Institute for Personal Robots in Education Blog

The online retailer Amazon has reported a 96% fall in profits to $7m (£4.5m) for the three months ending in June, down from $191m a year earlier. The company blamed the fall on a $65m loss from its purchase of robot-maker Kiva systems earlier this year.

Kids, meet Kate the robot. She wants to play with you, help you do your homework, or just give you a big metallic hug while Mom or Dad are deployed overseas. She can't replace your parent, but with her smiling ET-ish visage and gift for gab, she ...

Kids, meet Kate the robot. She wants to play with you, help you do your homework, or just give you a big metallic hug while Mom or Dad are deployed overseas. She can't replace your parent, but with her smiling ET-ish visage and gift for gab, she ...

If you thought walking on water was impressive, try jumping. Researchers have built a robot that can jump on water just like a real water strider. While it’s not the first robot to mimic the water-gliding insect’s skating motion, it’s the ...

This tank-like machine by students at Northeastern University will locate Wi-Fi in hazardous areas where there might not be much of a network infrastructure. It is operated remotely, and features an Eee PC (running Linux, Arduino, and Node.js) on board to ...

While the world gears up for the London Olympics, humanoid robots are preparing to compete in their own Olympics. But rather than gold medals, these robots will be fighting for gobs of money: $2 million, to be precise. The first ever “Robotics ...

Holy robot fish, Batman! A swimming "Mantabot" drone funded by the U.S. Navy could give even the Dark Knight his first experience of gadget envy. "We are studying a creature to understand how it is able to swim so beautifully, and we are hoping to improve ...

(CBS News) The latest advancement in medical care might be wheeling its way to a hospital near you. CBS station WBZ in Boston reports that iRobot, based in Bedford, Mass., has created a new robot called RP-VITA that's essentially a doctor on wheels.

For anyone who's counting on Skype for daily communication, Botiful could be a real game-changer, making conversations with multiple people much easier to follow, almost as if you were there. This cute robot can also be used to view any spot you can't see ...

July 25, 2012 (Bethesda, Maryland) — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted 510(k) clearance for a new remote-control robotically assisted system to be used in PCI procedures [1]. Use of the system, known as the CorPath 200 (Corindus ...

Holy robot fish, Batman! A swimming "Mantabot" drone funded by the U.S. Navy could give even the Dark Knight his first experience of gadget envy. Mantabot has a plastic body and silicone fins modeled directly on the cow-nosed ray — a cousin of ...

Holy robot fish, Batman! A swimming "Mantabot" drone funded by the U.S. Navy could give even the Dark Knight his first experience of gadget envy. "We are studying a creature to understand how it is able to swim so beautifully, and we are hoping to improve ...

We’ve seen a few telepresence in our day, including the incredible AnyBot, but this little guy looks like it may make life at the office a little less weird and a little more bearable. It’s essentially a little telepresence platform for your ...

Almost a year ago to the day, we wrote about a water-walking microrobot inspired by insects. Now the Jesus bug has ascended over the waves, as it were, at speeds up to 3.6 mph. Qinmin Pan and colleagues from the Harbin Institute of Technology in ...

Almost a year ago to the day, we wrote about a water-walking microrobot inspired by insects. Now the Jesus bug has ascended over the waves, as it were, at speeds up to 3.6 mph. Qinmin Pan and colleagues from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China have ...

A space robot with a female form could someday join NASA's humanoid robot in helping human astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Germany's AILA robot has a female figure, a head molded into the shape of a modern female hairstyle, and large ...

Ever since NASA sent the Robonaut-2 to the International Space Station – a machine it built in collaboration with General Motors – other countries have been working on similar programs. Now, German engineers announce they are working on a female-like ...

A space robot with a female form could someday join NASA's humanoid robot in helping human astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Germany's AILA robot has a female figure, a head molded into the shape of a modern female hairstyle ...

We've heard about their potential for getting frisky in the bedroom. We've also seen how consoling they can be to someone on their deathbed. Now robots are set to conquer a new kind of bed -- a hospital bed. RP-VITA will be be cloud-connected, linked to ...

A new robot arm extends its manipulator in a gesture of friendship. Will you shake it? Philadelphia-based robotics firm Robai hopes so. The latest of its Cyton robot arms is the Cyton Gamma, and it's designed to work with us meatsacks. The Gamma's seven ...