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Nike Exploits Robotics and Parkour in an Exciting New Ad (Video)

Nike combines Parkour with robotics, at least computer graphic special effects robotics, to promote sports shoes. As awesome as the new Nike "Exploit Yourself" television commercial is, it should definitely be marked "Don't try this at home."

Video after the break-

 

Robots Dreams Changes in the Works

You may have noticed that post have been rather scarce recently. In part that was caused by my work schedule, including spending the past week in the UK on a major customer assignment. While it's great for business, and helps keep a roof over our heads, it meant that we had almost zero time to work on new robot posts for our dedicated readers.

All of that will change over the 4th of July holiday, assuming everything goes according to plan. We'll be rolling out a new, improved blog format with a much easier work flow that will enable us to publish new posts on a much more regular and consistent basis. We really hope you like the new layout, news stories, and videos, and look forward to your feedback - positive or negative.

Kondo ROBOSPOT Gets a Twitter Account

ROBOSPOT, Kondo Robot's popular company operated retail outlet in Akihabara and the location for robot competitions like KondoCup Robot Soccer and the Kondo Land multi-legged robot obstacle course event, just introduced a Twitter account to announce and promote their services and competitions.

Posts to the ROBOSPOT twitter account will be in Japanese, but that doesn't typically pose a big problem for readers since many of the Twitter apps include a translation option, typically using Google Translate as the backend. It's also possible to bring up the Twitter feed in a browser like Chrome and use a browser plug-in for the translation dog-work.

The company has recently started broadcasting most events held at ROBOSPOT via UStream so that fans all over the world that can't travel all the way to Tokyo can still see the action and add their own comments or feedback, including cheering for their favorite teams.

(Via ROBOSPOT (KONDO_ROBOSPOT) on Twitter.)

Fanastic Robot Coverage in the July ROBOCON Magazine Issue

The July issue of ROBOCON Magazine hit the news stands yesterday and we were very pleased to see that it featured several articles near and dear to our hearts.

In addition to all the great, and always detailed, technical and event content that ROBOCON is known for, this issue included major articles covering RoboGames 2011, the Robot Japan First event, and Taylor Veltrop's master/slave robot control implementation using the Microsoft Kinect device.

Makerbot Drops the Price for the Original CupCake 3D Printer

We have no idea how long the supplies will last - they may have already run out - but Makerbot Industries has dropped the price of their original CupCake CNC 3D printer kit to an amazingly low USD$455.

 

The Robot Family Portrait Album Project

One of these days, perhaps in the not too distant future, robots and artificial intelligence technology will evolve to the point that our mechanical buddies will take on more and more of what we consider to be human characteristics. Over time they may even develop a deep longing for times past and want to recall memories of their ancestors.

Unfortunately no robot, and no human being, has been rigorously capturing and collecting images of the robots as they evolve. There is a significant risk that some of the robots will be lost to history or consigned to the scrap heap.

 

David Calkins "Robots Everywhere" Presentation

The "Robots Everywhere" presentation below by David Calkins, a.k.a. Mister Robotics and the founder of RoboGames, is three years old now, but is still very relevant and informative.

The Slideshare presentation has a synced audio soundtrack if you use the play button at the bottom.