Tuesday, May 22, 2007

MtyTeddy Bear Was NEVER like this!


Once voted one of Wired's 50 Best robots ever, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab's Huggable therapeutic bear robot made a rare public appearance at the Robo Business 2007 conference and expo this week.

Built on an MSR service, the Web interface shows what Huggable sees through its camera eyes, its relative body position, and even if it's being moved, and the interface allows the user to control the robot's still-limited interaction.


Huggable cannot get up and walk around, but it is, according to Stiehl, a very complex robot, featuring full-body sensor skin, sensors, and tensiometers in its legs and feet, speakers and a microphone in its head, a camera in each eye (one color and one black and white), and motors in the neck so it can turn its head. Future versions will add motors to the eyebrows, ears, shoulders, and the neck. The latter should give Huggable a full eight degrees of head movement, so it can tilt its head to the side.

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