Professor Pedro Lima, Institute for Systems and Robotics, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of. Lisbon, Portugal; Dr. Timothy Chung, General Manager, Autonomy and Robotics, Microsoft, US; and Dr. Ubbo Visser, President of the RoboCup Federation, Director of Graduate Studies, and Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Miami, US.

The forums at IROS 2024 will include:

• Robotics in Africa Forum

• Marine Robotics in Ocean Decade Initiative for Sustainable Development

• Robots for Sustainability and Sustainable Robots

• Government Forum: Funding for Robotics Research, Human-Avatars Symbiosis: Can you imagine a future society where you can remotely control multiple avatars?

• Moonshot R&D Program Goal 3 Forum. Envisioning a Future of Human-Robot Co-living: Potential for Robotics to Transform Human Lives

Other forums include:

• Sustainable Medical and Surgical Robotics

• Empowering Diverse Voices in Robotics, Robotics & AI in the UAE: Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• Europe Regulates Artificial Intelligence: the Challenge for Robotics, Industrial Opportunities and Socio-Economic Impact of Medical Robotics

• The Future of Work: AI-Enhanced Robotics and Human Interaction Research in M3S

• Robots for a Better Tomorrow: Wellbeing Through Advanced Technology.

One of the largest and most important robotics research conferences in the world, IROS 2024 provides a platform for the international robotics community to exchange knowledge and ideas about the latest advances in intelligent robots and smart machines. A total of 3,344 paper submissions representing 60 countries, have been received from researchers and scientists across the world. China tops the list with more than 1,000 papers, the US with 777, Germany with 302, Japan with 253, and the UK and South Korea with 173 each. The UAE remains top in the Arab region with 68 papers.

One of the largest and most important robotics research conferences in the world, IROS 2024 provides a platform for the international robotics community to exchange knowledge and ideas.

For eight consecutive years since 2017, Abu Dhabi has remained first on the world’s safest cities list, according to online database Numbeo, which assessed 329 global cities for the 2024 listing. This reflects the emirate’s ongoing efforts to ensure a good quality of life for citizens and residents. With a multicultural community, Abu Dhabi is home to people from more than 200 nationalities, and draws a large number of tourists to some of the top art galleries in the city such as Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, as well as other destinations such as Ferrari World Abu Dhabi and Warner Bros. World™ Abu Dhabi.

Because of its listing as one of the safest cities, Abu Dhabi continues to host several international conferences and exhibitions. Abu Dhabi is set to host the UNCTAD World Investment Forum, the 13th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC13), the 12th World Environment Education Congress in 2024, and the IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2025.

IROS 2024 is sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Abu Dhabi Convention and Exhibition Bureau, the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE), the New Technology Foundation, and the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES).

More information at https://iros2024-abudhabi.org/

When we think of grasping robots, we think of manipulators of some sort on the ends of arms of some sort. Because of course we do—that’s how (most of us) are built, and that’s the mindset with which we have consequently optimized the world around us. But one of the great things about robots is that they don’t have to be constrained by our constraints, and at ICRA@40 in Rotterdam this week, we saw a novel new Thing: a robotic hand that can detach from its arm and then crawl around to grasp objects that would be otherwise out of reach, designed by roboticists from EPFL in Switzerland.

Fundamentally, robot hands and crawling robots share a lot of similarities, including a body along with some wiggly bits that stick out and do stuff. But most robotic hands are designed to grasp rather than crawl, and as far as I’m aware, no robotic hands have been designed to do both of those things at the same time. Since both capabilities are important, you don’t necessarily want to stick with a traditional grasping-focused hand design. The researchers employed a genetic algorithm and simulation to test a bunch of different configurations in order to optimize for the ability to hold things and to move.

You’ll notice that the fingers bend backwards as well as forwards, which effectively doubles the ways in which the hand (or, “Handcrawler”) can grasp objects. And it’s a little bit hard to tell from the video, but the Handcrawler attaches to the wrist using magnets for alignment along with a screw that extends to lock the hand into place.

“Although you see it in scary movies, I think we’re the first to introduce this idea to robotics.” —Xiao Gao, EPFL

The whole system is controlled manually in the video, but lead author Xiao Gao tells us that they already have an autonomous version (with external localization) working in the lab. In fact, they’ve managed to run an entire grasping sequence autonomously, with the Handcrawler detaching from the arm, crawling to a location the arm can’t reach, picking up an object, and then returning and reattaching itself to the arm again.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

IROS 2024: 14–18 October 2024, ABU DHABI, UAE

ICSR 2024: 23–26 October 2024, ODENSE, DENMARK

Cybathlon 2024: 25–27 October 2024, ZURICH

Humanoids 204: 22–24 November 2024, NANCY, FRANCE

Enjoy today’s videos!

