- Get a grip or you don't get the job
- Desktops of the future here today
- Researcher hides IE attack on Web
- Cisco third quarter 2008 channel stuffing
- Sci-Fi's goofiest gadgets and technology
Flash vs Silverlight for king of Web multimedia. Listen now!
Tech vendors are like high school. Listen now!
Discover Juniper's continued commitment to the enterprise with its new line of LAN switches and a series of partnerships with several IT vendors, including IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. Customers can expect a tighter integration between Juniper and its vendor partner's products. Get all of the details in this informative report from respected consulting firm IDC.
Get the latest on storage technologies that allow IT professionals to better cope with new IT demands. Learn how storage technologies can help you successfully tackle e-Discover, regulatory compliance, green data center initiatives and the data explosion. Get all the details now.
Watch this webcast to learn in six modules how to more cost effectively consolidate your Windows servers with virtualization. This unique program allows you to pick and choose which of the six modules you would like to view or watch the entire webcast at once. Topics covered: Performance, Use Cases, Enterprise-level Support, Managing Windows Workloads, Setup and Configuration and The Future. Find out how you can simplify server consolidation within your organization today. Register below to learn more and be entered to win an Archos 605 Portable Media Player.
So the line of defence remains is "PIN NUMBER" Wowww what a strong security ? HSBC , invest some money...- Anonymous
Comprehensive Network & Voice Management Visit CA Network & Voice Management Resource Center and get insights into industry best practices, information that helps you to address your challenges.
Voice over IP (VoIP) has much to offer in cost savings but some customers have concerns about VoIP call quality compared to the quality of traditional voice services. This white paper will help you learn how to take the right steps so that voice quality is assured.
Managing your network is serious business. This paper discusses the benefits of integrating configuration change-awareness into your network fault management solution
Imagine a robot that hands you a beer and then cleans your kitchen and living room. That's what a start-up called Willow Garage in Menlo Park, Calif., is busy developing. But the company isn't going it alone: Willow Garage is an open source project that wants as much outside participation as possible.
One of its immediate goals is to build 10 robots and make them available to university researchers as a common platform that can be tinkered with and improved. Willow Garage will also supply "an open-source code base integrated from the best open-source robotics software available," President and CEO Steve Cousins said Wednesday at the O’Reilly ETech conference on emerging technology in San Diego.
Cousins showed a video of Willow Garage's first prototype, which moves on wheels and is "incredibly robust," Cousins said. "It has the ability to wander around any building that is [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliant and do useful things."
Willow Garage works closely with Stanford University's STAIR (STanford Artificial Intelligence Robot) project, and donated $850,000 to the Stanford Computer Science Lab. Willow Garage was founded by Scott Hassan, who helped Larry Page and Sergey Brin develop Google's technology.
With private funding, Cousins said making a profit isn't the primary objective. The project will be a success if it leads to useful technology, even if someone else ends up making the money, he said.
In Cousins' video presentation, the first version of the robot could be seen vacuuming, picking up toys off the floor of a living room, taking dishes out of a dishwasher, and most importantly of all, using a bottle opener to crack open a cold, refreshing brew.
Click to see: Willow Garage's robot personal assistant

While some robots have a sleek, somewhat human-like appearance, walking on legs instead of rolling on wheels, the Willow Garage machine looks like a few hunks of metal placed together more haphazardly than Rosie from The Jetsons. Looks aren't the same thing as functionality, however. Robots with human-like legs aren't all that useful with today's technology, so Willow Garage is waiting until the walking problem is solved before putting legs on its robot.
The comment's still thereBy Jon B on March 14, 2008, 4:51 pmThe "killer applications" quote is still in the story in the very last line, as it always was.
Reply | Read entire comment
open source robots already existBy Anonymous on March 7, 2008, 5:44 pmOpen source robotics already exists, and is much more affordable then what the above article offers: http://www.societyofrobots.com/step_by_step_robot.shtml
Reply | Read entire comment
nice designBy Anonymous on March 7, 2008, 12:20 pmlooks robust and pretty heavy duty but also expensive. I would like to see a version where maybe the arms/hands are made of large R/C servos, the elevating mechanisms...
Reply | Read entire comment
Lego Mindstorm + Lejos or TinyOS=Open Source Beer B*tch?By Anonymous on March 7, 2008, 10:46 amIf you can get a mindstorm to solve a rubik's cube, you can certainly get one that'll bring you a beer. Get rid of the firmware that ships with lego and spend a...
Reply | Read entire comment
PC-TasticBy Anonymous on March 7, 2008, 8:36 amNice job "Fantastic", you got them to remove the "offending" quote from the article... you're the type of over-sensitive dickwad that gets pissy over hard-drives...
Reply | Read entire comment
View all comments