There are a variety of causes for the occurrence of blindness, such as the lack of enough blood supply for the retina. If it doesn’t get proper amounts of oxygen, the result will be permanent blindness. The chances of preventing it depend on when the doctors realize if a patient’s retina is not receiving sufficient oxygen; the sooner the better. Prof. Bradley Nelson and his team of researchers at ETH Zurich seem to have found out a solution.

Earlier the team created microrobots, measuring a millimeter in length and one third of a millimeter in width, which could be used to deliver medication or remove scar tissue in the eye. Magnetic fields can be used to guide these tiny robots through the vitreous fluid.

They coated these microrobots with nanospheres made of a dye, which fluoresces when exposed to a specific wavelength of light. This fluorescence fades faster if there is higher amount of oxygen surrounding the dye. Now the team can inject these oxygen sensing dye-coated robots into the vitreous fluid to move them to the surface of the retina. They would then apply light to observe the dye’s fluorescence, and thereby determine the amount of oxygen around the area. The robots can be removed from the eye later on by magnetically attaching them to an inserted needle.

According to ETH, other methods now available for determining the oxygen levels within the eye are not sensitive enough. The method using microrobots have already been tested in water samples with different O2 levels and were found to be a success.

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The guess is that the NT stands for New Type, as the upgraded Kid’s Walker NT comes with several improvements over the original. First, there is a chest plate that flips up to protect the pilot, which is pretty important when you find yourself in the heat of battle. They’ve also added into two new attachments for the arms: there’s a drill and a gripper. You can probably figure out what those do.

Before you get all excited about sending your 7-year-old into the mech-infested warzone, you should know that the Kid’s Walker NT mech suit can’t actually go anywhere. There are some “leg movements” for realism, but the suit doesn’t walk. So, you’re just a sitting duck with a gripper and a (presumably not-too-sharp) drill. At least little Sally will look the part. The 1.6 meter robot suit retails for $21,000 and weighs in at 180 kg. It’s also available for rental in Japan.

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Be it a big Jellyfish like robot or a creepy looking record breaker or anything else, man has always tried to recreate what he sees around him. What the folks over at Festo were inspired by this time was the complex design of the dragonfly and the aerodynamic tricks it has been showing off for 300 million years. With that in mind, they created the BionicOpter.

The BionicOpter has a wingspan of 63 cm and measures 44 cm from tip to tail. It weighs just 175 g, made from aluminum, polyamide (sintered) and terpolymer (deep-drawn ABS), and each of its four wings, which can be turned up to 90 degrees from the horizontal, features a polyester membrane covering a carbon fiber frame.

It is equipped with an ARM microcontroller, inertia, acceleration and position sensors, servo motors, two LiPo batteries and a 2.4 GHz wireless module. The robot’s software and electronics take care of all the complex motion sequences and all that an operator on the ground has to do is control the steering. Everything put together and the BionicOpter moves up and down, forward and backward, and to the side with ease.

Check out the video below to see the robot in action. It’s certainly cool, but not as perfect as the one which nature has designed. The BionicOpter seems to be pretty shaky.

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This is one of the larger versions that they’ve created to date, measuring 5 feet 7 inches across and weighing 170 pounds. The project was funded by the US Navy, presumably because the military has some interest in using this technology for surveillance or other purposes, but the researchers see how this could be used effectively for ocean monitoring or the cleaning up of oil spills. An earlier version, called RoboJelly, was about the size of a human hand.

The Cyro robot itself has eight mechanical arms extending from its central water-sealed brain and then a silicone skin is laid on top of that. The movement of the Cyro is similar to that of a jellyfish, which is incredibly efficient. They hope that as they improve the design, the Cyro will be able to head out on its own for months at a time. Indeed, the larger the model, the longer the range it could have.

Check out the demo video below, which includes an interview with VT College of Engineering graduate student Alex Villanueva.

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Do you own a busy gambling den and/or casino? Are your staff taking unnecessary “bathroom, breaks”, taking winnings for themselves or cheating the system? Perhaps you just want a more secure, calculating system with little chance of human error? Then what you need is Yaskawa Motoman Robotics new SDA10F blackjack dealing robot.