The interaction between humans and machines is gaining increasing importance due to the advancing degree of automation. This video showcases the development of robotic systems capable of recognizing and responding to human wishes.

By Jana Jost, Sebastian Hoose, Nils Gramse, Benedikt Pschera, and Jan Emmerich from Fraunhofer IML

[ Fraunhofer IML ]

Humans are capable of continuously manipulating a wide variety of deformable objects into complex shapes, owing largely to our ability to reason about material properties as well as our ability to reason in the presence of geometric occlusion in the object’s state. To study the robotic systems and algorithms capable of deforming volumetric objects, we introduce a novel robotics task of continuously deforming clay on a pottery wheel, and we present a baseline approach for tackling such a task by learning from demonstration.

By Adam Hung, Uksang Yoo, Jonathan Francis, Jean Oh, and Jeffrey Ichnowski from CMU Robotics Insittute

[ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ]

Suction-based robotic grippers are common in industrial applications due to their simplicity and robustness, but [they] struggle with geometric complexity. Grippers that can handle varied surfaces as easily as traditional suction grippers would be more effective. Here we show how a fractal structure allows suction-based grippers to increase conformability and expand approach angle range.

By Patrick O’Brien, Jakub F. Kowalewski, Chad C. Kessens, and Jeffrey Ian Lipton from Northeastern University Transformative Robotics Lab

[ Northeastern University ]

We introduce a newly developed robotic musician designed to play an acoustic guitar in a rich and expressive manner. Unlike previous robotic guitarists, our Expressive Robotic Guitarist (ERG) is designed to play a commercial acoustic guitar while controlling a wide dynamic range, millisecond-level note generation, and a variety of playing techniques such as strumming, picking, overtones, and hammer-ons.

By Ning Yang , Amit Rogel , and Gil Weinberg from Georgia Tech

[ Georgia Tech ]

The iCub project was initiated in 2004 by Giorgio Metta, Giulio Sandini, and David Vernon to create a robotic platform for embodied cognition research. The main goals of the project were to design a humanoid robot, named iCub, to create a community by leveraging on open-source licensing, and implement several basic elements of artificial cognition and developmental robotics. More than 50 iCub have been built and used worldwide for various research projects.

[ Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia ]

In our video, we present SCALER-B, a multi-modal versatile climbing robot that is a quadruped robot capable of standing up, bipedal locomotion, bipedal climbing, and pullups with two finger grippers.

By Yusuke Tanaka, Alexander Schperberg, Alvin Zhu, and Dennis Hong from UCLA

[ Robotics Mechanical Laboratory at UCLA ]

This video explores Waseda University’s innovative journey in developing wind instrument-playing robots, from automated performance to interactive musical engagement. Through demonstrations of technical advancements and collaborative performances, the video illustrates how Waseda University is pushing the boundaries of robotics, blending technology and artistry to create interactive robotic musicians.

By Jia-Yeu Lin and Atsuo Takanishi from Waseda University

[ Waseda University ]

This video presents a brief history of robot painting projects with the intention of educating viewers about the specific, core robotics challenges that people developing robot painters face. We focus on four robotics challenges: controls, the simulation-to-reality gap, generative intelligence, and human-robot interaction. We show how various projects tackle these challenges with quotes from experts in the field.

By Peter Schaldenbrand, Gerry Chen, Vihaan Misra, Lorie Chen, Ken Goldberg, and Jean Oh from CMU

[ Carnegie Mellon University ]

The wheeled humanoid neoDavid is one of the most complex humanoid robots worldwide. All finger joints can be controlled individually, giving the system exceptional dexterity. neoDavids Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSAs) enable very high performance in the tasks with fast collisions, highly energetic vibrations, or explosive motions, such as hammering, using power-tools, e.g. a drill-hammer, or throwing a ball.

[ DLR Institute of Robotics andMechatronics ]

LG Electronics’ journey to commercialize robot navigation technology in various areas such as home, public spaces, and factories will be introduced in this paper. Technical challenges ahead in robot navigation to make an innovation for our better life will be discussed. With the vision on ‘Zero Labor Home’, the next smart home agent robot will bring us next innovation in our lives with the advances of spatial AI, i.e. combination of robot navigation and AI technology.

