In the blogosphere, when a person stops blogging, temporarily or permanently, this is sometimes called blogfading.  Their voice on the internet kind of fades away either entirely or possibly just on that one topic as they start writing on a different site about something that is interesting to them.

A few years ago I was very interested (for my kids) in lego mindstorm products that enabled you to build small lego robots and (teach your kids how to) program them.

I thought it was a fantastic product with lots of potential, but the out of the box experience was one, where you could use the goods out of the box, but you would eventually plateau unless you purchased more stuff at your local hobby shop and by more accessories or tutorial books.

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There was a great gadget at CES this year that really showed how convergence could bring out the inner super geek in attendees.  It was the R2-D2 DVD Projector from Nikko Home Electronics, a specialist in RC Cars and vehicles.

This is a very functional little droid.  It offers a built in projector that displays an image right out of R2-D2’s eye socket.  Instead of a semi transparent, holographic image, this projector instead provides a more terrestrial flat image on a wall or a projection screen.  The display image can range from 24 inches to 80 inches.

But that’s not all, this droid also packs a CD/DVD player that will play music or a video through that projector. 

You can control your droid with a remote control shaped liked the millennium falcon even with a pop out/slide out keypad.

And not even the rebel alliance can get by without making their droids compatible with an iPod.  So R2-D2 has a little docking bay that hides or pops out of the belly of the unit so that you can play your iTunes or even see the video display of MP4 videos through the projector.

Now this isn’t just some shaped like a robot type of device that you might see in Radio Shack, this little guy is actually pretty functional.  The remote control can make R2go forward, backwards, right turn, left turn and pivot turns and the head of the unit (with the projector) can swivel 90 degrees to the right and 180 degrees to the left.

The unit plays 11 different random R2-D2 sound effects, and one of the effects plays each time a compartment opens.  The device even has a memory card reader that will let you project images with the unit anywhere in the house.  When I say anywhere that includes the ceiling as R2 can recline his legs so that the projector will point at the ceiling at a 65 degree angle.

R2 has a built in 20 watt stereo system and an Fm wireless audio transmitter as well.

It looks like a toy and is a lot of fun, but really you getting a lot of functional electronics components converged into your Star Wars fantasy gadget for just $2500 (which isn’t too much more than a decent projector in the first place)

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iRobot has been working in robotics for the military since the early 90’s. They are commercially known more for their Roomba robots.

Reuters put out a great human interest story detailing the attachment and sentiment that has reportedly been built up by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan using robots as tools to perform tasks such as sniffing out bombs and improvise explosive devices.

“‘Please fix Scooby Doo because he saved my life,’ a soldier told repair technicians”

Its not hard to understand the attachment someone could develop for a machine. Naming a rifle was glorified a bit in the movie ‘Full Metal Jacket’ and to an extent this is an extension. In the military, personnell are trained to take care of their equipment as their lives depend on the equipment. A robot that can check to see if a potential object is a bomb, can literally save their life time and time again.

iRobot is hoping to leverage this perception of this attachment into future robotics devices as well. How much could your average consumer appreciate a robot that can actually mow the grass, fold and separate laundry, pick up around the house or diagnose and service your car?

(Uh wait, you’ve got a Mazda 3? Sorry too technical for us, was the words I heard over and over again by quick change oil places when I was on a short business trip in Illinois last month and needed an oil change. If I had a robot to service the car, it might be as simple as downloading an update to the robot overnight, while I’m drinking a beer and watching TV - or more realistically, programming a web page or reading some archane book to teach me how to program something.)

I’ll be up front with my audience here. I’m an Isaac Asimov fan, have been for almost 25 years now. I’ve had the future laid out for me in fiction for a long time coming and Will Smith only gave us a tiny glimpse.

I can’t wait to see what strikes up next.

Soldiers bond with iRobot machine; CEO dreams big

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Howie Choset, a Carnegie Mello University Professor, has been working on robots shaped like snakes.

This isn’t some new toy to display at CES for the kiddies. These robots have a useful purpose. Their goal is to snake through cracks, around pipes and rubble and find victims buried alive after natural disasters.

The application is smart and according to Sam Stover, a search team member of FEMA, “We needed them yesterday.”

“Built from lightweight aluminum or plastic, the robots are about the size of a human arm or smaller. They are semiautonomous and can sense which way is up, but are only as good as their human operators.

‘The rescue workers are the heroes,’ he said. ‘These are just better tools.’

The robots, with nicknames such as ‘Breadstick’ and ‘Pepperoni,’ have successfully inched up the insides and outsides of storm drains, negotiated large gaps between pieces of debris, and maneuvered through underbrush and fences, Choset said.

At a Carnegie Mellon lab, one of the robots wiggled up and down a clear plastic tube.

Snake-Like Robots Made to Aid in Rescues - Yahoo! News:

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