The sophisticated robot uses its own vision system to recognize cards to aid with dealing and general Blackjack duties. See it in action in the video below:

While this is certainly a cool idea, it likely doesn’t come cheap either. What do you think of this unique robotic Blackjack dealer?

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Ever wondered how exactly bats fly? You aren’t alone. Researchers at brown University were quite interested in the topic, but knew that these flying mammals aren’t exactly easy to work with. Instead, they decided to study the animal and then create a biologically accurate robotic bat wings for further examination.

The working model perfectly mimics how bat wings work in every way. This information has helped the Brown researchers learn a lot about how a bat’s muscles and ligaments work together to allow flight and keep the animal intact while flapping its wings.

So what does designing accurate robotic bat wings do for mankind exactly? Actually, learning more about the secrets to bat flight could prove beneficial to crafting more energy efficient lightweight aircraft and could give us ideas for improving aerodynamics on flying devices in general.

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Recently the Mars Curiosity Rover found something very, very interesting.  During its regular shutterbugging activities, the rover found a very small, shiny, metal looking object that appears to be sticking out of a rock.

Is this proof that Martians did or still do exist? While scientists have no idea what it is, the half centimeter tall does make the mind wander with possibilities.  While more than likely a natural formation of minerals, it is clearly different than the surrounding rock which allows the possibilities for some grander explanations.

The object was found by the Curiosity Rover on January 30^th and NASA has no idea what it may be and we may really never know. Still, wouldn’t it be amazing if it turned out to be the remains of a crashed alien ship or perhaps some remaining sign of a Martian civilization that is no more? Not likely, but interesting none the less. What do you think this metal-like object really is?

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You can thank Gael Langevin, a French sculptor, for this creation. He’s been working on this project for the past year and now you can download the open source plans for free from Thingverse. For now, you can only get the plans for “InMoov,” which is a robot hand you can print and animate. You’ll need some building skills, but you can build this and use it. You will also need to supply some “cables or fishing rods” if you want to control it, but at the very least, you’ll need servos and Arduinos for movement.

After Mr. Langevin puts in some more work into the project, he plans on releasing his plans for the torso and head for this 3D printed robot also through Thingverse. It’s only a matter of time before we are able to download some increasingly advanced AI and we really will have our own personal robot slaves companions in our homes to help us with some daily tasks. Let’s just hope that our 3D printed friends adhere to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.

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The problem with most robots, if you can call it a problem, is that their movement is decidedly mechanical. We have humanoid robots like Honda’s Asimo, but they still don\’t quite move like a human being. That could change with a new robot called Roboy, being designed by a team of scientists and engineers from the University of Zurich.

He’s meant to look like a little boy, standing at about four-feet tall, complete with a humanoid face and regular human-like arms and legs. One of the key differences that will separate Roboy from other humanoid robots is that it will have artificial tendons to go with a set of mechanical actuators. The net result, they hope, is movement that more closely mimics that of a human.

The end objective is to deploy an army of Roboy robots that can be used as assistants for humans, carrying out daily tasks and perhaps helping those with certain physical disabilities or challenges. You can see how a Roboy would be very useful for an otherwise independent senior, for example.

The version of Roboy shown here lets you see all of his insides, but the final product will more likely have a soft touchable skin, again getting closer to mimicking a real human being. The designers and scientists are still in the process of raising money for Roboy’s development, including selling ad space on the robot boy’s body.

I just hope that Roboy doesn’t suddenly become self-aware, banding together with other Roboys to take over the world.

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Thanks to some “leaked” photos on Flickr, it is known that Samsung is going to release a new model to its robotic vacuum line.  This tease, leaked or released, by Samsung shows The Smart Tango Corner Clean robot that has the standard circular design, but also has one other little feature.

A first in the form of two pop out brushes, one on each front side, that allows the robot to swipe out debris from corner and other hard to reach spots.   It also has a front mounted camera system used for the Visionary Mapping System, which maps out the cleaning path automatically.  There is also a built in LCD on the top of the vac, used for error codes and programming the device.  At the rear of the device is also the standard removable dust collection bin.

We have no indication of model name or number or a price point for the device, so we will have to wait until CES for the full rundown.

While robotic vacuums are nothing new, they are starting to become more efficient and more affordable. There may be a time when traditional vacuums are a thing of the past. What do you think of Samsung’s latest effort?

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