By Hyoung-Rock Kim, DongKi Noh and Seung-Min Baek from LG

[ LG ]

HILARE stands for: Heuristiques Intégrées aux Logiciels et aux Automatismes dans un Robot Evolutif. The HILARE project started by the end of 1977 at LAAS (Laboratoire d’Automatique et d’Analyse des Systèmes at this time) under the leadership of Georges Giralt. The video features HILARE robot and delivers explanations.

By Aurelie Clodic, Raja Chatila, Marc Vaisset, Matthieu Herrb, Stephy Le Foll, Jerome Lamy, and Simon Lacroix from LAAS/CNRS (Note that the video narration is in French with English subtitles.)

[ LAAS/CNRS ]

Humanoid legged locomotion is versatile, but typically used for reaching nearby targets. Employing a personal transporter (PT) designed for humans, such as a Segway, offers an alternative for humanoids navigating the real world, enabling them to switch from walking to wheeled locomotion for covering larger distances, similar to humans. In this work, we develop control strategies that allow humanoids to operate PTs while maintaining balance.

By Vidyasagar Rajendran, William Thibault, Francisco Javier Andrade Chavez, and Katja Mombaur from University of Waterloo

[ University of Waterloo ]

Motion planning, and in particular in tight settings, is a key problem in robotics and manufacturing. One infamous example for a difficult, tight motion planning problem is the Alpha Puzzle. We present a first demonstration in the real world of an Alpha Puzzle solution with a Universal Robotics UR5e, using a solution path generated from our previous work.

By Dror Livnat, Yuval Lavi, Michael M. Bilevich, Tomer Buber, and Dan Halperin from Tel Aviv University

[ Tel Aviv University ]

Interaction between humans and their environment has been a key factor in the evolution and the expansion of intelligent species. Here we present methods to design and build an artificial environment through interactive robotic surfaces.

By Fabio Zuliani, Neil Chennoufi, Alihan Bakir, Francesco Bruno, and Jamie Paik from EPFL

[ EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab ]

At the intersection of swarm robotics and architecture, we created the Swarm Garden, a novel responsive system to be deployed on façades. The Swarm Garden is an adaptive shading system made of a swarm of robotic modules that respond to humans and the environment while creating beautiful spaces. In this video, we showcase 35 robotic modules that we designed and built for The Swarm Garden.

By Merihan Alhafnawi, Lucia Stein-Montalvo, Jad Bendarkawi, Yenet Tafesse, Vicky Chow, Sigrid Adriaenssens, and Radhika Nagpal from Princeton University

[ Princeton University ]

My team at the University of Southern Denmark has been pioneering the field of self-recharging drones since 2017. These drones are equipped with a robust perception and navigation system, enabling them to identify powerlines and approach them for landing. A unique feature of our drones is their self-recharging capability. They accomplish this by landing on powerlines and utilizing a passively actuated gripping mechanism to secure themselves to the powerline cable.

By Emad Ebeid from University of southern Denmark

[ University of Southern Denmark (SDU) ]

This paper explores the design and implementation of Furnituroids, shape-changing mobile furniture robots that embrace ambiguity to offer multiple and dynamic affordances for both individual and social behaviors.

By Yasuto Nakanishi from Keio University

[ Keio University ]

The Biden administration passed $3 trillion of legislation aimed at revitalizing the American economy and fostering green, equitable, "middle-out" growth.

Even though that perception is partly the creation of right-wing media, the Democrats surely need to hone their identity.

Other Democrats lambasted him. The Tufts political science department spurned him. But Moulton is raising concerns the left needs to take seriously.

Elon Musk has joined the chorus of conservative and MAGA voices online backing Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) for Senate GOP leader - after calling Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) the "top choice of Democrats."

Who Will Fill the Democratic Vacuum?

From Goats to airplanes, Xbox Game Pass has another bumper month in store for subscribers. Here's everything you need to know about what is heading to PC and console this November 2024

Aside from offering a more powerful console, the PS5 Pro also packs a sneaky theme for PlayStation fans to uncover - something Sony hadn't previously discussed.

President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense.

Republican Rep. David Valadao has won reelection in California's 22nd Congressional District, defeating Democrat Rudy Salas for the second time.